The final conversion of a PC cheapskate
Written: Dec 16 '01 (Updated Dec 16 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Power sound from 4 speakers, rich bass, great when using digital output
Cons: Tricky setup to get all four speakers, adequate analog sound control, no headphone jack
The Bottom Line: This is a great digital speaker system. Powerful subwoofers and mid to high speakers make this an integral part of turning your home computer into a home theater system.
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| rdeleon1's Full Review: Creative Technology FPS2000 4 Speakers |
It all started like this, I am a cheapskate and will refuse to pay name brand for anything on a computer, much less for any sound card or speaker system. So needless to say I picked up some no-name speakers and sound card to go with my AMD K6-2/500 Mhz system.
What really changed my mind is when I picked up a Pioneer 16X DVD-115 DVD-ROM drive. This guy can really hum when installing software and is still the fastest drive on the market, even after a year out there. I rented a DVD movie and got some cheapie software decoder software. Well after hearing mediocre sound and flickering video, I figured I can do better.
So I picked up a Hollywood Plus hardware decoder card which tremendously freed up my CPU and resulted in very crisp video. However the sound was very tinny with an awesome picture. Like a hopeless addict, I know I needed more. So I upgraded to a Sound Blaster Live card, but still no luck with my cheapie speakers.
But then I noticed in the documentation that this card works best with Cambridge Digital FourPoint Sorround Speakers (FPS). After checking out the reviews, I finally gave up and started pricing these speaker systems. Imagine my cheap skate surprise when I saw the FPS-2000 speaker sets being sold between $125-175 retail.
Then I went to E-bay and started to look at new and refurbished systems. I ended picking up a refurbished system from hifi.com for $72 (which is a distributor outlet for Cambridge).
After a quick delivery, I hooked it up and started playing with my CDs and DVD movies. First thing I noticed is that I couldn't get the digital sound to come out my front two speakers with the rears and subwoofers working fine.
I connected up the system for analog and after some more fiddling, I got sound out of all four speakers. This is what I found: Using the Creative Mixer, I discovered I must set the record setting the same as the source of whatever I am listening to. This took me about an hour of fiddling on the creative site to find this tidbit out. The problem with analog mode is that I would have to change the record setting manually every time I wanted to listen to a different sound source. This was a real pain. I wanted something automatic.
So I was bound to figure out why I couldn't get the digital sound to come out on all four speakers. After sending a correspondence to creative (who now owns Cambridge) I got a helpful note that I have to setup the mixer for digital output only. Voila!! Sound on all four speakers with no fiddling every time I wanted to change the sound source!
The bottom line? An excellent complement to the sound blaster live digital sound card. Incredibly clear digital sound from the four speaker system with a very rich and powerful subwoofer/amplifier/heat sink box which is where all the main speaker connections are made.
The four speakers are about 3" square and output about 6 watts each powered by the large subwoofer/amplifier. Excellent mid to high frequency response which I was very pleased to find out. It still blows my mind how something that small can put out such well defined frequencies with little or no buzz that I can ascertain.
Some nice touches:
1. Speaker tripods for the rear speakers which enables the user the ability move the speakers around easily in the room.
2. The volume control is a remote cable with a volume/fader control that can be mounted on the monitor for adjustment convenience.
3. Bass adjustment on the subwoofer, in case even more bass is needed (which I doubt, even at mid setting).
Small con to this great system, a headphone jack would have been a nice addition, oh well.
I am the big leagues with this system, I guess my no-name cheapskate days are over!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
rdeleon1
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Reviews written: 8
Trusted by: 0 members
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