Trust 2.1 Speaker Set SP-3150 UK > Reviews (1)

This review is on the speaker set which we have in our living room. To get this review in the right context, you need to know that we don't have a TV so all of our entertainment (DVDs, music etc) is played on the laptop, with the sound being played through this speaker system. Therefore, we not only rely on this set for improved sound quality of our audio / visual (as everyone knows that laptop speakers are not the best) but we also give this speaker set very regular use - daily in most instances I should say.

This set is my husband's set (my own Logitech speaker set is in the dining room) and this Trust set came to us because he purchased it for his eldest daughter when she went off to uni. Interestingly, she did not get on with it - could not get it to work properly with her laptop set up. As a gift, he swapped it for something else for her, but he kept this set to use with his PC and since we've been together we have used it with our laptop, as described above and it has it worked fine for us, so this review is on how we have found this set in daily use.

*** What it is ***

This is a three item set:

• A wooden sub-woofer, HWD: 19.5; 16; 18.5 cm (approx) which houses all of the controls. Power output 15 watts.
• Two speakers, HWD: 9; 8;8 cm (approx) - slightly abstract cubes!
• The usual input / output wires are attached to the wooden control box
• All items are black and all speakers / box have four little rubber feet at their bases to help stability and to avoid marks on your furniture.
• All items could be wall mounted if needed and the whole thing is very quick to set up and start using!

*** How we have found it ***

* Overall this has been a very useful and functional speaker set. Sound quality is good and the volume control (at the front of the control box) has a wide range which, when cranking it up, is surprisingly powerful without too much compromise on quality. The volume is easy to adjust, as the control works on a rotation, you can adjust it with just one finger if you wish and still with some surprising precision once you become familiar with the levels of sound output that work for your room!

* The set could easily be used as part of a desktop arrangement with PC / laptop as the speakers themselves are small but powerful and quite easy to hide away amongst shelves or a desk area. However, the control box is obviously more chunky and not so easy to stow away. However, this chunky aspect does have the advantage of making the unit feel substantial and stable and therefore quite durable. We keep the control box on a bookshelf where it works fine and appears quite discreet ... until you need to turn it all on, then it becomes a bit of a pain. Whilst the volume control is placed at the front of the box, for easy change of volume, and there's a blue LED light at the front of the box to indicate that the set is switched on, the actual on / off switch is at the back of the box. This means that you have to pull it forwards each time to turn it on / off. There's probably a design reason for this, but really it would be much better if the on / off switch was at the front of the box - even more so if you were using this speaker set for a desktop PC, where space is usually even more limited and you want to be able to tuck things away without pulling them out again each time you want to switch on!

* One more little foible with this set is that I find that it hums continually when plugged in and the power's on - even if the control box itself is switched off. Due to having ear troubles, I find this hum quite loud and irritating, so I have to keep the unit unplugged if I'm in the room and not using the speakers. Overall, turning it off at the plug is a better process for us anyway as switching it on / off at the plug is easier than switching it on / off at the box (see above) but if you're wanting to use this speaker set around your PC and your plugs are fairly inaccessible once set up, then you might want to bear this in mind.

* I do like the fact that all wires are black and we have minimal intrusion from wires with this set - in that respect, as well as sound quality, this speaker set is highly recommendable. However, do bear in mind that we have this set on shelves where the wires can be tucked away behind books etc - I'm not so sure the hidden wire look would be so easy to achieve if you wall-mounted this set, which the blurb that comes with it suggests you can!

Although I do prefer our other set of speakers, I would still recommend this Trust speaker set because it is currently available for around £12, which is great value for the quality of the system itself as well as the sound quality that you get from it - even if it does hum to itself when you're not using it! The reason I've deducted a star in my rating is because of the inconvenient location of the on / off switch, rather than anything to do with the quality of the output, which I guess is the main reason you'd want to buy a set of speakers!

Finally, my husband paid a bit more than £12 for this set because it was purchased more than four years ago, but given the use that this set has had since it's been with us (we've been married two years come Valentine's!), we have had brilliant value for money from it on a cost-per-use basis!