Get More For Your Money (Soundman S-20)

Member Name: its-up-2-you

Product:	Soundman S-20
Date:	24/10/01 (147 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Sound

Disadvantages: Only 2 Sats, but what do you expect?

Unless you have a 3D sound card that needs surround sound speakers to get the most out of them, then I would generally say that these speakers would be perfect for you! I only got them a couple of days ago and I already have fallen in love with them.

On my old set of speakers I somehow managed to blow the subwoofer (too much bass and too loud), which left me with a very weird sound coming from them. Also they never sounded all that good because they seemed to be some Japanese imported set. So on Saturday I decided to go out to Argos and buy myself a new set of speakers.

In the position I was in basically any set of speakers would have done just fine, but I ended up picking these ones. Main reasons being that these and their bigger brother were the only ones that Argos sold and also I was only get a set with a subwoofer. I was also on a pretty tight budget and had recently won £30 Argos vouchers (my reason for choosing Argos), so for an extra £10 I decided to get these.

I wasn’t expecting a massive improvement in these speakers over my last set mainly because I didn’t think £40 would get me that. I was however very highly surprised, these speakers produce a very nice sound, when used with the right sound card and software. I used it with my ageing SoundBlaster PCI 128, and they work surprisingly well. There are also some very nifty features that come with these speakers.

Firstly there is the remote control, which can really help if you suffering from low desk space. This enabled me to place the subwoofer on the floor (doesn’t make an awful lot of difference to the sound), which even though isn’t all that big it saves a lot of space. It also means there aren’t as many leads cluttering up my desk space. The remote control also acts as the on/off switch for the speakers, which I find very handy. One thing I would have like would have been some way to attach the remote control to the desk. If only they ha
d provided me with some double sided sticky tape, would have saved me needing to go out and buy some myself.

Most of the time when I am writing opinions and reading your opinions I like to use my headset for listening to music, because I spend most time writing late at night and I don’t want to wake my whole house up. For this the remote control comes with a very handy headphones output, which has meant that I don’t need to put the lead into the back of the soundcard. This is very handy when I also use the speakers during the day and I don’t need to keep changing the lead in the back of my soundcard.

These speakers aren’t all about the features though they produce a very nice sound (can’t think of a better way to describe it). This has meant that anytime I want to listen to a CD I usually do so through my PC (it’s hardly ever switched off anyway). I also have a large selection of music stored on my PC that I have ripped into mp3’s from CD’s that I have, so it is also very handy to have a good set of speakers to listen to them with.

I wouldn’t advise these speakers though to anyone who is looking to use it for things like gaming and watching movies. For something like this I would go for something like the Creative SoundLabs home theatre speakers and also getting a better soundcard, but if you have a sound that doesn’t support things like 3D surround sound, then these will probably be your best choice.

Personally I love these speakers. They do everything I ask of them and more, much more. Although if I was to upgrade my Sound card I might consider going for something slightly dearer. If you are on a tight budget like me, these are just perfect and do the job well. Well-done Logitech.

David

Summary: