We rave about their gear so much, we must sound like a bunch of Creative fan boys. But they continuously surprise us with new releases so we can't help but gush.
The new i-trigue L3500's are a redesign of the i-Trigues reviewed a few months ago, creating an audio experience which changes the way we look at 2.1 speakers.
The satellites, are 9W RMS each, house two titanium 1" drivers on the front, and a 1" paper cone driver on the side. Both have their own amplifiers, which throw a wider and deeper field of sound than ever before. The effect was astounding, leaving us wondering why it's taken so long to bring this level of audio to the desktop.
To test sound quality, we pumped out a few audio tracks, from hard rock to classical, encoded at 128, 160, and 192KB/s. High tones were clear and detailed, the mid tones rich, smooth and the bass was full and responsive, creating an overall paunchiness which left us grinning. The powerful and rumbling bass is delivered courtesy of a 30W RMS subwoofer, featuring a side throw driver and flared port in front.
There are no controls on the speakers. All operations are through the wired remote, including power and volume. This remote also sports both an auxiliary line-in and headphone socket, as well as a bass level control. Go easy on the bass and volume, however, as pumping it too far will see objects vibrating off desk, neighbours yelling across the fence, and dogs soiling themselves under your bed.
The other new feature is the introduction of the M-Port, which allows your Creative portable audio player, such as a NOMAD, to connect directly to the speaker system, for audio streaming. It will be interesting to see if this inclusion proves popular.
The downside here is the cost. Don't get us wrong, these are great speakers, but $349 is a lot of money for a 2.1 system. This is one of those occasions, however, where you pay for what you get. And you do get something special here.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012