Desktop Theater 5.1- Mikael Hagén - Last updated 22/9/99

Overview

With the arrival of DVD the interest of DD 5.1 has increased significantly and unlike those who own laser disc players or have a standalone DVD player in the living room, most computer owners doesn't want to spend $1000 on speakers. That's why Cambridge SoundWorks, a wholly owned subsidiary of Creative,  decided to put together a very inexpensive DD 5.1 system targeted at computer buyers, called Desktop Theater 5.1 (DTT 5.1). Featuring 5 watts and a dimension of 2.75" for each of the satellites, 15 watts and a dimension of 3.5" for the center channel and 15 watts for the subwoofer, the DTT 5.1 this system certainly has specs far below what most audiophiles would put in their living room. In this review we will find out if the system offers good sound for games, music and most importantly DVD movies. We will also look at how it compares with the AC-3 down mixing to 4 speakers that most software DVD decoders now supports.

Looking at the specs of other Cambridge SoundWorks components you see that the system falls somewhere between the FPS 1000 (also called FourPoint surround) and the FPS2000. What sets this system apart from the other Cambridge SoundWorks speaker systems is the Decoder Amplifier box that does the AC-3 and Dolby-Prologic decoding. The box offers options for setting the volume of the subwoofer, rear and center speakers in addition the master volume control. This allows you to have significantly louder or weaker sound from the rear and/or center than from the front or even make the rear and/or center speaker completely silent. However, it's not possible to make the front speakers silent without also making the rear and center speaker silent. The box is also used to select one of the several modes these speakers can be in.

The modes that are possible when using the analog connections are Dolby Prologic, Music, Movie, Stereo/FourPoint, left or right channel. The option of only hearing the left or right channel is intended for Video CD discs where the two channels are used as an easy way of having two languages on the same CD. The Stereo/ FourPoint mode makes the speaker work just like Cambridge SoundWorks' FourPoint Surround system. That is, the two front speakers get the input from the soundcards first line out and the two rear speakers from the soundcards second line-out (or whatever you connected to the line-in and rear-in on the Decoder Amplifier box) while the center speaker is silent. If you only have connection to the Line-in you'll only hear sound from the two front satellites in this mode (I've seen other reviews saying it will copy the front sound to the rear channels but that's not true).

While doing the review I came across a post in the newsgroup describing how you can get the center speaker to work even when in selecting FourPoint/Stereo mode. What you need to do is to instantly press the button to get to 4-point mode when you turn it on. If you wait a second or two the center speaker will be silent. I'm not sure if it will work on every DTT 5.1 system but it worked on my set. I would guess the reason Cambridge SoundWorks hasn’t introduced this mode is that they think the music and movie mode produces a better effect for stereo content and when you play 3D sound games you'll lose some of positioning if the center channel just mixes the left and right channels. It's still interesting to try since you may have a different opinion than Cambridge SoundWorks.

The Music and Movie mode uses Creative Multi Speaker Surround (CMSS), a feature that creates a 5.1 speaker surround effect from a stereo signal. When watching movies, CMSS will place the dialog (and all action in the center) in the center channel (or at least most of it). The Movie setting seemed to be slightly better at placing the dialog in the center channel but there is not much of a difference between these modes when playing music, games (stereo ones) or movies.

When using the S/PDIF digital input you have the choice of Dolby Digital (AC-3), Digital Pro-Logic mode and plain stereo. The speaker system will automatically detect if the input is Dolby Digital or Digital Pro-Logic unless you have also activated any of the CMSS modes (and have analog inputs) in which case it seems to be easily confused. If you only have digital input none of the CMSS options will work. You'll only get sound from the two front satellites unless you force use of Digital Prologic in which case the center speaker also will be used and some sound will leak to the rear channels. It's possible to hear both analog sound and digital sound at the same time by switching to FourPoint and use the digital signal for the front and the analog for the rear.

The box also includes a speaker-test button that you can use to make sure you placed the speakers properly and connected them correctly to the box. What the test cannot do is determine if you connected the box correctly to the computer. Finally we have a mute button and of course a power off switch. The only thing I found missing was any sort of balance option or headphone output. Makes you wonder if speaker companies have something against headphones.

So on to the installation and performance tests

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