Review: Creative Gigaworks T3 2.1 Speakers

<p style="text-align: center;"><img class="size-full wp-image-3351 aligncenter" title="skitched-20091006-131339" src="http://www.mactalk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/skitched-20091006-131339.jpg" alt="skitched-20091006-131339" width="275" height="160" /></p>

Ahh, Creative Labs. I remember you and I had a fond relationship back in the 90s. I was rocking out with an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_AWE32">AWE32</a>, then a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_Live!">Sound Blaster Live!</a> - then I bought a Mac and didn't really care what you were up to until a set of your speakers arrived in the MacTalk Cave. <a href="http://au.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=4&amp;subcategory=789&amp;pro duct=18043&amp;utm_source=au.creative.com&amp;utm_ medium=Banner&amp;utm_content=FeaturePg_GigaWorksT 3ProductInfo&amp;utm_campaign=FeaturePage">Creativ e's Gigaworks T3</a> is a 2.1 set of speakers (the 2 meaning two satellite/smaller speakers and the .1 being the subwoofer), designed to plug into a computer, or other consumer devices. I'm no audiophile and don't really know anything about audio except that audio means sound and sound is what my ears like - so this will be a fun review, won't it?

Here's what they look like:
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3346" title="IMG_0100_a" src="http://www.mactalk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_0100_a.jpg" alt="IMG_0100_a" width="600" height="400" />

There's a big arse subwoofer, which is where everything plugs into, two little speakers on stands with long cables that will be responsible for most of the sound and an outboard volume dial with a headphone output and aux input.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3347" title="IMG_0104_a" src="http://www.mactalk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_0104_a.jpg" alt="IMG_0104_a" width="600" height="400" />

Here's the back of the subwoofer. I have no idea what SLAM is, but it stands for <em>"Symmetrically Loaded Acoustic Module"</em> - just what I need.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3348" title="IMG_0106_a" src="http://www.mactalk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_0106_a.jpg" alt="IMG_0106_a" width="600" height="400" />

Here's the remote unit/volume control. It suffers from giant blue LED syndrome. Stick something over it. The dial is smooth, but it's hard to tell where it is in relation to how loud the speaker is set. There's no markings or numbers, so the speaker could be set to 10/10 volume and you can't tell because the dial has no markings. The headphone output is a nice touch, but even nicer is the aux input. No need to reach around the back of the computer to plug in something temporary.

Enough on how they look, how do they sound? Well, they sound good. I think they're good anyways. You may not. It's like how one man enjoys a pair of big breasts on a woman and another might seek a big arse - audio quality varies depending on personal taste. I quite enjoyed the sound of these speakers, as it played back my some of my favourites <em>(started off with some Dr. Dre, then moved to Interpol and some Queens of the Stone Age, then popped some pills to Soulwax and the Bag Raiders, after which, I had a come down and sliced my wrists to Portishead and the Arcade Fire)</em> with ease.

The only adjectives I can come up with to describe these speakers are solid and good. They don't sound horrible, but they don't sound amazing either. They have a street price of around $260 (use our friend <a href="http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=gigaworks+t3&amp;spos=3">staticice</a> okay), which I guess is decent, considering that if you want a step up, you'd need to spend about $500 for an entry level stereo amp &amp; bookshelf speaker package - but that said, I don't know how they stack up to competition like Edifier or Logitech for the same $200-$300 price range. But if you do purchase them, I doubt they will disappoint.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3349" title="IMG_0107_a" src="http://www.mactalk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_0107_a.jpg" alt="IMG_0107_a" width="600" height="596" />

<em>Cheers to Rob at <a href="http://www.mmt.com.au">Multimedia Technology</a> for this review unit - sorry for taking so long to post the review mate!</em>