I am looking for a set of speakers to compliment our 42" Panasonic Plasma and need a center and surrounds that mount on the wall. I was looking at the DefTech Mythos speaker line with a Supercube I, but have not seen any reviews on them. Can anyone give me a first hand accounting first and foremost on this line and second on DefTech in general?
My HT room is 2 stories tall and very open (flows into kitchen). We will be using the speakers mostly for movies, but for a variety of music listening as well.
Anyone with any good info, reviews, etc on the Mythos Line please post.
Thanks
Matt
Corrollo
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Matt,
I also looked into the Mythos Line, but was told by an Audio/Video specialist that Def Tech created the Mythos as an immediate response to the Canton CD line and the Revox Elegance line.
According to this person, Def Tech outsourced the creation of the Mythos series and isn't an original Def Tech design.
I went ahead and listened to the Canton CD series and the Def Tech Mythos series at my local AV shop. They demoed the product to me using a Harmon Kardon AVR630 and also on a Pioneer Elite (don't remember the model).
I really couldn't tell the difference in sound quality.
I went ahead and purchased the less expensive Canton's (4 CD100's 1 CD50 and the AS 25 Sub).
Sound and Vision had a report and comparison in January 2004 on 7 on the wall speaker systems, from the B&W FPM, the Canton CD 50, Def Tech Mythos, Jamo D 400PDD, the Martin Logan Fresco, the Polk Audio RM7600, and the Sonance Silverscreen 50.
The weakest seemed to be the Jamo and the rest had different strengths and weaknesses, making them mostly a question of personal preference. They all looked like they could benefit from a good HSU subwoofer. The B&W, the Canton, and the Def Tech all seem to have a considerable crossover problem between 600-800 Hz, where they all seem to drop off by about 5 db's. They all need better matched crossovers to their woofers and midranges. They all need better woofers, but the small widths of these speakers seem to preclude that. Obviously a design tradeoff.
I think your audio video specialist friend has been nipping at the rat cheese. From just looking at the specifications, the drivers and their placements in the units, and the crossovers, it is quite obvious that Def Tech used Def Tech basket drivers from their own bin and their own crossovers. What Def Tech--and the other manufacturers haven't gotten yet (probably in their rush to market) are smooth frequency response curves. How bad these are will be determined much by how your room acoustics are and what equalizing and balancing remedies you can perform.
The tweeters and midranges are larger in the Def Tech's than the Canton's and I would say the Canton's tweeters perform better and the Def Tech's midranges perform better, except for their center channel problems--which often occur when laying speakers horizontally (you can get some weird dispersion, lobing, and odd off-axis responses.
But I will agree with you from seeing the frequency graphs on the Canton and Def Tech systems that the Canton's are the bargain of the two. Subjectively the Def Tech look much nicer, but their performance isn't close to Def Tech's better speakers. If I got these Def Tech's, I would certainly switch out the subwoofer for a HSU VTF-2 or VTF-3 and would consider a different center. It might look a little odd, but I bet an Ascend CBM170 at $300 would do wonders for this system as its center channel. For some reason the Def Tech super cube sub and the Canton both seem to crap out at 50 Hz and drop like a stone after that.
The Canton's have a much better high end, while the Mythos seems to drop off considerably after 16 KHz. Whether this is very discernable or not I can't say, but it is disturbing.
Both systems could benefit by different subwoofers, such as a good Hsu.
I am sure these on wall speakers will improve in the future, but I am equally sure many will find them quite good for now.
While it might look a little odd, I would rather have 5 little Ascend CBM 170's and a HSU VTF-2 or an Outlaw LFM-1 subwoofer. But these on the wall speakers will have a much greater spousal approval factor and the flat panel TV marketplace seems to have made a place for these speakers as a much less conspicuous option than standard towers and bookshelf speakers and a less invasive and perhaps better performance (along with being movable) from in-wall speakers.