Review: Logitech G51 5.1 surround sound speakers

So, Yesterday I found these beauties for a ridiculously cheap price of $148, and on a whim brought them. Oh. Woe is my spending. The G51 Speaker set is currently Logitech’s best speaker system available, and is currently receiving applause from pretty much everywhere. I’m usually not one to join the crowd at most times...

However, These make me go wow.

Opening the box, I was greeted with the 4 monitor speakers, a centre speaker, the instruction manual, A subwoofer (Which was the majority of the box), and the small volume controller. My thoughts? “Wow, this is a pretty substantial kit.” The speakers consist of two little drivers, that are “laser tuned” or some bullshit like that. Personally, I never believe it until I hear them. However, all of my thoughts and assumptions were very quickly torn asunder once I plugged these in and set them up.

Firing up some good old music, I quickly found it VERY hard to find a flaw in these beauties. They had little issue reproducing trance and bass-heavy tracks with ease. Something people may want to note though, if your subwoofer is too loud TURN UP THE SPEAKERS, not the volume in winamp. The volume controls on your PC mis-represent the amplification and as such give you much deeper bass alot of the time. While it’s all good and merry if you’re a wog, most people do like their music balanced.

I didn’t have to touch the subwoofer volume at all for this set, which was quite welcome. Treble is represented clearly without the ear-piercing that some speakers produce, mid-range is very clear as well. I could easily tell difference in tones and notes. The leading and melodic vocals are seperable when you listen to the music too. Bass response is reasonably clean, but still responsive and tight.

Firing these up in a game of Call of Duty 4 and Team Fortress 2, Explosions sounded stunning. Having the sub on normal and “crazy explosions boom boom levels” were still distortion-free, and the directional sound on these was very good. People coming up behind you and missing with the knife... I’ll just say I was abit startled the first few times. Similarly for TF2. Hearing a boom behind you really did sound like it was from behind you. Seems like these are good for music and gaming!
As for movies, watching Air Force One was a pretty good experience. The effects sounded good (for the copy of the movie I have anyway), and there wasn’t much complaining to be done.

Visually they look pretty good. They don’t take up a huge amount of room, but they are larger than your usual small set. The stands of each speaker are reversible for wall-mounting so all you really have to do is stick a nail in the wall if you want to mount them.

One thing I do have an issue with is the sub though. The design is aimed at the floor, so really it does give that “rumbling bass” without needing too much power. However, it’s not very good if you live with people, or are in an apartment / unit complex. It is a very well-made sub though, and as said before, it reproduces bass-lines and beats very clearly. It did have some issues with really fast basslines, but for a $148 set, I’m not too unhappy with it.

My rating? 4.5/5 They sound great, look great, easy to set up, and they’re not the price of a small house. The only qualm is with the sub, which could be better and more balanced, but theres little to complain about.

4850 pre-review-preview? :s

So. 2 ATi HD4850's. I'll just let you have a little pre-taste here... More to come after I burn through these assignments.

HD4850 and the continuous cooling conundrums...

And today, I bring ye... The HD4850, by Sapphire. Apart from the card running hot as a damn volcano, It's a beautiful thing that finally lets me play games stupidly fast.
Now all I need to do is Volt-mod them.

I did buy two, at the good ole Computer fair. $230 a pop too! Not a bad price at all.
The 2nd had a bad heatsink with a faulty fan - Took it off, put it to the hacksaw. (Stupid idea, huh?) Turns out the heatsinks aren't even copper. Tin, with copper plating. Horrible at transferring heat.
Nonetheless, it's a very good card for the money and I highly reccomend it. An extra $40 will get you some very decent aftermarket cooling that you can put on these pretties that will drop the temps from 80 to a cool 30.
Not to mention UT3 at 150 frames....

Nonetheless, I am indeed a very happy chappy. Anyhow, heres a picture of the beast in the nude :)
My current problem is the MOSFET's at the back - I really don't want to fork out for additional heatsinks :(

In further news, Diablo 3 has been announced! It looks VERY good. Male and female classes, a HOTBAR!? and more importantly, DESTROYABLE SURROUNDINGS?
Finally, this festival of pants-creaming was topped off by DECAPITATION EFFECTS. I HAVE NEVER WANTED TO PLAY A GAME MORE IN MY LIFE.
Anyway, maybe the caffiene is getting to me. I'd best let you all have a look here as well. Along with Starcraft 2, this should make my Christmas a very entertaining one indeed.

First Proast!

Hurrah, new blog! Along with a new motherboard....

The computer fair this weekend should be interesting indeed.
Just in time to see the 4870's arrive en masse on multiple sites - These cards are really amazing. The give the average joe Crossfire at an affordable point, they perform very well solo, and they finally have resolved ATi's long battle with Anti-aliasing and Antrioscopic Filtering. PC Case gear have a very nice deal I may just go with. Judging from the TweakTown review, there still are a few driver problems, but they'll be resolved rather quickly. Stick a ThermalTake DuoOrb on them and you'll be sweet. Now the only problem is a lack of damn PCI slots on my motherboard....

Nonetheless, my rig is going quite happily. Vistax64 has been relatively qualm-free, and the copious amounts of RAM I have (compared with before) is making me a very happy chap indeed.

Cable management is going to be my forever bugging problem though.... :(