This new offering from Guillemot appears under the Thrustmaster banner, and is aimed specifically at the console gamers and home cinema buffs.
Guillemot brought us the Hercules XPS-210 and XPS-510 speaker sets, and represented great value for money with a sub-$200 price tag, considering the quality of the sound. This new offering from Guillemot appears under the Thrustmaster banner, and is aimed specifically at the console gamers and home cinema buffs.
Bearing an uncanny resemblance to the XPS-510 Hercules speakers (in fact, the packaging does bear the Hercules logo), the Thrustmaster 5.1 sound system is equipped with an external control unit, which contains a full Dolby Digital AC3 decoder, and supports Dolby Digital, Dolby Surround, Dolby Pro Logic and Pro Logic II. Also present in this control unit are both S/PDIF optical and coaxial digital inputs, as well as RCA analog inputs. There is no direct connectivity for PC sound cards, however. Such connections are possible, through the use of various non-supplied adaptors, but as Guillemot point out, these speakers are not aimed at PC users.
Setup was straightforward, with a G9 connection from the control unit to the subwoofer. The control unit automatically detects the presence of various sound signal types. There are no real equaliser controls, except for the bass levels on the subwoofer, which we needed to max out. Also supplied is a remote control, allowing for the volume control of each speaker, and the standard system controls.
The sound quality was great, as were the original XPS range. The high tones are clear but not harsh, and mid-tones were full of depth. We did notice, however, that the bass didn’t seem to pack the punch we were expecting. Even when watching the opening sequence to Armageddon on DVD, while the full 5.1 positional audio was convincing and ‘cinematic’ in atmosphere, the rich rumblings of a decent bass sound were lacking.
A different experience was to be had when jumping into some hard and fast GameCube action – the speakers provided some of the best sounding console gaming we have experienced for a system in this price range.
This speaker system is a great offering from Guillemot, and at a reasonable price to boot.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012