3DsoundSurge Reviews: Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Theater 5.1 DTT2500 Digital


	Mikael Hagén and Mark Muschett offer an in-depth review of Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Theater 5.1 DTT2500 Digital speaker system.

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Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Theater 5.1 DTT2500 Digital
Mikael Hagén and Mark Muschett - November 8, 1999

Installation:

box.jpg (10618 bytes) Cambridge SoundWorks includes detailed and easy to follow instructions. You don't really need to read those since it's very logical installation procedure. The kit comes with 5 satellites, 2 rear, 2 front and one center. The speakers connect to the supplied speaker wire which is a heavier gauge than what comes with the FPS2000 (16 feet long for the rear and 9 feet for the front channels and subwoofer) via standard speaker wire connectors with the other end connecting to the amplifier/decoder box wire via a 1/8^th mini-jack. The amplifier/decoder unit is then connected directly to the AC outlet and also to your soundcard using the supplied DIN cable and/or two supplied dual stereo mini-jack cable. The DIN supplied cable will only work with the full Live or the DIN bracket board you can get for the Live!Value card but newer boxes will also include a cable that can be connected to the new digital out jack that you find on the new Live!Player 1024 (Europe), X-Gamer (US), MP3+(US) and Platinum (both US and Europe). A great advantage of the DIN connection is that you can then use the analog connection to connect to your headphones. You finally connect the SPDIF-out on the card you intend to send the AC-3 stream from to the SPDIF coaxial (RCA) in on the decoder.

The kit includes speaker stands on which you mount the rear speakers. The stands are sturdy and twice the height of the ones that come with the DTT 5.1 and FPS2000 speaker system when they are setup at full height. The speakers sit on top of the stands and are fasted via a clip at a slight angle upwards. The stands can also very easily be setup for two lower heights depending on where you want to place them (or if you want to store them under a desk when not in use). At their maximum height, they are actually higher than my desktop and finally very useful. However they are not still quite to the desired ear level if you sit in a normal sized chair. Despite this the speakers still sound quite good when placed on the stands.

You can of course use your own stands instead and the kit also includes screws and plugs you can use to mount the satellites on a wall. The manual includes several tips for how you can place the rear speakers and all of them assume you will use the system with a computer. The recommended rear speaker placement in the manual follows the high dispersion theory for surround speakers. That is, they recommend placing the rear speakers beside your turned towards your ears rather than behind you facing forward which is what others prefer for Dolby Digital and what most people prefer for gaming (and also the positioning that the rear cross-talk cancellation algorithms with cards that use that technology probably assume). As long as you don’t mount them permanently its easy to change the location depending on what you are using them for at any given time. The bottom line is it will be personal so experiment.

The front satellites can either be set on top of your desk or mounted on the sides of your monitor, while the center speaker can either be put in front of your monitor/TV or on top of it. The best solution is to have all front speakers at the same level and again best if it's at ear level in your normal seated position.

Back to the detailed overview

So on to the performance tests