Look no further - Cambridge SoundWorks Megaworks 510D
Written: Oct 22 '02
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Pros: Great sound, great price, easy setup, great value
Cons: RCA-terminated, and somewhat short speaker cables
The Bottom Line: Best value in any 5.1 system. Rivals many home audio systems.
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| jazz976's Full Review: Creative Technology MegaWorks 510D Speaker |
So my old stereo conked (after 5 years of use), and I decided that instead of getting the old crappy 4-speaker boom box style stereos, I would go for the good stuff: Dolby 5.1 speakers. I have a Sound Blaster Extigy (read below), and I figured that I could just use my computer as the "stereo" of the system, hooking up the speakers to the sound card. I am simply blown away by the quality, value, etc. - everything about this sytem.
Installation
Setup is extremely easy with this system, especially if you have a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy or Extigy. The speakers connect via RCA-to-bare speaker wire cables, one for each satellite. There's a plug for center, left front, right front, rear right, and rear left. All of these, by the way, are on the back of the subwoofer. Once the speakers are connected, you can hook up the volume control (through a phone plug in the back of the subwoofer), and then hook the whole system to your sound card or receiver. The inputs on the back of the subwoofer are as follows: (minjacks)Center/subwoofer, Left, Right. Those are minijacks, the 1/8" type that are usually used for headphones. Those can hook up to sound cards and receivers, but it is much easier to use a sound card. And, if you're using the Audigy or Extigy, you can use the 3-channel digital minijack cable, to connect to the card with ONLY ONE CABLE. I did that, and it was really easy. The speakers can be placed on flat surfaces with the included stands (there's one special stand for placing on a monitor with a tilt), or you can hang them on the wall with keyhole slots, or threaded jacks. SoundWorks even added a screw set to the system, to make it easy for you to hang the speakers, which I did. There are also small rubber feet to stick on the back of satellites for wall hanging. Installation took me about an hour, but then I did hang all the satellites on the wall (time consuming, but beautiful).
Sound Quality
The sound these speakers produce is simply amazing. The system has a total power of 500 watts, which is huge for speakers this size. They're powerful to fill up a relatively large room, with great sound. They can get VERY loud, without distortion. The subwoofer sends out clean, powerful bass, and makes for a great low end. The speakers, of course, are Dolby 5.1 certified, which means that when watching a DVD with a dolby decoder, you get movie theater quality sound. Speaking of which, movies are incredible with this system. I'm used to just a few speakers plugged into the computer, but with the center, left/right and surround speakers, it's simply incredible. Mind you, I'm not an audiophile, but I am a musician, and I can tell that these speakers have great sound. There's also controls on the back of the subwoofer to change the way things sound - you can adjust the bass level and also choose to either leave treble flat or reduce it. The reduce setting takes the edge off high treble, but it is a very subtle difference and you may not notice it.
The short section about bad things
The two bad things are that the speakers connect to the subwoofer via RCA jack, which means that you can't really substitute higher quality speaker cables for the included ones. It also makes it a little more difficult to extend the length of the speaker cables, which is quite necessary: the cable length for the rear satellites, in my opinion, is way too short. The fronts are better sized, but could also do to be a bit longer. I couldn't place the subwoofer in one corner of the room and connect all the speakers; I had to move the woofer around before everything fit.
Conclusion
Quite simply, this is the best speaker system you can buy, not just for desktop theatre, though. This system is a serious rival for mainstream home audio, which usually costs 3 or 4 times as much. The Megaworks 510D also has the best value I've seen, priced at $270 at amazon.com, it's really a bargain. A lot of multimedia speakers these days are underpowered pieces of junk. But not this one. Cambridge SoundWorks did a great job.
Thanks for reading.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 270
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Epinions.com ID:
jazz976
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Location: Lexington, MA, USA
Reviews written: 19
Trusted by: 1 member
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