Benchmark System

    The sound levels between the two systems were basically equal, at about 75dBA from the listening point.  For UT2004 I ran through a couple of levels, with the audio set in H/W 3D + EAX mode.  With Splinter Cell I ran through the final part of the U.S. Embassy level, with the audio virtualization set to high, 3D Audio enabled and EAX HD enabled.  Now lets look at how our tester found these speakers.

Test Results

    First lets get a quick look at my impressions of the two systems with the two test games.  I found that both systems managed to place the sounds of the games accurately, with the sub working pretty well with the rocket launchers' boom coming through very well.  One thing I did notice is that both systems started breaking up after a little while.  The Edifier speakers broke up much quicker, after about 5-10 minutes, but the other speakers also eventually started breaking up, though not quite the same problems as the Edifier system and not as quickly.

    Now is the music/DVD testing.  One common problem shared by both systems is that the bass power was severely lacking.  First the impressions of the Edifier speakers.  The symbols in the 1812 Overture were very clean and crisp, this is interesting considering that the speakers do not have a tweeter in any form.  The horns in the music were somewhat dull sounding, while speech had a slight bit of hissing in it.  The overall sound was very bright, while it was bordering on the harsh.  

    Now for my patchwork system.  The overall sound was very crisp, though there was some harshness when there were horns and the like.  Symbols however were weaker than the Edifier speakers, with less resonance to the sound as they didn't continue on after the initial sound.  There was a good bit of hissing in some of the music at the higher end of the range.  Overall the Edifier speakers seemed to offer better sound quality but had a little bit of a problem with games, which used a lot more bass.

Conclusion

    We've looked at all parts of these speakers, so lets take a quick look at what we have found.

    First the packaging, what do we see?  The box that the speakers come in is pretty big, but to hold a 8" subwoofer, and five speakers it is expected.  Everything in the box was packaged very well, with nothing loose, except the manual which didn't matter.  The products included with the speakers was as complete as you could find, with 5 sets of speaker wires, of varying lengths.  The inclusion of RCA cables to connect either a computer or other six channel system was nice, as was the included remote with batteries.

    The actual units themselves are also something to look at.  The satellite speakers were all identical, at least they seemed to be anyway, though the center channel was supposed to be slightly more powerful.  They were all made of MDF, a standard for many speakers, and relied on a single woofer for all frequencies above the range of the sub to about 20KHz.  The sub was a rather large beast, as long as the 10" Kenwood sub we used otherwise, but about half as tall as the other sub.  The amplifier portion of the Edifier sub didn't have much in the way of heatsinks on the various components unlike the Kenwood, which has a large aluminum heatsink protruding from the back of the unit, though the Edifier sub didn't get too warm.  The back of the unit has all the connectors properly labeled, but I was a little disappointed that there was no optical or digital inputs, as this would have meant a one cable install.

    Now for the sound quality of the unit.  Quite frankly I was pretty surprised that it sounded pretty good in both music and DVD's, with nice highs even without a single tweeter.  For gaming I did notice that it started to crackle after a short time, making gaming something that isn't quite a recommended pursuit with these speakers, though the sound card did have something to do with this.

    Now on to the most important area of all, price.  The price is near $100 US, which when you compare it to offerings from Altec Lansing and Creative Labs, and Logitech it is pretty close to the others.  With what you get from the Edifier speakers, 8" sub, IR remote, and all wood speakers, makes it a pretty good value for the budget minded 5.1 speakers.

Good Points

• Good quality sound
• All wood system
• 8" subwoofer
• IR remote
• All speakers/sub magnetically shielded

Bad Points

• No Tweeter
• Some sound issues in games
• No Digital/Optical in
• No real center channel (not marked)

Final Words

    This system has all the basic features that you would look for in a speaker system, wood based, large subwoofer, and decent speakers.  While they might not be the most power system in the world they provide very nice quality, the only things I'd add is a true center channel and tweeters to the speakers.