After having a cheap Creative 5.1 sound system for a few years I decided to replace it with a better system. I did some research and most places pointed to this being the best 5.1 set up for a PC that was available. I found a good deal and bought it straight away. I was not disappointed when it arrived and I had it set up.
The 4 satelite speakers both look and sound great. The removable grill gives them the standard speaker look but once it's remove they have a gorgeous modern chrome look. The sound quality is very clear from the high quality 3" drivers. They have 62W output power which gives them quite a bit of power to really pump out high quality sound. The speaker stand can rotate to turn it into a wall mount which is quite stylish and nice feature. The speaker cables are seperate to the speakers and amplifier allowing you to use your own speaker cable if you need to and not have any problems extending or replacing them in case of damage. The provided lengths are enough for a medium sized room.
The centre speaker is similar to the satelites but is horizontal and has 69W of power to allow speech to be better heard in 5.1 movies.
Now onto the subwoofer. The subwoofer speaker is a very large 10" and the unit itself is 12"x12"x19" which makes it very large and very heavy. All reviews will tell you that it's large but you don't realise how large it really is until you see it. Its size can make it hard to place in some rooms combined with its electromagnetic field requiring it to be placed 2 feet away from other devices to avoid damage to them. The bass from the device is incredible - loud and powerful. The subwoofer can occasionally make clicking noises caused by switches around the house which isn't too annoying really.
The control centre is also larger that it seems from the pictures as well. It looks quite nice and the interface is easy to use with a large knob on the front and a few buttons. The LCD is bright blue but the contrast is pretty good making it easy to read in the dark. However the LCD doesn't dim which can make it annoying. All devices connect to the speaker system through the control centre. On the back it has 3 jack inputs to allow either 3 stereo inputs or 1 5.1 input from a PC. It also has 1 coax digital input and 1 optical input. On the side is the headphone output and line in for mp3 players.
The control centre supports dolby digital, DTS and dolby pro logic. Dolby digital and DTS are used for DVD movies and consoles like the Xbox, Xbox 360 and PS3 to provide true 5.1 sound. Dolby pro logic is used to get surround sound from 2 channels by either upmixing from a stereo source or using the matrixing information provided by devices like the Gamecube, Wii and PS2.
The remote is small and easy to use. It allows access to all the features of the device remotely which is much more convenient. The range is good and easily works across a large room. I use the remote much more than I use the input on the control panel as I don't need to move to it.
The sound quality from this system is truly amazing and really needs to be heard to be believed. It easily rivals more expensive home theatre systems in quality and power. When you listen you'll think you're listening to a much more expensive system. The power of this system is very high at 505W which gives up to 115dB of audio output. This is louder than a jack hammer and can cause hearing damage. A jet at 100m has a volume of 110 - 140dB. When playing at high volume it will also cause things to vibrate quite a bit - be careful not to let pictures fall off walls (really). The volume scale on the device goes from 1 - 20 and then above that into boost mode from 1 - 11. I usually have the device on 4 out of 20 unless it's very quiet but I never usually go up above 8.
Summary: This is a great sound system which I can't recommend enough. The only problem is positioning the subwoofer 2 feet away from other devices.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: The Sound clarity, design of speakers, price, ease of setup, Disadvantages: size of the Sub, Wired and not wireless satellites, AND NEIGHBOURS MAY COMPLAIN ABOUT LOUDNESS!
rajaster 29.03.2009 (29.03.2009)
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