Cristiano on Tech/Life

I think it’s about time for me to review some of the hardware I bought recently. First up is the new set of speakers that I got, the Creative Gigaworks T20 Series II.

My main workstation where I wanted to use them is a Mac Mini which doesn’t have any 5.1 output except for a digital optical out. Now, I don’t need any 5.1 on my workstation but i do like some loud music so I quickly started looking at 2.1 speakers on Amazon and eBay. Wow, there’s a lot of crap out there.

Loads of unknown brands, cheap little subwoofers, and dodgy looking 2mm-thick speakers. So like any geek I used the power of Twitter to quickly get an idea of what speakers other people liked. I got about 3 responses pointing me at the Creative Gigaworks T20 Series II so I quickly went ahead and looked at what all that was about.

Now, these 2.0 speakers are not the smallest, they are about 23cm high by 14cm deep and 9cm wide, but in exchange for that they don’t come with a big bulky subwoofer. Most of the subwoofers that come with 2.1 systems are very small and cheap and therefore not particularly good. Add to that all the wiring and you’re actually happy that these speakers don’t come with a subwoofer.

These 2 speakers though, wow, I didn’t expect such a good sound from a 2.0 system. The bass won’t bump you out of your seat, but is great for films and music and if you want you can pump up the volume and make your neighbours crazy without causing the sound to distort. The added bass and treble control is handy for controlling the kind of experience you want, especially if you sit only 10 cm away from them all day.

All and all I think these speakers are probably the best ones I ever bought and I totally agree with my Twitter advisors that these speakers are definitely worth the money (currently about £50 on Amazon).