Review of VideoLogic DigiTheatre DTS

After being a reviewer here for over half a year now, Anders wanted to try writing a hardware review. Having been on the lookout for some new speakers lately, he contacted VideoLogic in an attempt to get their latest speaker system for review. Their Norwegian distributor Input AS were kind enough to lend him one - read on to see what he thought of it!

Tested and written by Anders "Twilight" Steinlein, published 21st December 2000

Love at first sight

A few weeks later, a man showed up at my door, carrying a rather hefty 17kg box. Eager to get started, I quickly opened it up. Inside I found four satellite speakers, one centre speaker mounted to a control unit, a remote control, a bunch of cables, and not to mention an 8" subwoofer. I won't waste time listing all the specifications here (you can read them here), but I might as well say that the amplifier housed inside the subwoofer measures a total of 220 Watts, 30W going to each of the speakers and 70W to the subwoofer.

First thing I noticed when taking out the speakers were the build quality. While they weren't exactly big, they felt very solid with good closings and very sexy cones and tweeters. The same was true for the 8" subwoofer - the element looked great, and the rear just oozed quality. The centre speaker on the other hand, felt quite cheap due to the obvious plastic look. Every cable needed to hook up the system was also supplied. 5-meter speaker cables for the rear satellites, 2 meter for the fronts. Other supplied cables were a regular stereo phono cable, mini-jack to dual phono cable, S/PDIF RCA digital cable and a serial cable to hook up the centre speaker control unit.

Hooking up the system was a breeze. The manual did a very good job explaining the job, but it really was as straightforward as tying your shoes. I hooked up the audio source to the back of the subwoofer, struck the speaker cables between the subwoofer and speakers, connected the centre speaker control unit using the special supplied serial cable, and of course gave the system some power. That was all there was to it! Next, some fine-tuning. I was pleasantly surprised to see the possibility to individually controlling the volume of each speaker. Accompanying this feature was a test tone, which made it very easy making everything sounding just right. Other features were the option to play a stereo source in 'Hall' or 'Theatre' effect modes. I didn't really see the pleasure in these echo-creating effects, but some might enjoy it.

The maiden voyage

After some fiddling around with the controls and subwoofer placement (a truly important thing to do, I might add), it was time for the first audio test. I fired up Madonna's latest album - and wow! The system sounded damn good, and the subwoofer really gave a good workout even at normal listening levels. Cranking the volume up to louder levels made the system really shine. The satellites featuring Audax cones for the midrange and ferrofluid cooled tweeters sounded excellent, while the 8" subwoofer pushed enough air to keep everyone happy (maybe not my neighbour though).

Moving on to some sweet gaming, the system sounded just as good. Feeding it with everything from the sound of a grenade coming out of the grenade launcher in Quake 3, to the groovy Porsche-engines in NFS4, everything sounded just as good. I was a bit disappointed in the lack of read analog inputs for 4-channel gaming though, but I guess gaming wasn't what VideoLogic had in mind when designing the system. Another thing worth mentioning is the lack of a headphone output. Why can't every computer speaker manufacturer get that right?

The sound of perfection

Next up was the main thing - namely movies. VideoLogic have obviously had DVD-watching in mind when they designed this system, as it fully supports six-channel surround sound through both Dolby Digital and DTS! The system is backwards compatible as well of course, having the possibility to decode Dolby Pro-Logic. If you don't have any clue what I am talking about, don't worry too much - just think of these sound-modes as significant step-ups from normal stereo, as the sound is coming from behind you as well as in front of you (check out Dolby.Com if you want to learn more).

Anyway, as I was saying - time for some movies. I figured I would start with a classic, or a cliché I might say, namely The Matrix. All the way from the beginning, I was struck by the clarity of the voices coming out of the centre speaker. Music, ambient sounds, you name it, everything sounded great. And so it was time for the especially cliché-ish lobby scene. Who-ow! I cranked up the volume even further, and man did it rock! Debris was coming at me from all around me, shots were fired… well, you get it. The subwoofer did its job marvellously as well - the heavy-on-bass soundtrack sounded better than I had ever heard it at home.

During the weeks I had the system, I watched every DVD in my collection - including A Bug's Life, Fight Club, Men in Black, Saving Private Ryan, The World is Not Enough, and the exceptional Oscar-candidate (IMHO, that is) Gladiator. Everything sounded great, with directional sound and stomach-shaking bass. The latter title was especially interesting, as I got to test the DTS feature of the system. I can't say I heard much difference from the Dolby Digital version, but there definitely was a slight improvement. Nothing I would have noticed if I didn't compare the tracks so closely though.

Happy ending?

As you've probably understood, I found this to be one kick-ass speaker system. The sound coming out of these quality speakers is definitely the best I've ever heard from a computer speaker system - ever! And when it comes to power, this system has got it as well - only at very loud (and almost unpleasant) levels did I notice distortion. On the downside, I missed rear analog inputs and a headphone jack. An even more deceptive thing, however, were the rather annoying noise when I used the analog input, but this might be an issue just I had. So the bottom line is, if you are on the lookout for a quality speaker system to suit your movie needs in addition to some music and gaming, this is the one I would have bought!

	+   Exceptional build- and sound quality! +   Bass, bass, BASS! +   Power +   Features		-   No rear analog inputs or headphone jack -   Noise when using analog inputs -   A bit expensive

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