Introduction
Over the last few of years, the AV industry has enjoyed an enormous boost in enthusiasm, with much of its momentum due to the recent advancements in video technology. Though they once seemed like sci-fi or something from a Jetsons’ episode, flat televisions that hang on the wall are becoming commonplace in home theaters across the country. With the flat TVs’ increasing size and quickly dropping prices, mainstream America can walk into a Best Buy or Costco and pick up a mighty fine HDTV that can be the centerpiece of a respectable home theater system for $2,000 or sometimes even less.

Once you invest in your flat HDTV, you now have to deal with another issue: how do you get speakers to match? In many rooms, the advantage of a flat HDTV is the fact that it is actually flat. Traditional speakers are generally anything but flat, so in order to remove all of the clutter from a room that once had, say, a big-screen rear-projection TV in it, you have to look at replacing the speakers with something either very physically flat, something in-wall or something on-wall.

Enter the Mythos Eight on-wall loudspeaker from Definitive Technology. It is a two-way speaker design that measures 28-and-a-half inches in height, is just over six inches wide and is four-and-three-eighths inches in depth. It has two five-and-one-quarter inch midrange drivers, mounted above and below a centered one-inch pure aluminum dome tweeter, with two five-and-a-quarter inch passive sub radiators mounted at the top and bottom of the speaker. The Mythos Eight has a rated frequency response of 38 Hz to 30 kHz and is an easy load to drive at 91dB efficiency rating.

The exterior of the Mythos Eight is made from extruded aircraft grade brushed aluminum and is available in either silver or black finish. It has a modest retail price of $699 per speaker.

Upon unpacking, the Mythos Eight impressed me as a solidly constructed speaker. Weighing a hefty 15 pounds, this speaker feels substantial and is quite heavy for its size. A wrap of my knuckles against the enclosure yielded nothing but a sore hand. The connections on the rear of the speaker are nice gold-plated connectors. However, these are set into a pocket, which makes installing your speaker wire a challenge. Because of the limited space, it is pretty important to have your speaker cables exiting your wall at a relatively precise location.