Oct 20, 2004 7:33 PM, By Todd Souvignier

MULTIMEDIA SPEAKERS

The product category of “multimedia” speakers is besmirched by a dark patina of cheesey-ness. Think of all those millions of pairs of feeble beige wedges with fragile little wires and the horrible sounds they make—the type of speakers you’d like to crush with the heel of your boot.

Well, Diamond Audio Technology has bucked that sorry trend with its S2 Pro Media 4100 multimedia speakers. The 100-watt S2 Pro Media 4100s are at the high end of the computer-speaker food chain—the last step before you’d go with full-blown studio monitors. They’re heavy-duty, sound good, kick a lot of air and they’re matte-black, not beige.

The satellite speakers are two stout little coneheads made of die-cast aluminum with perforated metal grilles. The rugged enclosures house 13mm dome tweeters and 4.5-inch mid/bass drivers, and they’re extremely well-shielded.

The subwoofer is among the largest available in a product of this type. It’s the size of your average CPU and weighs 30 pounds. Remember to lift with your knees when you’re picking it up. The speaker is an 8-inch cone, and like the mid/bass drivers, it has a high-end rare earth neodymium magnet structure.

The subwoofer enclosure has dual ports in front and all the connections are on the back. Inside is the circuit board and a power supply built around a large toroidal-style transformer. The speaker contacts are simple push terminals; there are gold-plated RCA jacks for two input channels, plus 1/8-inch mini stereo input and output.

The power switch is also on the subwoofer, not on the remote, but that’s okay because the S2s have a “green” feature: They go into a power-saving mode if the input senses less than 10 millivolts during a 10-minute period, and then wake up again when they receive more than 10 mV of signal. There’s no click; you’ll never notice a thing.

A remote plugs into the back of the subwoofer; there’s a 10-foot cable. The best thing about the remote is that the volume knob is the largest thing on the panel; it’s easy to locate out of the corner of your eye. There’s also bass, treble, balance and mute, a Loud (bass boost) setting, A/B input selector and the 3DSP™ setting, which sounds similar to the wide settings found on some portable stereos. It places the apparent sound source approximately 15 to 20 degrees out from the actual speaker position and pushes the center image way back, sometimes obscuring the voice. Leave the 3DSP off unless you’re playing games.

I didn’t test the maximum SPL claim of 105 dB—suffice it to say that they get way too loud and there’s plenty of headroom before distortion. Diamond Audio Technology also makes a 60-watt version of the S2s, which boasts all the same features of the 4100 model but has less power and a smaller subwoofer.

I spent many days doing audio editing on a desktop workstation with the S2s and found their sound to be crisp but not excessively bright, and well-defined but not bottom-heavy. I was able to rely on them to make fairly accurate judgments about placement, volume and EQ.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the street price on the Pro Media 4100s is around $500 to $650/pair; 60-watt models are around $400. At that price, the S2s can certainly find a home with computer aficionados who must have the latest, grooviest peripheral. In some low-budget studios, the S2s may make sense as an alternative to traditional self-powered reference monitors. Or in the corporate world, if you’re doing a presentation and audio impact is important, the S2s are a much better solution than any of the beige wedges, especially if you don’t have the space (or the need) for a P.A.

I frequently have to give music software demos at crowded trade shows and my tactic is to carry in the most powerful self-powered speakers I can find and then crank enough firepower to overcome the signal-to-noise ratio. With apologies to the convention dB police (and neighboring exhibitors), my approach yields results and the S2s are ideal for this type of work.

Diamond Audio Technology Inc., www.diamondaudio.com.