3DsoundSurge Reviews: VideoLogic Systems' DigiTheatre DTS


	Mikael Hagén puts VideoLogic Systems' DigiTheatre DTS speaker system to the test

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DigiTheatre DTS - Mikael Hagén - August 1, 2000

Detailed Overview

The DigiTheatre DTS comes with 4 satellites, one center channel with integrated control unit, one subwoofer with a built in amplifier and AC-3/DTS decoder, one remote control, a 2 m SPDIF RCA cable, one analog 2 m dual RCA phono to RCA phono cable and one analog stereo mini-jack to dual RCA phono cable.

The DigiTheatre DTS front and surround satellites each use a 3" Audax Paper fiber bass/mid-range driver for the bass/mid frequencies and an Audax 10-mm polymer dome as the high frequency drive unit. The small cabinets (WxHxD = 100 mm x 136 mm x 79 mm) use an acoustically dead mica-polymer loaded moulded cabinet with a removable cloth grill and while the cabinet doesn’t sit on a stand the base is angled so the speakers tilt back slightly. The cabinets also have a pair of mounting holes which can be used with the wall mounting kit VideoLogic sells online for £17. It's worth noting that the holes are slightly smaller than the 1/4" Midiland's MK-01 mounting kit requires.

The center channel uses a 4" bass/mid with concentric high frequency tweeter. It’s shielded and the molded cabinet that uses a cloth grill but unlike the other satellites the cloth grill isn’t removable. The cabinet which is integrated with the control unit is designed to sit on top of your TV and has a .5" high stand with 4 rubber feet that’s tilted back slightly. The drivers for the center speaker aren’t of quite the same high quality as the ones found in the other satellites. The reason VideoLogic choose different drivers for the center speaker is that they wanted the centre channel to have more potential dynamics and clarity than what they could achieve with a 3" driver. As such, while the driver overall is slightly behind it has some benefits over the 3" Audax drivers used in the other satellites. They also wanted to use a tweeter without making the centre any larger than it is (WxHxD = 303 x 132 x 152mm), so they went concentric. To do all of that and reach the price point they was targeting they had to make a slight compromise on the driver quality.

The subwoofer uses the same 8" magnetically shielded driver you’ll find in VideoLogic’s $900 Sirocco Pro system. The MDF wooden cabinet that houses the driver has been changed so it could include the amplifier, the DTS/DD decoder and fit better in a living room. It's not spray painted, instead of one big port hole in the front it has two much smaller ones at the back, it has a removable cloth grill and the dimensions are 350 x 245 x 400 mm (WxHxD) instead of 435 x 245 x 400 mm (height x width x depth). The dimension changed quite a bit to fit.

All drivers except the center channel are designed by Audax, which is famous for their speaker technology. Since its inception in 1926, Audax has been dedicated to furthering the art of loudspeaker development, and in doing so, has extended its coverage to every segment of the market. The company has held over thirty different patents, which have contributed widely towards its success in the acoustics field on an international basis!

The amplifier (housed in the subwoofer) has SPDIF inputs of both coaxial (RCA) and optical (toslink) type, analog right and left RCA phono input, a proprietary connection for the center/control unit, standard speaker wire connections for the other satellites and power on/off button on the back. The standard speaker wires for the front satellites are 3 meters long while the rear satellites are connected to 8 meter long cables. If you find the rear or front cables too short you can easily find longer speaker cables. The center speaker uses a proprietary multi-way cable that’s 3 meters long. The reason for a proprietary cable is of course that it’s also used to send info between the DD/DTS decoder located in the subwoofer unit and the control unit that’s integrated with the center speaker. If you need a longer cable than 3 m between the subwoofer and center channel VideoLogic sells an 8 meter long cable online for £17.

The amplifier feeds each satellite with 30 Watts RMS and the subwoofer with 70 Watts RMS for a combined 220 Watts RMS. The combined frequency response is specified to be 24 Hz-20 kHz with a crossover of 120 Hz at 12dB/octave. An octave above a given frequency is a frequency which is twice above the given frequency and an octave below a given frequency is one-half of the given frequency. If we use the subwoofer 12 dB/octave as an example, it means that the subwoofer is gradually attenuated starting at 120 Hz and at 240 Hz its 12 dB quieter than at 120 Hz.

The total power output is 220 W (RMS). The As you will see later, my testing results in a slightly different conclusion when it comes to the frequency response. The amplifier is obviously more powerful than the one included with the Sirocco Crossfire but it's of lower quality. How much of an audible difference this makes will be covered in the sound quality section below. It’s also worth noting that the Sirocco Crossfire amplifier is superior to any of the amplifier used in the other 4-speaker or DD 5.1 systems we have reviewed.

The control unit allows you to select input, decoding mode and speaker balance. The inputs you can select between are as previously mentioned the SPDIF coaxial, SPDIF optical and the analog input. Only one of them is active at a time. The decoding modes available are DTS, Dolby Digital, Dolby Prologic, Stereo, Hall and Theatre. The Dolby Digital and DTS modes are both automatically detected and are of course only available when you use one of the digital inputs. When a Dolby Digital or DTS stream is detected you can choose between stereo or surround mode. It’s worth noting that a Dolby Digital stream doesn’t have to be 5.1 stream. In fact, it’s quite common, especially in older movies, that it’s only 2.0 and maybe also Dolby Prologic encoded. If that’s the case then you will see the Dolby Prologic LED light up in addition to the Dolby Digital LED. Just like with a Dolby Digital 5.1 stream you can let the decoder down-mix it to stereo in which case only the front left and right speaker will be used.

Dolby Prologic can also be enabled on any analog or digital stream that isn’t DTS or Dolby Digital 5.1. If you force Dolby Prologic on stereo content you will hear some of the natural ambience in the music as surround sound and the vocals will be placed in the center channel. Theatre and Hall can be applied to any analog or digital stereo signal (not Dolby Digital streams). They use all the speakers to create the effect of listening in a theatre and hall respectively. Both are very subtle effects and a bit similar to Dolby Prologic but they seem to steer less of the music to the surround channels and especially the center channel than Dolby Prologic. If you think it will make it sound like you actually sit in a theatre or hall you are in for a major disappointment, but some listeners will like it.

You cycle through the different inputs and modes using the input and mode button respectively that you’ll find on both the wireless remote control and the control unit. On the control unit you’ll also see the input and mode that’s currently selected.

The control unit and remote control also allows you to select the speaker balance in addition to the master volume. You can increase or decrease the volume relative to the master channel by up to 10 dB. You will see on the control unit what volume settings you have chosen for the currently selected speaker or the master volume if you haven’t chose to control the volume of any particular speaker. To further help you to get the correct speaker balance the control unit and remote control have a speaker test button. One nice feature is that if you press the volume button during the speaker test sequence you will increase the volume of the channel currently playing and the speaker test won’t move on to the next channel until after you stopped changing the volume for a couple of seconds. The speaker test is also useful to make sure you have connected the speakers correctly. To mute the speakers quickly the control unit and the remote control offers a mute button. Finally the control unit and remote control offers a standby button. When you use the standby function the control unit will remember your settings the next time you turn it on but if you use the shut off button on the back of the subwoofer all settings are lost.

Some features the control unit/decoder lacks are a speaker delay function and dynamic range settings (e.g. maximum, standard and late night). I am not sure if anyone ever actually uses the speaker delay function but it’s a feature that VideoLogic’s inexpensive DigiTheatre system offers so could be worth knowing in case you use it and plan to upgrade. The reason to offer dynamic range settings is that Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks can have a very wide dynamic range between soft and loud sounds. When using a good speaker system at loud volume this can provide fantastic sound that comes close to a truly theatrical experience. However, when not using a powerful speaker system or when playing late at night the dialog will be hard to hear, and subtle low-level effects may get lost or alternatively the loud parts will wake everyone up or distort the system! Compressing the dynamic range means turning down the volume on just the loud effects while you turn up the volume on quiet sounds, and keep the dialogue at the same level. The amount of compression is decided in advance by the soundtrack’s producers, and coded right onto the soundtrack. For example, if there’s a loud sound coming from the left surround that’s meant to startle the audience, the soundtrack mixers might indicate less compression for that sound than other loud sounds when you select the compression mode. In case of the DigiTheatre DTS the system has no problem with handling the maximum dynamic range but some may have found a late night mode useful. As far as I know no decoder offers dynamic range settings for DTS tracks.

As already mentioned the DigiTheatre DTS lacks a separate rear input so can’t be used for 4-speaker gaming. If you have a Live you can still use the surround speakers in the Live!Surround mode but it will only be mono with the limited frequency response offered by the ProLogic surround channel. One other feature it lacks, just like most other speaker systems, is a headphone output. If you plan to use headphones, this is an issue because the relative low volume that the un-amplified output found on most soundcards or hardware MPEG decoder can deliver. For a possible solution you can check out our review of the Boostaroo Headphone amplifier/splitter. If you don’t find volume to be an issue then it’s less expensive to buy a stereo splitter. The reason VideoLogic skipped these two features is that the system is only targeted for the living room where lack of separate rear input and amplified headphone output are unlikely to be missed by many.

Back to the introduction

So on to the installation