Page 6 - Photo's #4

ListeningThe 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 .. no extremely subjective. What I believe can be a wonderful sound in your ears can be downright disappointing. 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 2 ZS sound card, a real must if you'd like to handle 7.1 sound. Combined with the T7700 and Creative's CMSS 3D technology you'll be allowed to playback 2-channel MP3's through all 7 speakers in a sort of 'Dolby Prologic Mode'. Very important as the speakerset does not act as Dolby Digital/surround Decoder. Thus with normal stereo music everything will be upmixed towards multiple channels.

CMSS properties from  the Audigy 2 ZS drivers

Music - My personal flavor in sound is a deep clear bass, average mid and high range of treble. Now I have listened to these speakers a lot the past couple of days now, as it is the best and most objective method I could think off and found them quality wise just above average for music. The bass from the subwoofer just won't go extremely deep and it is limited in it's power. I won't go far enough to satisfy me 100%. I must admit that i'm a spoiled brat when it comes to music and speakers though. Yet the volume of the subwoofer can't go that hard before it'll run into problems, sure, it can pound, but you will definitely not scare the neighbours with this subwoofer module. The treble from the three front speakers is actually very good, really sharp and high treble is what you want to hear.

There is one bump though, if you listen to the 'mid' range of sound (voices) then it lacks a little as it is somewhat flat. It's still very acceptable but the voice when someone is singing just is not 100% right. Most of this can be filtered in/out by equalizing sound though. Overall, the T7000 impressed me value wise though.

DVD - What's of course fantastic is the fact that you are surrounded by many many speakers. When you playback a DTS ES or Dolby Digital EX DVD you'll sit back relax and chill with a nice smile on your face and that experience is of course fantastic. I have the DTS ES version of Lord of the Rings - Two Towers. I can tell you that is is extremely fun to listen to it. DTS ES however is 6.1 channel sound and it's as much as you'll get from the newest DVD right now. 7.1 is not yet standard and it'll take a while before it'll get common standard though. You can upmix it and hearing sound from a DVD through so many speakers is a truly interesting experience.

Games - The T7700 is not only very suitable for DVD playback though, no funnily enough it's at its best in the thing we all love to do so much, computer games. I tell ya, the combination of EAX advaned HD from the the Audigy 2 ZS and this speaker set is downright amazing. I played several games/titles in the past few days to get a good sense of what the speakers are capable of. Examples are Need For Speed Underground, which sound just excellent but even better was Max Payne 2. When someone sneaks up on you in that title you will hear him exactly where he/she's coming from. Environmental sound is at it's best. Really great.