athena TECHNOLOGIES ® Point 5 System Review ... - One Call

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Greek mythology holds that Athena, PHOTOS BY TONY CORDOZA test report BY RICH WARREN Athena Point 5 Home Theater Speaker System goddess of wisdom, sprang fully formed from the head of Zeus, king of the gods. In this case, Athena Technologies, maker of this Point 5 system, leapt fully developed from Audio Products International, the parent of notable speaker brands Energy and Mirage. Except for size, the Point 5 resembles a conventional subwoofer/satellite system. Where the satellites in most such systems are about the width and height of a paperback epic, the magnetically shielded S.5 satellites are closer to the size of a hardbound novel, and the full-size C.5 center speaker might not even fit atop a small TV. On the other hand, the P.5 powered subwoofer is slightly smaller than the norm, and Athena suggests placing it at least a few inches away from walls since it has a down-firing driver (little feet keep it off the floor) and a front-firing port. When you buy the Point 5 system, you have a couple of finish options. The S.5 fast facts satellites come with cherry woodgrain vinyl or high-gloss black cabinets, black or silver baffles, and gray cloth grilles. The subwoofer has front-mounted controls and is finished in basic black vinyl with knit cloth side panels. All six speakers have large, sturdy binding posts that are set too far apart for dual banana plugs. The S.5 enclosures have an unusually large, deep port in back that extends almost all the way inside to the tweeter. Below that is a large slotted bulge that accepts a supplied wall-mounting bracket that lets you aim the speaker either horizontally or vertically; the bulge keeps the port away from the wall. Athena also offers ST.5 stands ($89 a pair), waist-high hollow tubes that ideally should be filled with sand. They have massive bases and small mounting plates on top; screws hold the speakers onto the plates. The subwoofer has a couple of unusual switches. The first is a mode switch that selects between S.5 and SUB. Select the S.5 position, and the sub automatically sets the S.5 C.5 P.5 (L/R satellites) (center) (subwoofer) TWEETER 1-inch dome 1-inch dome — MIDRANGE 4-inch cone two 4-inch cones — WOOFER — — 8-inch cone ENCLOSURE ported ported ported POWER — — 75 watts INPUTS gold-plated gold-plated speaker-level binding binding posts binding posts posts, line-level RCA DIMENSIONS 5 3 ⁄ 4 x 8 1 ⁄ 2 x 6 1 ⁄ 4 15 x 5 5 ⁄ 8 x 6 1 ⁄ 4 10 x 13 1 ⁄ 4 x 13 1 ⁄ 2 (WxHxD) inches inches inches WEIGHT 6 pounds 9 1 ⁄ 2 pounds 15 pounds FINISH high-gloss black with high-gloss black with black vinyl, black silver or black baffle silver or black baffle; cloth side panels or cherry with black dark gray cloth grille baffle; dark gray cloth grille PRICE $175 a pair $175 each $275 each Total: $800 MANUFACTURER Athena Technologies, Dept. S&V, 3642 McNicoll Ave., Toronto, Ontario M1X 1G5; www.athenaspeakers.com; 416-321-1800
test report The Athena speakers realistically conveyed the subtle sound effects and dialogue in The Contender. optimal crossover and a preset equalization curve for the Point 5 system, bypassing the Bass Range control. The Bass Level control remains functional. The SUB position is for use with other satellite speakers. The second switch lets you select Audio or Video playback. Audio is said to provide a flat frequency response for music playback; the Video position boosts the bass for movie soundtracks. You can connect the P.5 using either a line-level signal from your receiver or processor’s subwoofer/LFE (lowfrequency-effects) output or speaker-level signals from the left/right front-channel outputs. I chose the former hookup. Athena’s 31-page manual devotes three pages of text to each of a multitude of languages, leaving the setup diagrams for the last three pages. Only in the diagrams will you find the recommended Dolby Digital bass-management settings, and it would be easy to overlook them, as I did initially. But it would be a great mistake because unlike many other sub/sat systems, the Point 5 is designed to give best results when you set all the main-channel speakers to “large.” The manual does not suggest where to set the crossover frequency for the subwoofer/LFE output, so I consulted an Athena product manager, who suggested 120 Hz. I set up the Point 5 system in my 10 x 12-foot home theater, with the front S.5 satellites on stands about 6 inches to either side of my 42-inch Toshiba widescreen TV, the C.5 center perched on top of the set, and the S.5 surrounds on small wall shelves just above and behind the listening position. I placed the P.5 subwoofer about 5 inches from a side wall and a couple of feet in front of the rear wall of the room. Placing it closer to the side wall made it too boomy. I powered the satellites with my Denon AVR-2802 receiver, which also performed the Dolby Digital decoding. I started my listening session with the DVD of The Contender (DreamWorks), Rod Lurie’s gripping film about Washington politics with a stellar performance by Joan Allen. It opens with the song “Ring of Fire,” performed by Jeff Bridges and Kim Carnes over a throbbing bass line. Its rendition by the Point 5 system was hot. Then a car goes barreling off a high bridge into a deep river, and the system made one heck of a splash — I almost ran for my Gortex slicker. Later on, the presidential helicopter seemed to be lifting my home theater off its foundations. A well-miked helicopter stresses a speaker from the very low bass (the thump, thump, thump of the rotors and pulse of the engine) to the highfrequency scream of the jet turbine and the whirring of the blades. The Point 5 brought me closer to a flight on Marine One than I’ll probably experience in real life. Clinks of glasses at cocktail parties and slamming car doors testified to the system’s deftness with brief, sudden sounds, while the scrape of a pen on paper and the rustling of clothes showed how well it conveyed ongoing sonic details. A particularly telling scene finds Allen’s character venting steam by shooting hoops, and the reverberant empty court, the hollow thunk of the dribble, and the sound of the ball hitting the rim all rang true. The basketball court had depth as well as length and width. Voices sounded lifelike in the movie’s extensive dialogue. Reproduced by modestly priced home theater speaker systems, transient sounds often seem brittle because the high frequencies are overemphasized or dull and muffled because the highs are rolled off. Another problem that’s more difficult to quantify but easily discernible is the dimensionality of the sound — whether it all seems to stop at the plane of the speakers or blossoms into a three-dimensional image. Although the Athena system did exhibit a slight rise in the high frequencies, it didn’t unpleasantly exaggerate transients, and it certainly placed sounds in three-dimensional space. Since The Contender lacked the ka-pow factor, I spun the DVD of Wrongfully Accused (Warner), one of Pat Proft’s goofy, inane farces featuring Leslie Nielsen of Naked Gun fame. This movie takes on and puts down a whole library of films, from The Fugitive to North by Northwest, with TV’s ER thrown in for good measure. So the soundtrack includes a roaring, rumbling diesel locomotive, a propeller airplane, gunshots, explosions, and even a hydroelectric dam. It almost seemed that the Point 5 speakers relished reproducing this bombastic buffet. They did equally well with straight music, from the subtle to the grandiose. However, even with the sub switched to its Audio mode, I had to turn down the bass level another notch or so. I chose CDs by three artists I’ve heard live. First I spun This Road Tonight (Roheen), the recent release by Kitty Donohoe, a Celtic-flavored singer-songwriter from Michigan. In addition to guitar, fiddle bass, percussion, and vocals, the mix includes pennywhistle, mandolin, and bodhran (a simple Irish drum). The Point 5 system separated each instrument clearly, without overemphasizing any one of them, while Donohoe’s clean, natural-timbre voice soared over the complex production. Pop-folk duo Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer, who recently toured with Joan
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athena TECHNOLOGIES ® Point 5 System Review ... - One Call

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