crumvoc

Overall Rating
 3 of 5

Value Rating
 3 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Price Paid:  $100.00 from costco

Summary:
Got this as a gift for christmas. Sounded like a good deal, with the 100w sub and all. Actually, for $100 it was probably worth it. The surround speakers are really not too bad. I ended up using two of the speakers on another cheapo stereo instead of the really terrible speakers that came with it, and they really did sound much better. On my surround system I use some good Polk Speakers for the fronts, the AS surrounds for the rears. I use the AS center too. It is Fairly good. The sub is really the weakest link, in my opinion. It may be 100w, but if you go over about 1/2 volume, the thing overheats and turns off until it cools a bit. SOund wise, the sub is weak. It is pretty loud but it is not quality sound. It has very thin walls and is ported so it is uncontrollably boomy. In fact, I have actually stuffed a sock into the port which makes it much more musical (although still not great, which is typical for a cheap sub...) I have also replaced the plastic feet with spikes, which also helps with some of the booming resonance.

Strengths:
Price. Pretty fair surround speakers.

Weaknesses:
The sub.

Price Paid:  $61.00 from ebay

Summary:
impressive system for a starter set, can't go wrong with this group of speakers at this price. I brought this HT system for a friend and have not finish putting everything in place, but for what I have heard I very happy for him. This system is the one with the 8" 100 watt sub, but still have the LS300 center and sat's. Picked it up on ebay for a steal and I am sure after mounting and fine tuning the speaker placement it will rock his family room. I have matched it up with a Pioneer VSX D309, another great starter unit.

Strengths:
Well made, gold plated hookup's, sub came with patch cord. Sat's have brackets included. Dual drivers in Sat's .3/4 tweeter and 4" mid woofer.

Weaknesses:
none yet

Similar Products Used:
Optimus pro X77's and LS30's, Cheap RCA's (single divers)

Price Paid:  $99.00 from Ebay

Summary:
I decided to venture into Home Theater and I got an awesome Technics SA-DA15K receiver. I needed a set of home theater speakers to go with it. I wanted something with good sound, but not too expensive.

I saw these as Costco and noticed that they were very well made. They were much better made than many of the cheap home theater speakers I saw from other vendors. I ended up buying a set on Ebay. (There are at least 5 vendors currently selling these on ebay).

When they arrived, they simply blew me away! The satellite and center speakers are smooth sounding and the subwoofer provides all the low end I could ask it to. The best DVD I could try them on was Disney's Tarzan. After I got the receiver channel volumes all dialed in, I must say the results are astounding for a $100 speaker system. They handle the punch of my receiver at moderate volumes and sound great at low listening levels. The original list of this set was $399 and they are worth that price. Mounting brackets are even included!

If you are looking for low cost home theater speakers, I highly recommend these. You probably cannot beat the performance of these speakers if you spend $500.

Strengths:
Great Price!
Powered Subwoofer!
Great Price!
Great Sound!

Weaknesses:
None at this price.

Price Paid:  $100.00 from Costco

Summary:
I had been looking for a decent and inexpensive complete surround speaker system to go with a mid-level Sony DTS receiver I had. My constraints were:

1. Speakers had to be 2 year-old proof (no exposed speaker cones to puncture, fabric grates to tear, wires to yank on, speaker stands to topple over, etc.)

2. They had to be mountable in almost any position (see #1)

3. They had to be somewhat inexpensive (see #1)

4. They had to sound good enough for low to mid-volume listening (see #1)

I had spent a few months perusing various sites and stores for candidates and ended up at a few places. First, I looked at the cheap KLH stuff that is in every store that sells any type of low-end audio equipment (Target, Best-Buy, Wal-Mart, you know the stores). After listening to them once, I threw out that idea.

Next, I found a system online that I thought fit the bill nicely at Home Theater Direct (HTD). I also noticed that AudioSource has a identical speaker system. The subwoofers differed a little (powered or passive) but the speakers seemed to be the same. (In fact, I believe that HTD is the online discount-based retailer for AudioSource and that these systems are, in fact, the same EXACT speakers).

Anyway, I had pretty much made up my mind that I was going to purchase the HTD system for about 150 bucks. For some reason (call it Karma, Dogma, #1 above) I held off buying them.

One day, I happened to be at Costco buying 5-pound buckets of margarine and giant sacks of frozen chicken fingers (see #1). As most men I see shopping at Costco do, I make it a habit to peruse the electronics aisles there "just to see if there is anything new, honey". To my surprise, there was a pallet of complete AudioSource speaker systems, including a POWERED subwoofer, for $99.00 per system.

No, that's not a typo = $99.00!!!

Needless to say, I shoved that box into my cart faster than my dog pouncing on a chicken finger thrown across the room (see #1). I figured that if the system sounded like crap, I could return it and keep looking.

I got it home and hooked up to the receiver soon after. Amazing. This system not only exceeds my expectations but impressed my no-holds-barred-$2,000-per-Merlin-speaker-owning-audiophile-friend who helped me install them.

The surrounds and center are made out of plastic and solidly built. Each speaker has a pair of large, gold push-in speaker connectors, These are not the typical low-end plastic spring-clips but the kind that accept either banana plugs or bare wire. The center channel sits nicely on top on the TV.

The subwoofer is powered, has a knob on the back of it for adjusting the output level and the cloth grille covering the speaker and port is removable. It also has a line-in and speaker connectors for the satellites (in case your receiver does not provide and line output for the subwoofer). The enclosure is made out of that woodparticleboardlaminatetype stuff and is solidly built. There are even fett on the botton

After dinking around with the test tones and other set-up features on the receiver, I was ready to pop in a DTS movie. Hmmmm. Seems that the only DVD I have with DTS encoding on it is Gladiator. This proves an ideal test as the opening battle scene has some well done surround effects and score and should prove a good exercise.

Amazing. The quality of sound is simply amazing for such an inexpensive system. The sub fills in the bottom nicely (careful here as it can get a little muddy so I tweaked the level a bit to get it juuuust right). The rest of the speakers are more than adequate in producing a decent soundstage for the movie. This proved true with Fantasia 2000 as well. The sound coming out of these speakers truly surprised me.

Bottom line, for $100, you simply CANNOT get a better sounding system anywhere. Period. Even at $149 (Home Theater Direct) and with the few weaknesses noted this is an amazing speaker system. I doubt that it can compete with the higher end systems (not that it's designed to anyway) but in the what-you-get-for-your-hard-earned-cash arena you will be quite happy with this system. and, my 2-year old hat yet to trash it (even though he's tried many times).

5 Stars all the way.

Strengths:
VERY Inexpensive
Decent construction
Everything you need is included
Good sound
Decent speaker connectors
A POWERED sub too? sweet!
Did I mention VERY Inexpensive?

Weaknesses:
Only color choice is black
Subwoofer not as capable as more expensive ones
Subwoofer does not have an auto-on feature
Weak magnetic shielding on the satellite speakers

Similar Products Used:
None