- Joined
- Mar 1, 2003
- Location
- Mechanicsburg, PA
I have been hunting for a pair of decent portable speakers for my PC and to take with me to LAN parties etc. After researching several options I settled on a pair of Creative Gigaworks T20 speakers. I was able to get them on sale at Circuit City for a mere $60 (after rebate) which was a steal in my opinion.
First observations:
First of my reference towards sound quality is currently just a set of sennheiser HD 580 headphones and my past experience with speakers
.
Onto the speakers. The over sound is satisfactory out of the box with only a few hiccups (especially considering the price point!). I would say the overall tonality of the speakers is a bit bright. The "bass" is fairly clean surprisingly. In my opinion most PC systems have highly over exaggerated garbled bass from their subwoofers (logitech, klipsch etc). I usually end up tweaking them to no end because they are all about playing loud and not necessarily cleanly :/. So the Gigaworks are pleasing to me. They know your not gonna get true solid bass from a 3" driver and they don't try. The speakers are ported to give you some semblance of bass and it is effective enough. I've listened to a lot of music through them and watched movies as well I didn't find myself missing a dedicated subwoofer.
The vocals come through fairly untainted with one exception... enclosure resonance. The enclosures are plastic like almost all computer systems near this price point. This leads to the source of most the issues with this system and is what caused me to modify them. The resonance isn't horrid but is noticeable with some voices. As mentioned before they almost have a booming sound quality with some voices and music. It doesn't happen all the time but every once in a while there is some voice, sound, etc that really excites the resonances of the enclosure. You can put your hand on the side and feel all the vibrations when the speakers are on.
The speakers play plenty loud for my room and tastes. They stay quite clean and balanced at the higher end of the volume spectrum as well which is a pleasant suprise. Most PC systems (especially systems with subwoofers) tend to get very unbalanced the higher you turn up the volume. In most cases its cause the speakers can't keep up with the subwoofer.
The ergonomics and appearance are good though this is subjective. I prefer the use them without the grills and the cloth dome tweeter and yellow fiber woven woofer are nicely finished. The volume and tone controls are decent. One complaint is the Blue power LED which is ridiculously bright. I don't know what Creative Labs was thinking making it that bright! I plan to get a Q tip and apply some paint over the top of the LED or something.
So overall I think the speakers are a great deal at their price point. They are stepping up to the realm of real speakers. If you can venture into the $200 and over price point there are definitely better options out there. Or if you don't mind bulky equipment such as an external receiver and larger home theater speakers then you can get better sound. In my opinion all those are outside of the market area for these speakers though. For their size, price point and portability I think these are fantastic.
__
DISCLAIMER!: Modify the speakers at your own risk! Opening the speakers will void the warranty! Since the amplifier is inside the enclosure you also risk electrocution. Proceed at your own risk!
Let me start off by saying I'm addicted to tinkering with stuff. Usually the first thing I do when I get something is take it apart and see how it works and if it can be improved. The only real problem with the T20's was the plastic enclosures. So I decided to see what I could do about that. The material list is pretty simple.
I used some Extreme Dynamat and Poly batting.
The Dynamat is a material used primarily in cars to dampen vibrations. It is a ~1/8" thick layer of rubbery tacky compound that is stuck to a sheet of aluminium. The Poly batting is just loose polyester fibers that are primarily used in pillows, blankets, etc. The poly batting will absorb sound waves inside the enclosure.
So first unplug the speakers and power! Be very careful opening the speakers and avoid touching any parts of the amplifier board. There are capacitors on there that can store a charge!
There are six screws on the front face plate that hold the front baffle on. Simply grab a philips screw driver and take them out.
Heres the right hand enclosure insides as it is from the factory
As you can see there is a little bit of poly batting in ther already. The sides are ribbed to help with the resonaces.
Next I unscrewed the port tube
Next up is cutting the dynamat to fit the walls. I used an Xacto knife handle and a philips screw driver to apply the dynamat. You need to press it into the ribs and it worked best to use the two items so it wouldn't pull up the areas you pressed down.
Then just apply the dynamat all round the sides, top and bottom (except on the right speaker!). Now this picture has a red X on the bottom. That is for the right speaker only! The amplifier PC board will short out on the dynamat as I found out after it was applied and I took this picture. So make sure not to put dynamat on the bottom of the right speaker! Just replace the port tube and add about 1~2 loose handfuls of poly batting (your aiming for ~20% of enclosure volume in batting)
Here is a few shots of the left speaker.
And finally after the mod is completed I listened to them on my desk.
Cost of materials:
Dynamat $30 for 4 Sq. Ft. (way more than you need!)
Poly batting $3 for 20 oz (again a TON more than you need)
Before and after:
Simply put, the dynamat works wonders. After installing it on one of the speakers I did the knuckle test to compare them. The difference was night and day. The speaker without dynamat resonated like crazy.
As for listening the dynamat and poly batting got a lot of the enclosure resonances under control. The tonality is more even without as much enclosure coloration being introduced into the sound. There is not nearly as much boomy/boxy sounds coming from the speakers. I would do the mod again in a second.
Ryan
First observations:
First of my reference towards sound quality is currently just a set of sennheiser HD 580 headphones and my past experience with speakers
.Onto the speakers. The over sound is satisfactory out of the box with only a few hiccups (especially considering the price point!). I would say the overall tonality of the speakers is a bit bright. The "bass" is fairly clean surprisingly. In my opinion most PC systems have highly over exaggerated garbled bass from their subwoofers (logitech, klipsch etc). I usually end up tweaking them to no end because they are all about playing loud and not necessarily cleanly :/. So the Gigaworks are pleasing to me. They know your not gonna get true solid bass from a 3" driver and they don't try. The speakers are ported to give you some semblance of bass and it is effective enough. I've listened to a lot of music through them and watched movies as well I didn't find myself missing a dedicated subwoofer.
The vocals come through fairly untainted with one exception... enclosure resonance. The enclosures are plastic like almost all computer systems near this price point. This leads to the source of most the issues with this system and is what caused me to modify them. The resonance isn't horrid but is noticeable with some voices. As mentioned before they almost have a booming sound quality with some voices and music. It doesn't happen all the time but every once in a while there is some voice, sound, etc that really excites the resonances of the enclosure. You can put your hand on the side and feel all the vibrations when the speakers are on.
The speakers play plenty loud for my room and tastes. They stay quite clean and balanced at the higher end of the volume spectrum as well which is a pleasant suprise. Most PC systems (especially systems with subwoofers) tend to get very unbalanced the higher you turn up the volume. In most cases its cause the speakers can't keep up with the subwoofer.
The ergonomics and appearance are good though this is subjective. I prefer the use them without the grills and the cloth dome tweeter and yellow fiber woven woofer are nicely finished. The volume and tone controls are decent. One complaint is the Blue power LED which is ridiculously bright. I don't know what Creative Labs was thinking making it that bright! I plan to get a Q tip and apply some paint over the top of the LED or something.
So overall I think the speakers are a great deal at their price point. They are stepping up to the realm of real speakers. If you can venture into the $200 and over price point there are definitely better options out there. Or if you don't mind bulky equipment such as an external receiver and larger home theater speakers then you can get better sound. In my opinion all those are outside of the market area for these speakers though. For their size, price point and portability I think these are fantastic.
__
DISCLAIMER!: Modify the speakers at your own risk! Opening the speakers will void the warranty! Since the amplifier is inside the enclosure you also risk electrocution. Proceed at your own risk!
Let me start off by saying I'm addicted to tinkering with stuff. Usually the first thing I do when I get something is take it apart and see how it works and if it can be improved. The only real problem with the T20's was the plastic enclosures. So I decided to see what I could do about that. The material list is pretty simple.
I used some Extreme Dynamat and Poly batting.
The Dynamat is a material used primarily in cars to dampen vibrations. It is a ~1/8" thick layer of rubbery tacky compound that is stuck to a sheet of aluminium. The Poly batting is just loose polyester fibers that are primarily used in pillows, blankets, etc. The poly batting will absorb sound waves inside the enclosure.
So first unplug the speakers and power! Be very careful opening the speakers and avoid touching any parts of the amplifier board. There are capacitors on there that can store a charge!
There are six screws on the front face plate that hold the front baffle on. Simply grab a philips screw driver and take them out.
Heres the right hand enclosure insides as it is from the factory
As you can see there is a little bit of poly batting in ther already. The sides are ribbed to help with the resonaces.
Next I unscrewed the port tube
Next up is cutting the dynamat to fit the walls. I used an Xacto knife handle and a philips screw driver to apply the dynamat. You need to press it into the ribs and it worked best to use the two items so it wouldn't pull up the areas you pressed down.
Then just apply the dynamat all round the sides, top and bottom (except on the right speaker!). Now this picture has a red X on the bottom. That is for the right speaker only! The amplifier PC board will short out on the dynamat as I found out after it was applied and I took this picture. So make sure not to put dynamat on the bottom of the right speaker! Just replace the port tube and add about 1~2 loose handfuls of poly batting (your aiming for ~20% of enclosure volume in batting)
Here is a few shots of the left speaker.
And finally after the mod is completed I listened to them on my desk.
Cost of materials:
Dynamat $30 for 4 Sq. Ft. (way more than you need!)
Poly batting $3 for 20 oz (again a TON more than you need)
Before and after:
Simply put, the dynamat works wonders. After installing it on one of the speakers I did the knuckle test to compare them. The difference was night and day. The speaker without dynamat resonated like crazy.
As for listening the dynamat and poly batting got a lot of the enclosure resonances under control. The tonality is more even without as much enclosure coloration being introduced into the sound. There is not nearly as much boomy/boxy sounds coming from the speakers. I would do the mod again in a second.
Ryan
