With Logitech appearing to be shifting its focus to 2.1 computer speaker systems comes the latest incarnation of Creative’s 5.1 surround sound system for the computer – the Inspire T6160. It features five equally powered satellites rated at 6W RMS (meaning the center channel is not additionally amplified), and one 20W RMS subwoofer. Creative also rates a frequency response of 40Hz – 20kHz and 75db of signal-to-noise ratio. The subwoofer enclosure appears to be constructed from wood and the satellites are encased in plastic material.
The magnetically-shielded satellite speakers each contain a single 2-inch driver with a cone designed to separate mid-tones from the treble. The 5.25-inch subwoofer is of a downward-firing design. The front speaker cables are 1.7 meters long, and the rear speakers cables are 4 meters long. The front cables are long enough but the rear speaker cables require extension cables to be hanged on ceiling corners or on walls.
The speakers come with a volume controller which also acts as an on/off switch. Bass level is located on the back of the subwoofer. The speakers are connected to the computer through three 3.5mm audio connectors. The Now it’s time to put the speakers through its paces.
Sound quality test
Testing was done with the speakers arranged according to the ITU 775 standard (the standard 5.1 speaker arrangement) in a 75cm radius, which is about the typical distance for desktop computer use.
Movies: the T6160 performed exceptionally well in Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima which makes excellent use of surround sound effects to recreate the battlefield atmosphere (no wonder the movie earned the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing). Bass response was very good and detailed at approximately 70% volume level (very ear-deafening), with no noticeable distortion – creating very believable cannon blast sounds. Only when going over this volume level would the bass start to become muffled, but you would need to wear ear protection to listen to this. Particularly impressive are the satellites, with very sharp, rich and clear delineation between mid-tone and treble effects – you can clearly differentiate the multilayered sound effects in the crossfire scenes which was only enhanced by impressive surround effects from the hovering aircraft which were accurately recreated by the rear channel speakers.
When playing Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the T6160 was able to retain the clarity of the background soundtrack even during heavy action scenes, and Nazgûl screeches were very well defined by the satellite speakers – very impressive when you consider the fact that the satellite speakers do not feature a dedicated tweeter. To test channel separation performance, I used George Lucas’ Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace’s podracing scene. Even with the volume turned to a very loud 70%, there was very little channel crosstalk detected, and the T6160 delivered some impressive rear surround effects. The transition between the two rear speakers was very smooth, so was the transition from front speakers to the back. There was very little to fault here.
The only real-world problem observed when testing the T6160 is that since the center channel is equally powered as the rest (which is actually good thing), movies which have their dialog volume pre-adjusted for surround sound systems with stronger center channel speaker will require volume calibration to the center channel on the T6160, or a reduction in dynamic range to compensate. Otherwise, dialog volume would be overwhelmed by other sound effects.
Distortion: hissing noise from the satellites was detected at all volume levels, although they only become a problem when the volume is set near the maximum. Subwoofer humming noise was low but could be heard with the bass level knob turned up to its maximum. While the subwoofer would distort above 70% volume, it was very hard to make the satellites to clip. In fact, the satellites only clipped when playing synthetic sounds, such as the startup sound of Windows 7’s Minesweeper game, clipping occurred at the 70% volume and above, which should be repeat again is very ear-deafening. Overall, the distortion characteristics were very good in the normal volume levels.
On another note, the subwoofer had no trouble reproducing 20Hz with a volume of approximately 33%.
Summary
The T6160 exhibits very good sound quality. At a retail price of AUD $118.14/USD $79.99 (at the time of writing you can get them for AUD $79 at MSY), it is a great choice for those who are just starting out with surround sound for the computer. If you have RCA extension cables, it would make for an inexpensive small home theatre sound system too – the speakers have enough power for a sound space radius of up to 3 meters.
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