Diamond Audio ProMedia 2012 Speakers

Remember the MidiLand S2 4100? Diamond Audio engineered and produced that line of speakers for MidiLand. Great sound, great price point. Now, DA (not to be confused with Diamond of video card fame) has amicably severed their ties with MidiLand in favor of going it alone. The 2012 represents their midrange model of the ProMedia lineup. This is the second review in a series of three, the 2010 will follow shortly. For now, let's have a listen to their best single driver setup, the 2012.

Factory Specifications

The Unit

Power Output: 6 w/ch RMS
Frequency Response: 90Hz-18KHz
AC Adapter: 16.5 VA
S/N Ratio: 82dB
Total Output: 96dB SPL
Warranty: 60 day return policy, 1 year total
Website only price: $39.95 USD

http://www.diamondaudio.com

5/10 Rating

This is your typical ported single driver design rig. What's slightly different from the norm is DA's top mounted 3" full range driver and sloped back cabinet. This is a good idea as many other designs of this genre have their only driver pointed forward perpendicular to your desk or table. High frequency reproduction and overall clarity should be improved dramatically.

The AC adapter is only a moderate size and must be plugged directly into the last position of the power strip (if you use one) otherwise, the cord will block at least one other precious AC port. As you can see from the pictures on another page, the unit is rated at 15VAC @ 1.1A, which is 16.5VA.

The power/volume button is located on the right speaker. It has the typical "click" to turn on and twist for volume increase. The bass and treble controls are also the typical center detent kind. Twist left decreases treble or bass and twisting right increases the very same. Below the bass knob is DA's 3DSP(TM) button, which when pushed supposedly gives the two speaker setup a pseudo "3D" effect. Lastly, for those users that require a conveniently located headphone jack, the 2012's have one just above the green LED power indicator light.

The rear of the right speaker sports the expected left speaker RCA output, AC input (from the wall wart) and stereo mini-jack input (from the output of the soundcard). What struck me as odd was the available sub-woofer output. I remember seeing these years ago on many other units, but due to price drops and lack of stand alone subs, I question their use today. Even DA doesn't sell a matching woofer, so you'd have to look elsewhere to find one if just had to have one.

DA's marketing department makes specific mention that their products are not rated with the fake and largely untestable PMPO (peak music power output) specification. When they claim X watts per channel, they really mean it! Considering that the 3025's I tested basically met DA's power claims, I was eager to put the SGS-Thompson TDA2007A amplifier chip to the test with the 16.5VA wart.

Data acquired and reported of this type is done without any opinion or bias whatsoever. For a quickie brush up course on audio terminology and measurements, point your browser to the Audio Reproduction Systems article.

The satellite specs are not specified by the manufacturer. They looked similar to the 3025's 3" unit, but DA informs me that they are different. Driver tests and listening tests confirm that the differences are for the better.

Affecting power measurements, and thusly power ratings, the satellite impedance is near to 4 Ohms but I'd have to assign a number closer to 5½ Ohms for the purposes of power calculations.