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The Subjective Listening testsThe one way to review speakers properly is of course listening and people, before I start rambling , I of course must state that sound is very subjective. What I believe can be a wonderful sound in your ears can be downright disappointing and vice versa. Therefore if you plan on buying speakers ask to actually listen to them in the store.

Our test system was equipped with the new Audigy 4 Pro sound card, a real good combination with these speaker in the 7.1 sound combo.

The speakers have been placed in the logical combination. Two speakers at the front, center in the middle, mid speakers left and right of my sitting position, two rear speakers behind me and last but not least the subwoofer at ground level right from me with the subwoofer pointed at the wall. The subwoofer is a very sensitive to its physical placement.

For our 2-channeled listening tests (MP3 music) we enabled Creative's CMSS 3D technology. You'll be allowed to playback 2-channel MP3's through all 7 speakers in a sort of hybrid 'Dolby Prologic Mode'. In simple wording, with stereo music everything will be upmixed towards multiple channels.

Music

My 'office' speakerset is a Logitech 680 THX (5.1), so that has to be my basis of comparison. Both sets are priced rather similarly and are to be considered high end. I already can tell you that today's Gigaworks will win, purely for the subwoofer alone. See, the problem with subwoofers it that they are good for a pounding bass, yet often lacks that dynamic sounding bass. If for example you took a electrical bass, amplified and play it back through the speakers then at certain tones the bass will sound very low in volume. Certain tones they just can't handle very well and that can leave some sort of emptiness in the overall sound experience.

This is exactly where the Gigaworks S750 is a notch better compared to the Logitech speakers, the bass it much warmer sounding and has a very wide dynamic range. They are still not perfect though. But again this is a problem with all subwoofers. My home-cinema setup has the Bose 5.1 accoustimass speakers and even on that set I sometimes go hmmm... not good enough.

For PC speakers though, these have to be the best sounding speakers I heard ever. My listening choice, as I often use, starts with the Foo Fighters, two of their songs.

The first song I'll try to analyze a little for you is an acoustic version of Foo Fighters learning to fly. Once you start up an acoustic song you immediately know and understand that you bought some really good speakers. Because if your speakers can reproduce a good sounding guitar session then you know you got a good product. When the song started I immediately went like 'wow'. A big difference to the Logitech speakers for the same reason as described earlier. A warmer sounding bass, and that makes the music more natural. The ease that the S750 has to reproduce the sound is really stunning. I do think treble lacks a little, but that is easily adjusted with the Audigy Pro.

From Acoustic to rock, again the Foo Fighters, one of my favorite songs, Darling Nicky. Again a very nice experience. Sound is rich, full and exactly what you can expect. Again I miss a tiny bit of treble though, but after correcting that I was a happy puppy indeed.

Just as in the Audigy 4 Pro review I again chose a classic masterpiece and went for Prokofiev's Montagues and Capulets (Introduction) as played by the London Symphony Orchestra from Romeo and Juliet. Yes, the song is a long as its full title. 

Sound was deep and clear. Perfect strings, its my favorite dramatic piece of classic music. There no good way to describe how well the subwoofer reacted to this song as it was nearly perfect. I actually listened to it twice as it was 'that' enjoyable. And I don't even like classical music!

The last song I'll describe to you is a logical follow up to Montagues and Capulets, which is of course. Lil' Kim with her song 'how many licks' :) A well written song with some rather juiced up lyrics and the semi ripped knight-rider sample I might add. All sarcasm aside, I opted this song because it's one of the most difficult songs out there for a speaker set to reproduce good sounding bass. You'd almost need heavy weight boom-boxes to be able to play the song in the way it was intended to play. Well, I know it's boring .. but again the S750 was impressive, not perfect though. The sound will go very deep and you can do it at a noise level that you neighbors seriously will dislike.

I think it's safe to say that the Gigaworks S750 can manage music quite well, but as a sidenote they haven't been built for it. The speakers simply shine in DVD playback and 7.1 Gaming. Let's talk about that a tad more on the next page.