The loudspeaker that I am holding in the picture is
Definitive Technology’s new Mythos Nine. Earlier at the show we presented Definitive
Technology with a year-end Reviewers’ Choice award for the extraordinary Mythos STS
SuperTower loudspeaker. In case you have not read my review of that product on SoundStage!, the Mythos STS is an amazing speaker that
combines a stylish, modern-looking design with state-of-the-art performance -- all for
$2990 per pair.
What intrigues me so much about the new Mythos Nine is that
it is designed to be an L/C/R speaker that matches sonically with the Mythos STS. Because
the Mythos STS has a powered woofer section, it has outstanding bass performance. Not only
will the Mythos STS go low, but it will do so while playing back cleanly and at extremely
high levels. A neat feature of the Mythos STS is that it has an RCA subwoofer input. This
means that you can run the line-level LFE-channel output from a surround-sound receiver or
processor directly into the Mythos STS. And because the Mythos STS has such phenomenal
bass performance, I have no doubt that you could do this and have an extremely
accomplished 5.1-channel surround speaker system based around it, and that system would
not require any additional subwoofers.
In fact, a system consisting of a pair of Mythos STSs
($2998), a Mythos Nine ($799) used as a center channel and a pair of Mythos Gem surrounds
($279 each) would cost a total of $4355. That is still a lot of money, but many
home-theater speaker systems cost a lot more, especially because they usually require a
good subwoofer. I already know that the Mythos STS is wonderful for two-channel sound, but
I also expect it to be part of a killer home-theater speaker system at a very reasonable
price. I already have a request in with Definitive Technology to get the rest of just such
a system for review on Home
Theater & Sound.
