Final words and conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

While not a bad sounding kit, the Kratos S3 certainly isn't a home-run either. I noticed a limitation, once you increase the level of volume the satellite speakers, drivers, lack capacity and simply will not sound good and start to distort. So, do not expect high-a quality high volume kit here, and that is a bit weird as this is a 2.1 kit. However, you'll have plenty of volume available before that starts to happen. The subwoofer is reasonably okay, it is the cheaper pounding type of sub though, you either hate or love that. Thus the bump and bang sounds do well, for music, however, you'll quickly lack a dynamics sounding bass, which you miss when listening to a good song. I mean it's not bad, but certainly not great either. Then there's another oddity when there is no audio coming from your PC (or connected device), you can hear the noise and a bit of crackling coming from the kit. However, when there is audio, that noise is gone. The satellite tweeters are okay enough with treble, and the near 3-inch drivers produce decent mid-tones, that is good enough for voices, once you'll hear a song with many instruments, things start to sound flat. Again, the sub-woofer is that in its the simplest form, a simple bass-reflex subwoofer. It can go deep, loud and even pound a bit but will distort at high volume and offers a mediocre sounding bass. Another caveat, wiring overall is just too short. If you place the sub under your desktop then the satellites need to be within a range of a roughly 2m of the sub. That's really, not a lot to work with. 

Concluding

Gaming wise this kit is certainly adequate, it sounds well and clear in games overall and does offer a much richer experience over any built-in monitor speakers, and that really is what sums up this kit. For the audiophiles among you, you'll be not impressed as it lacks a certain clarity and warm sounding bass.The question remains, however, is simple; is it good enough for 79 USD? I find that a hard to answer the question. I've heard 2.0 speakers that sounded much better with better bass. But for the money, I'd say it is good enough and could be rated as decent value for money for a gamer that needs a better audio solution. The basics are covered with the Kratos S3. It’s a powerful enough for what it needs to be and it can be used for as 2.1 speaker system for music, movies, and games. Feature-rich and audio-quality wise there are better-looking and sounding systems available, but these likely will pass the 100 USD marker. It is an easy to use and easy to set up kit. Quite honestly when I think about it, the Kratos S3 would have made a lot of sense as a $50 speaker system, so I guess it is just priced too high for what I expect from it. Creative does pack a free downloadable Sound BlasterX Acoustic Engine Lite software that installs a separate driver to help you improve and tweak audio a bit. Decent features, decent sound, decent price, but nothing can be tagged as really good or extraordinary.

• Sign up to receive a notice when we publish a new article
• Or go back to Guru3D's front page