This is a review and detailed measurements of the Definitive Technology ProMonitor 1000 two-way speaker. It was kindly sent to me by a member. It costs about US $250 for a single which is quite high for such a small speaker (owner says he paid a lot less though). But this is from a name brand company so maybe it is worth the premium.
There is nothing square about this speaker:
A L-shaped cheap plastic grill covered the front drivers and passive radiator on top:
No, that is not a hair from our white dogs on the right. It is a strand of glue or something. Left it in there just in case it was put in there intentionally!!!
Back panel shows the high recessed binding posts which were difficult to use:
It made it difficult to terminate with bare wires I use to reduce interference with the measurement system.
There is a triangular footer underneath so I removed it for testing. Glad I ran a sweep through it as the speaker literally started to jump up and down and walk away! So had to put it back on to stabilize it. This also prompted me to not test it above 86 dB SPL as you see later in the review.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I used over 800 measurement point which still was not quite enough to estimate the soundfield given the resonance/interference at the highest frequencies. Still, error is near 1% so certainly good enough for what we want.
Spinorama Audio Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker can be used. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
This is one of the more unique responses we have seen so far. Bass response slopes down for a while before dropping rapidly. This reduces the available bass energy between 40 and 120 Hz. In addition, bass is clearly at lower amplitude than the rest of the spectrum. We also have some severe resonance/interference going on at 14 kHz (end of the graph). Importantly, the directivity plot (dashed blue, bottom) shows a sudden kink indicating that the tweeter's radiation pattern is not well matched to that the woofer. This makes the off-axis response different than direct which is not a good thing.
We see that more in this set of graphs of early reflections:
Putting on-axis and reflections together gives us a predicted in-room response for an average domestic space:
This indicates too much highs and too little lows potentially.
The slow roll off for the bass seems to be helping with the distortion there:
But then again we have peaks in higher frequencies we don't like to see:
My limit for anything above 500 Hz is 0.5% and we are well above that here.
Note that these are at 86 dB SPL because I was afraid of running them at typical 96 dB SPL so keep that in mind when comparing to other speakers.
Directivity plots show what we already know:
There is a null when you get above tweeter axis around 5 kHz so you should sit at or lower than tweeter axis.
Finally, here is our CSD/waterfall graph:
PS. Forgot the impedance graph:
Speaker Listening Tests
This speaker just sounds annoying. Lack of deep bass makes it sound tubby (shallow bass response). At the same time, the highs are exaggerated and not clean to boot. I took one quick shot at equalizing but gave up.
On the plus side, lack of deep bass allows you to turn it up higher assuming your ears can take the highs. Mine could not.
To make sure I was not in a lousy "bad sound mood," I replaced the ProMonitor 1000 with the Pioneer SP-BS22-LR speaker. Wow, what revelation! The Pioneer sounded like a reference grade speaker compared to the Definitive Tech. It sounded warm, balanced, and clean. And they retail for US $118 for a pair or four times less than the Definitive Tech 1000.
Conclusions
This is an expensive speaker at $500 pair that sadly doesn't objectively or subjectively produce good results. I am not sure what they were aiming for. It is also too expensive in this day age. It is just a bad experiment that should be forgotten. Let's hope their larger tower speakers are better than this.
Needless to say, I can't recommend the Definitive Technology ProMonitor 1000. There is nothing "Pro" about it.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Get this: one of the panthers heard on TV that local hair salons have opened up and is insisting on getting his hair dyed green! Green!!! I have learned to not argue with animals with larger teeth than me so I am going to have to take him there. They want a ton of money to dye his hair due to "dangers" involved. Appreciate any money you can donate toward this cause using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
There is nothing square about this speaker:
A L-shaped cheap plastic grill covered the front drivers and passive radiator on top:
No, that is not a hair from our white dogs on the right. It is a strand of glue or something. Left it in there just in case it was put in there intentionally!!!
Back panel shows the high recessed binding posts which were difficult to use:
It made it difficult to terminate with bare wires I use to reduce interference with the measurement system.
There is a triangular footer underneath so I removed it for testing. Glad I ran a sweep through it as the speaker literally started to jump up and down and walk away! So had to put it back on to stabilize it. This also prompted me to not test it above 86 dB SPL as you see later in the review.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I used over 800 measurement point which still was not quite enough to estimate the soundfield given the resonance/interference at the highest frequencies. Still, error is near 1% so certainly good enough for what we want.
Spinorama Audio Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker can be used. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
This is one of the more unique responses we have seen so far. Bass response slopes down for a while before dropping rapidly. This reduces the available bass energy between 40 and 120 Hz. In addition, bass is clearly at lower amplitude than the rest of the spectrum. We also have some severe resonance/interference going on at 14 kHz (end of the graph). Importantly, the directivity plot (dashed blue, bottom) shows a sudden kink indicating that the tweeter's radiation pattern is not well matched to that the woofer. This makes the off-axis response different than direct which is not a good thing.
We see that more in this set of graphs of early reflections:
Putting on-axis and reflections together gives us a predicted in-room response for an average domestic space:
This indicates too much highs and too little lows potentially.
The slow roll off for the bass seems to be helping with the distortion there:
But then again we have peaks in higher frequencies we don't like to see:
My limit for anything above 500 Hz is 0.5% and we are well above that here.
Note that these are at 86 dB SPL because I was afraid of running them at typical 96 dB SPL so keep that in mind when comparing to other speakers.
Directivity plots show what we already know:
There is a null when you get above tweeter axis around 5 kHz so you should sit at or lower than tweeter axis.
Finally, here is our CSD/waterfall graph:
PS. Forgot the impedance graph:
Speaker Listening Tests
This speaker just sounds annoying. Lack of deep bass makes it sound tubby (shallow bass response). At the same time, the highs are exaggerated and not clean to boot. I took one quick shot at equalizing but gave up.
On the plus side, lack of deep bass allows you to turn it up higher assuming your ears can take the highs. Mine could not.
To make sure I was not in a lousy "bad sound mood," I replaced the ProMonitor 1000 with the Pioneer SP-BS22-LR speaker. Wow, what revelation! The Pioneer sounded like a reference grade speaker compared to the Definitive Tech. It sounded warm, balanced, and clean. And they retail for US $118 for a pair or four times less than the Definitive Tech 1000.
Conclusions
This is an expensive speaker at $500 pair that sadly doesn't objectively or subjectively produce good results. I am not sure what they were aiming for. It is also too expensive in this day age. It is just a bad experiment that should be forgotten. Let's hope their larger tower speakers are better than this.
Needless to say, I can't recommend the Definitive Technology ProMonitor 1000. There is nothing "Pro" about it.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Get this: one of the panthers heard on TV that local hair salons have opened up and is insisting on getting his hair dyed green! Green!!! I have learned to not argue with animals with larger teeth than me so I am going to have to take him there. They want a ton of money to dye his hair due to "dangers" involved. Appreciate any money you can donate toward this cause using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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