Definitive Technology SuperCube II Brochure

By Darryl Wilkinson
Definitive Technology
StudioCinema 350 Speaker System
That Voodoo that Def Tech Do
"How does the StudioCinema 350 speaker system find that
mystical balance between high performance and low price?"
"Foundation-
I used to wonder why I felt such
an affinity for so many of Definitive
cleaving bass
Technology's speakers. What is it, I
response ...
asked, that gives these slender, sock-
smothered sirens their perennial
you might just
appeal? Is it magnetism? (Well, surely,
find yourself they use magnets, but that couldn't be
it.) Is it the sexy allure of not being able
wishing you'd
to yank off a speaker's grille cloth to
reveal what's hidden underneath?
installed seat
(Instead, you have to gently coax the soft
belts on the
sock covering down, slowly undressing
the speaker. It's an act best done in the
couch in your
privacy of your own home after the chil-
home theater"
dren have gone to bed.) Maybe it's some
secret, arcane knowledge inherited from
the Knights Templar (promising riches,
wealth, and speakers with popularity
beyond reason)—or possibly it's from an
earlier era, gleaned from chiseled hiero-
A. The bipolar
glyphics on the ancient stone walls of
BP1.2X is timbre-
the pyramids at Giza (regaling in an
matched with the
afterlife filled with music and movies).
StudioMonitor 350.
The answer dawned on me as I
B. The StudioMonitor
listened to Beau Jocque (Beau Jocque
350 has Def Tech's Live) crank out Cajun music through
Def Tech's newest bookshelf speakers,
signature aesthetic:
the StudioMonitor 350s, and their
a black sock with
brand-new stout but substantial Super-
gloss-black end caps.
Cube II subwoofer. Listening to Beau
C. The C/L/R 2002
Jocque's raw energy and infectious
is magnetically
enthusiasm, I was taken back to a rainy
New Orleans evening that ended (as
shielded and sports
many a New Orleans evening does) in
a D'Appolito array.
the very, very early morning on Bourbon
D. The compact but
Street. Although we'd begun as a group,
hefty SuperCube II
4:00 a.m. found only myself and a mys-
is powered by a
terious member of Def
1,250-watt digital
Tech's inner circle still
searching for more Cajun
switching amp.
music (along with any
strange-looking liquid we
could drink).
I'm convinced that the
folks at Def Tech put a
A
little bit of New Orleans in every
speaker they design. Maybe it's a slightly
demented Cajun outlook on life that
filters into the CAD drawings at the
earliest stages. My secret belief is that,
just before they seal each box, somebody
is tasked with the special job of sprin-
kling a drop or two of New Orleans
voodoo water on each speaker. (That's a
better image than the alternate idea I
had, which involved chicken's blood and
eyes of newt.)
Even from my first look at the
StudioMonitor 350, I could feel the
subtle power of that voodoo spell. The
SM350 is pretty typical in size for a
bookshelf speaker (7 inches wide, 9.69
deep, and 10.69 tall), but it derives a
"I was doubly
impressed by this
sub/sat package's
ability to pound
me with the heavy
fall of a horse
hoof ... then
immediately tickle
me with the deli-
cate feather of
pure music."
C
B
D
lot of elegance and visual class from
Def Tech's standard design: a black sock
with gloss-black end caps. In fact, the
SM350's dimensions must approach some
golden mean because this iteration seems
exceptionally attractive. Maybe I'm just
too used to looking at standard grille-
cloth-on-the-front bookshelf speakers.
"the StudioMonitor
350's vibrant
dynamism in no way
interferes with its
careful subtlety ...
[it] maintains the
often-difficult-
to-achieve balance
of energy and
accuracy."
Underneath each sock are a 5.25-inch
cast-basket bass-midrange driver and a
1-inch pure-aluminum dome tweeter.
This is a standard configuration for a
bookshelf speaker, but there's a surprise
on the opposing sides of the left and right
SM350s: an 8-inch passive radiator with a
radiating surface that's actually made from
the same high-density medite material as
the speaker cabinet itself.
Def Tech's Sandy Gross (who, by the
way, was present that night in New
Orleans but sensibly bailed out
before the real debauchery began)
says that the passive-radiator design
eliminates the midrange-frequency
bleed-through that often plagues
passives that use conventional
materials while simultaneously