Snap Crackle Pop
Written: Oct 16 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Control Knob, Sleek Design, "Okay sound",
Cons: Average Subwoofer,Hissing at High Volumes, Short Speaker Stands
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| icedspam's Full Review: Creative Technology FPS2000 4 Speakers |
*NOTE* I bought this two months after it came out and have been using
them for quite some time.
Introduction:
It all started one day, while playing a couple mp3's with my old
bookshelf speakers. "This isn't cutting it, my grandma probably
has better speakers than I do...", so I immediately started thinking.
I have been a reader of PCWORLD, PCGAMER, CGW, PC ACCELERATOR (RIP),
and also MAXIMUM PC, for quite a while. And I regularly check
online review sites to see which speaker sets would suit me.
I am an avid gamer, a person who watches movies, and I listen to
alot of music, (hmm...). Anyways I decided to go with the FPS2000,
because of its good reviews. So I went to buy.com and soon my
best friend (The UPS guy) showed up at my door a couple days after
with my package. "Another package? Didn't you just get one last week?"
Well, I took the package from him, slammed the door on his face,
and set the box on the floor.
{I recieved the Creative LIVE! w/media card the week before)
Thoughts/Looks/Setup:
Man, looking at the box, I was like: "woah that looks so cool", so like
a little kid I ripped the box open and reached to setup the speakers.
Speaker, 1 ,2 ,3 ,4, Subwoofer, whats this?? Speaker stands??
These things are small!!! Are they supposed to aim at my butt or what?
I mean, atleast they gave speaker stands with the system, but...
My ears are listening to the music, not my butt. Anyways:
Setup was easy as always; how could it be hard? Take a wire,
piece it through the PCB tube (optional), loop it up; put it in the
socket, hook up the others, and hook the subwoofer connection to the
PC card (i hooked it into digital socket). Then I Started up my
computer.
Performance:
Wow the first time I was amazed, these were pretty nice speakers.
Playing Quake 3, Counterstrike, or UT was great, you could tell
where enemies were (without cheating! wow!). The subwoofer,
well it was okay. Provides some good bass if you haven't heard
bass before... Quite weak to be realistic, but they're computer
speakers... The sattelites are great, produce clear sound, though
if you turn up the volume, (knob), you can hear hissing past 65%
of it's full potential. Though most people do not put their speakers
beyond that point, some people do (like an avid gamer or a technogeek).
And it was horrible, everything was muffled, hissing, I listened
to classical music, DVD's (matrix,saving private ryan, office space)
so I had to turn it down like at 55% so it would produce clear sound.
I tried various speaker setups; ie (mounting the two front speakers
on the corner of the wall and the back two speakers on the back wall
in a closed small room, with the subwoofer below the desk).
Also I tried various locations like in a small room, large room,
an open large room, and an open small room.
While trying out those positions; it kept convincing me that these
speakers need more power and more clarity. The hissing, the cracks,
snaps and pops, (i know how to use speakers, and I am computer-
literate), but these speakers weren't really doing it for me.
Cool Things:
The coolest thing that shined out to me was the 'control knob'.
I could adjust the volume and the rear/front fader.
Peers Opinions:
When I invited my friends over to hangout before we left to the movies
they immediately noticed the sleek black speakers. "woah! thats cool!"
I grinned, while my friends were looking at the speakers. While
demonstrating "Matrix" - The Hallway scene, they were very impressed,
though I had to keep the volume below 65/70% or major hissing and
snapping would occur. My friends began to play around with the
speakers, turning up the volume to notice the hissing, which they
did, and also agreed to the fact that the speaker stands were..
quite useless, unless you have your butt for ears. Though these
speakers were okay, The average score I got from them out of 10,
was 8.
Conclusion:
I bought these like 7-8 months ago, and I was impressed, I would
recommend these speakers to an average computer user, though for more
"power hungry" speaker geeks; there are other choices like Klipsch
Promedia v2.40. Though I am not sure if you would like it or not,
I have read alot of information about those speakers, and you should
check on it too. I just ordered the KLIPSCH yesterday, and will be
recieving them soon, so if you would like to know about how well they
do, feel free to check my opinion :) If you're certain that you would
like to buy this CREATIVE/CAMBRIDGE FOUR POINT SURROUND SYSTEM 2000,
speaker system I really recommend you buy one of the Creative LIVE!
soundcards for easy installation (digital socket) (though I didn't
hear any difference between analog and digital) but the EAX is
really cool. I also recommend you get better speaker stands or
higher speaker stands, from Radioshack, or order from some place.
I really like the rear speaker stands on the cambridge DT2550/3500.
Grading:
I was somewhat impressed by these speakers, though I wouldn't
pat Cambridge's back. They need to work on their power, and clarity
when at high volumes (even though some people dont push it up 65%)
it still needs some work. Also the speaker stands.. I think i'll
stop slamming about that; you can read about them above.
I would give these speakers a 7.6.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
icedspam
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Reviews written: 40
Trusted by: 16 members
About Me:
College Engineering student, interested in Law, Engineering, Economics, and Business.
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