KLIPSCH - Promedia GMX A-2.1

The question here, is 'how loud is loud enough?' Surely these speakers from the Kilpsch Promedia series, would answer that question. The package screams 'bad ass', from the heavy duty appearance of the satellites, to the bulky beast of the subwoofer. We struggled to find appropriate descriptors although 'thumping', 'powerful', and 'nut-rattling LOUD' came to mind.

The question here, is 'how loud is loud enough?' Surely these speakers from the Kilpsch Promedia series, would answer that question. The package screams 'bad ass', from the heavy duty appearance of the satellites, to the bulky beast of the subwoofer. We struggled to find appropriate descriptors although 'thumping', 'powerful', and 'nut-rattling LOUD' came to mind.

The satellites feature a 0.75" metallic polymer tweeter and a 3" metallic fiber-composite midbass with center bullet in satellites. Designed with a ball and socket fitting, they can pivot and rotate, up to 45 degrees.

The 6.5" fiber-composite subwoofer, mounted in MDF casing, has no controls apart from a master power switch. It houses a 75W amplifier and delivers 108dB maximum SPL. The sub enclosure also features a 'slot' port in the rear, providing a cleaner bass, minimising the sound effects sometimes created by the flow of air through other port shapes.

A wired control unit includes volume and bass control, and a headphone socket. It also features left and right auxiliary inputs, ideal for console gaming.

Pumping through some AC/DC encoded at 160KB/s, the bass bordered on overpowering, but we were able to roll it back through the control unit. Moving to some techno, we found the high tones were sharp, to the point of harsh. There is no treble control, so we relied on the sound card software to provide equalizer functions. A spoken word audio track was detailed and clear, with no audible background hiss, even at high volume.

We did find, however, that when placing the satellites too far from our personal hearing space (more than 2 meters) the detail and depth of the mid range diminished. To be fair, this is the case with many personal speaker systems, and didn't detract too much from our overall impression.

Sitting through an hour or three of GTA: Vice City, we continued to be amazed by the clarity and level of detail, from music, to voice, to background audio and explosive sound effects.

A surprisingly solid package, which would please most hardcore audio freaks.