Shootouts

Aural Showdown - 2.1 Multimedia Speakers Shootout

By Kenny Yeo - 14 Mar 2009

Test Setup

Test Setup

For the purpose of this test, we'll be using a Shuttle XPC SD37P2 (Intel 975X) SFF PC equipped with an Auzentech X-Fi Prelude soundcard. All speakers, with the exception of Bose Companion 5 and Logitech Z-Cinema (both make use of USB connectivity), was fed with signals from this sound card. They were plugged into our test system by the way of a standard 3.5mm analog audio output jack.

To fully and accurately ascertain the performance of the speakers, we subjected them to four main tests. First, they were tested for their abilities in playing music, and this was broken down further into two sub-categories: CD and MP3. Next, were movies, and lastly, games.

For music, we played a variety of different tracks to see how the speakers would perform across different genres such as acoustic, jazz, orchestral and trance. In movies, we were interested in the overall experience. Was dialogue clear? Were the sound effects apparent? And does it feel like a cinematic experience? Likewise in games, we were interested to find out if the speakers were capable of enhancing the gaming experience. Did it immerse us into the game atmosphere, and did we feel like we were 'experiencing' the game, instead of merely playing. In short, what were interested in was how the speakers made us, for lack of a better word, 'feel' while we were playing the test materials.

Of course, different people have different musical and sonic tastes. Some are bassheads while others are treble freaks, so your preferences with the speakers may vary. Note that we did not enable any surround sound features on the speakers to keep the comparison fare across the board. Besides, those features were only pseudo-surround and not real surround sound from multiple speakers.

The complete list of testing material is as follows:

CD Testing:

  • Pod Race Scene from Phantom Menance
  • Tyrannosaurus Rex Sound Effects from Jurassic Park
  • Theme from Jurassic Park
  • Apollo 13 Lift-off Sound Effects
  • Theme from Cutthroat Island
  • Fanfare for Louis, performed by the Dallas Wind Symphony

MP3 Testing:

  • Hotel California - Eagles
  • Sail on Soothsayer - Buckethead
  • Melt My Heart to Stone - Adele
  • Elements of Life - Tiesto

DVD Testing:

  • Lord of the Rings - (Starting sequence, Balin's Tomb & Bridge of Khazad-dum)
  • Swordfish (Starting sequence)

Game Testing:

  • Far Cry 2
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