Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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36 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
packs a wollop, December 29, 2004
Great sound from these small ghost-like speakers and magnetically shielded subwoofer. Because the subwoofer is magnetically shielded you can have it on your desk next to your CPU without worries. Hands-on dials on the sub-woofer let you boost and lower both treble and bass and one of the small satellite speakers lets you boost sound with the touch of a button.
The amount of crystal-clear sound that comes out of these small speakers is nothing short of phenomenal, and the price is hard to beat.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Speaker Placement, April 18, 2006
Speaker placement made the difference between this system sounding very disappointing and very good. I'm a jazz bassist, so I'm relatively particular about sound. When I first got these speakers, I put the woofer on my desk and the tweeters up on a shelf about 5 feet off the ground. There was almost no midrange at all, and the highs were tinny and sharp. Eventually I put the woofer under my desk and the tweeters on the floor on either side, and now they sound fabulous! My roommate, a Julliard trumpet player, said they have "good depth of sound," and I would have to agree. Speaker placement fixed the EQ issues, and they now sound great with a flat EQ. Speaker placement is a critical issue with a system like this. Every room is different, so make sure to experiment with it if you get a set.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent value speakers, March 3, 2006
1. For less than 75 bucks, do not expect good speakers. Good computer speakers go for 200 bucks. These speakers have to be compared to other value offerings, from Logitech or Altec Lansing. Not Klipsch or Polk.
2. Speakers take a few days to "open". For the first 30 hours of play or so, they are tight and just don't express the whole range of sounds. Listening to new speakers in a store is just uninstructive. Similarly, listening to these speakers out of the box, and then returning these speakers is a waste of your time and money. Give them a few days to prove themselves.
3. If you are truly in the value speaker market, note that your subwoofer is not going to be a beast. You will get neodynium speakers and a smallish underpowered subwoofer capable of the low but not the very low frequencies. A good subwoofer is over the 100 dollar mark, and is usually very heavy and in a wooden box. The JBL, handles stock stuff decently, but is unable to cut it from hardcore trance, electronica or anything else with very low frequencies.
The creatures represent the value category perfectly. Even after a week of play, you can sense that they do better in the highs and the lows than the mids. If you listen to hip hop, rap, then you are fine. If you listen to 128 kbps MP3s you are fine. If you listen to classical, acoustic, or classic rock, then your music will never come alive. A section of the sound will simply be missing. That is the missing 125 dollar effect - if instead of 75 bucks, you spend 200, you will get that missing section of sound.
The speakers look great in being very very different from the usual speakers. They are basically 2 parts of a 3 part system. I would have included 2 more speakers to cover the mids, but that would have jacked the price past the 100 mark. And that is what their higher end range speakers are there for.
In my opinion, at this price point, they sound better than comparable Altec Lansings, etc. The Altec Lansings do a better job representing those mids. But they lack the clarity that makes the JBLs such a good buy.
The JBLs are crystal clear, and have the most accurate renditions of the higher frequencies. They have some thing of a sound stage. Other speakers at this range have no clarity and no sound stage. They are usually very colored and very tiring to listen to after a while.
But this is a very very subjective thing. You are essentially choosing between a few evils. No one wants to lose a part of the music. But then no one wants speakers that don't articulate clearly. And everyone wants the sound stage.
What you have to decide, for the 75 bucks range, is what you need the least. And the JBLs do a good job with the tradeoffs for me.
As long as you buy these knowing you will not get perfect speakers, and that the sound is bound to be deficient, but that you being cheap and getting an excellent value for money, you will be fine. Don't buy these if you have another 50 bucks that you could spend on speakers. Only if your budget tops out at 75, should you make the trade off.
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