Detailed Overview

The ProMedia^TM V.2-400 comes with four pedestal mounted elliptical shaped satellite speakers cabinets designed to reduces the negative effects of internal standing waves within the enclosure. The 8.5"H x 4.2"W x 5.67" D satellite houses a two way system with a horn utilizing the Klipsch MicroTractrix™ Horn technology and a 3" long throw midbass driver.

The 9.25" H x 10.25" W x 13" D subwoofer enclosure houses the built-in amplifier as well as the power supply (so no wall warts) and is currently available in 120 volt configuration only.

The ProMedia amplifier is high power five-channel design delivering a total of 400 watts RMS. No THD numbers are offered by Klipsch but a post from DanF (a moderator in the Klipsch Forum) indicates that "the official specification is 1%, but that is mostly to ensure that all units will do that. Typically it's much lower (probably .25% or so)". For the 400 watts RMS, 60 watts RMS are delivered to each of the 4 satellites with 160 watts RMS going to the subwoofer using a discrete MOSFET power section for high current, maximum dynamic headroom. The amplifiers are powered via an advanced BASH^® (Bridged Amplifier/ Switching Hybrid) design. The BASH design means its using a digital power supply matched with class A/B type analog amplifier outputs.  The digital power supply is supposed to be incredibly efficient drawing no more power than a night lamp when the system is idling as the power supply goes to quiescent (idle) the instant there is no signal to it.

This low power draw of allowed Klipsch to eliminate the power switch, which eliminates a potential trouble point in the future (as does avoiding automatic power off circuitry, which can be problematic when input levels are below the required threshold, inadvertently causing you to lose your audio). However, the lack of a power switch combined with the lack of a headphone jack is somewhat inconvenient at night or other times when you can’t disturb your neighbors. You can just turn the volume down when making the change but the safe thing is to unplug the unit.

What the system does have is a volume control, a subwoofer level and a surround volume control. The volume control is a master volume which affects the front, rear and subwoofer output. The subwoofer level is used to tweak the sub output with levels typically set a bit higher for games than DVD and CD. Klipsch has actually put a mark on the subwoofer control at about the 10 o’clock level as their recommended settings for CD and DVD playback. At the minimum setting the subwoofer still fires, but is low enough to not offend the neighbors at night. The Surround level adjusts the volume of the rear channels in order to balance the front rear volume. As with the subwoofer adjustment, this control cannot completely disable the rear volume, its only meant to balance the sound. Note that if your sound card has one you can also use its software front/rear fader to balance out the front/rear volume.

The system comes with two lengths of 22 gauge speaker wire which is approved/certified for the given wire lengths of 3 meters (10 feet) for the front and 5 meters (16 feet) for the rear. It also ships with a reasonably clear manual but no speaker stands so you will have to find a good place to put the rear speakers or buy a pair stands from a stereo supply store.

Installation:

Following the instructions in the manual, installation is a breeze. The speakers connect to the supplied speaker wire via a 1/8^th mini-jack, with the other end connecting to the amplifier (housed in the subwoofer) via standard speaker wire connectors. For my room placement the 5 meter rear cable was too short but for testing purposes I just moved my rear speak location forward a bit. If this was a permanent installation its a pretty simple matter to get longer wires.

Connecting the system to a quad channel sound card is also pretty simple as the cables which run to the preamp are colour coded. If you are hooking up to a two channel sound card you will need to use a stereo Y-adapter in order to feed both inputs of the speakers.   The preamp connects to the rear of the subwoofer using a standard subwoofer DIN cable.

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