If you had read my early impressions, you will already know that I was fairly impressed with the system.

The 400 watts are divided 5 ways, with 60 to each satellite and 160 to the subwoofer. The two-way satellites are precise, which is probably a result of the Micro Tractrix horn mounted dome tweeter / long throw midbass driver combination. The subwoofer is simply incredible and consists of dual side-firing active 6.5" long throw drivers and a flared tuned port. Bass response according to specifications goes down to 29 Hz which is lower than any other multimedia speakers we have tested and a frequency test using the same audio test CD we use on all our speaker reviews shows it gets down there with flying colours. I was told that the subwoofer crosses over to the sats at around the 150 Hz level.  My frequency test CD shows that the sub is handling frequencies up to 200 Hz (which is the highest discrete level on my test CD), which is what I would expect with a 150 Hz crossover.

With 400 watts of power you certainly will expect them to be loud and that’s just what they are putting out up to 110 dB peak sound pressure level (SPL) according to the specifications. A Decibel (dB) is a unit of measurement commonly used for intensities of sound or sound pressure. This is a logarithmic unit defined so that an increase of 1 dB represents multiplication in sound level or signal power of 1.258.

Using a sound level meter I was able to confirm their impressive loudness with more than a simple "they are loud" statement. The sound pressure meter was set on a tripod mount at exactly my normal head position when I am at the PC. This means 3 feet away from the front speakers and 3 feet from the rear speakers. I also did a test when the front speakers and subwoofer are 6 feet away and the rear speakers about 3 feet away, more typical movie set-up (9 & 3 would have been better but I don't have a deep enough test room.  I used four different wav files,  the main two being a 1 kHz test tone and pink noise, both of which are generally accepted for testing sound pressure levels.   In addition I have carried tests using  a wav file from the Aureal wavetracing demo called dx71.wav and a second from Creative’s original EAX demo called dog.wav just because that's how I started testing but all future level testing will only use the 1 kHz and pink noise test.  If you are interested you can grab a 348 KB zip file of these two files. These files emphasize different frequencies and I did this to gauge the variation in sensitivity of the sound level meter to different frequencies. Both files were played back using Sensaura’s 3D Player (nothing like mixing and matching).

The 1 kHz test tone was taken from the same audio test CD that I tested the subwoofer response with but was converted to an MP3 and played back with Winamp to allow for standardized testing between different testers.  The pink noise was generated using the demo version of Cool Edit from Syntrillium.  All tests were done on a Sound Blaster Live using analog outputs for consistency.   The results of those tests are summarized in the second and third tables below.   

For reference I compared the volume to the very good Cambridge Soundworks FPS2000 digital system at full power to the Promedia’s at full power using the two wav files and across a range of power levels using the 1 kHz test tone and the pink noise. The FPS 2000 put out a peak SPL of 97 dB using dx71.wav, 86 dB peak SPL using dog.wav, 98 dB using the 1 kHz test tone and  97 dB for the pink noise where as the Promedia’s put out a peak SPL of 104 dB, 99 dB, 106 dB and 105 dB  respectively. Looking back to the logarithmic nature of a dB this means that at full volume in the 3 & 3 configuration noted below the Promedia’s have a sound level or signal power 6.4 times stronger when playing the 1 kHz test tone and when playing the pink noise.    This however does not correspond directly to the perception of loudness.    We generally perceive loudness to be doubled when the intensity increases by a factor of 10. This corresponds to a 10 dB increase which for example means that dog.wav is perceived to be a bit more than twice as loud on the ProMedias as on the FPS2000s.

This table summarizes the recorded numbers for the Promedia v.2-400s using dx71.wav at a range of settings:

1 kHz test tone - no subwoofer response at this frequency so this is a test of satellite output alone.

Pink Noise - this is a test of combined subwoofer and satellite response.

DVD Scene in Soldier - this is a multi-frequency test with emphasis on low end.

Note:  All of these numbers were done using the original preamp that was shipping with the ProMedia at the time of the original review. A new gain modified preamp is now shipping with all units which will affect these number but based on our own testing it does not affect the maximum "useable" performance - for updated performance numbers you can look at either our ProMedia vs. Crossfire comparison article or our Boston Acoustics BA4800 review.

For a little more perspective, a typical conversation is 65 dB, a loud orchestra is 80 dB, unsafe levels start at 90 dB, thunder is around 109 dB, a rock concert is 110 dB and the pain threshold is around 130 dB. U.S. Department of Labor regulations set permissible noise exposure to 105 dB at no more than 1 hour per day! The bottom line is the Promedia’s are by far the loudest multimedia speakers I have ever heard, so loud that they can hurt my ears and not distort! I am not saying they are distortion proof though as heavy bass at very high volumes can cause the subwoofer to "burp", but in my testing I watched an entire DVD movie at 75 percent power and explosions in the movie were peaking at over 100 dB with nary a trace of distortion to my ears!

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