Surprised by desktop speakers…

I haven't had speakers on my home comp for years; been playing with headphones. Ironically, my office one has had a basic harman/kardon 2.1 set bundled by Dell with it. The sound quality was nothing much, so I figured I wasn't losing much.

However, I occasionally want to show off a video or something, so I've kinda been meaning to buy a simple pair of speakers for it. Yesterday I was waiting for my turn to pick up an ink cassette at the ye local computer super-mart. There was a big stack of Creative GigaWorks T20's staring at me, including a little stand where you could press a button and make them honk. So I impulse-bought a pair.

The T20 is a 2.0 set, with 2x14W integrated amp, a cloth dome driver, and glass-fiber cone tweeter.

And damn, they sound good! The sound is very precise, well-rounded, and "free-breathing" -- the stereo image they give is excellent too. Bass is, also, surprisingly good for something this small with no subwoofer -- and in a completely different class than the cheap 2.1 set I have at work.

I would never have expected something that's actually a pleasure to listen to at this price. (I paid 68 euros for the pair.) They also look rather good, are very well built, and have very convenient controls and sockets. Listening to Kino on them right now.

The only real downside is that you have turn them up a fair bit to get that well-rounded, mellow sound -- at low volumes they sound a bit thin.

I know what you're talking about.
I've been very surprised with the sound quality of even cheaper
speakers than those. The T20's, from what I've read, are an excellent buy.

I re-read that first post, and it perhaps came off a bit too hyperbolic -- you might get the impression that you should toss out your stereos and get a pair of these babies right now. That's not what I meant.

These speakers are very good for what they are: desktop speakers designed to be listened to at close distance. But they won't sound like much from a "stereo" or "home theater" listening distance -- you'd have to crank them up near the max, and although I didn't get any painfully obvious distortion, things do start to get muddy, and they sound noticeably "small." I just tried this, and compared them to my "real" stereo -- a low-end Yamaha home theater amp with five JBL Control Ones -- and, well, they're clearly two different things.

But, again, when using them for their intended purpose -- sitting on either side of your monitor, with the volume controls on your "pre-amp" (i.e., computer) and the speakers near the halfway point, they do sound sweet. The big difference with the "real" stereo is that the latter fills the whole room, while the T20's only fill a small space.

Originally Posted by Prime Junta
These speakers are very good for what they are: desktop speakers designed to be listened to at close distance. But they won't sound like much from a "stereo" or "home theater" listening distance -- you'd have to crank them up near the max, and although I didn't get any painfully obvious distortion, things do start to get muddy, and they sound noticeably "small." I just tried this, and compared them to my "real" stereo -- a low-end Yamaha home theater amp with five JBL Control Ones -- and, well, they're clearly two different things.

Exactly. I wonder what it is that they are doing to make those small cheap boxes sound so good though… compared to what they were in the 90's for example.
Some kind of psychoacoustic DSP gimmicks? Or just simply higher quality components and fancy materials?

Probably computer simulation & CAD.

Yup, probably. Acoustics simulation has come a very, very long way. I remember when I was a kid, my father was peripherally involved in a research project about just that; it eventually spun off a company called Genelec, which is still doing pretty well, but was quite revolutionary at the time. Now you can buy that kind of software off the shelf -- a colleague of mine did, and has designed and built some speakers that sound better than high-end stuff did 20 years ago.

Modern PC speakers improved a lot in term of sound quality, although they're nothing if compared to home theater sound system.

One of the top 5.1 PC speakers (if not the only one top model for PC movie & gaming) is Logitech z5500, and the best PC 2.1 speaker for music is Aego M. Of course, a good speaker also need a good sound card, either Auzentech Xi-fi Prelude or at least SB X-fi Xtreme Gamer.

What i wanted now is better software supports in OS and driver. Creative's drivers sucks, and Microsoft said Vista's sound system implementation is awesome, but i didn't aware what's so special under Vista.

Double post.

Originally Posted by Prime Junta
Yup, probably. Acoustics simulation has come a very, very long way.

Particularly in regard to headphones, which I like, because I have a very nice, comfy pair that I use almost constantly.

There's this binaural experience thing (3D sound with headphones), where they use an artifical head with two microphones to record sound. If they could make use of that in games, that would be so sweet!

Here's an example: Virtual Barbershop (nead headphones).

The recording sound really well on my 5.1!.

I hardly ever use headphone, never felt comfortable with something hanging on to your head or plug into your ears, especially during long hours of gaming session or watching movie…