Cooler Xtreme : Audio
/ Sound : Boston Accoustics BA4800
Boston Accoustics BA4800
Audio Quality
If you’ve never played games
using a 4.1 speaker setup before, you’re in for a real treat. The BA4800’s
do an excellent job of projecting an enveloping soundfield for a very immersive
gaming experience. In several titles, the sheer surround effect was so mesmerizing,
I spent a lot of time just running through each game and enjoying the experience.
The rear speakers definitely made a big difference in positioning sound
cues compared to 2 speaker A3D or EAX(1.0 or 2.0) setups. Everything came
out lively and crisp. Machine gun fire was tight and realistic, explosions
had nice impact, spent shells hit the floor and reverberated with renewed
clarity – it was all very exhilarating. At some points, I could so clearly
hear the enemies in several games that I could place their position by sound
alone. And cranking the games up to blistering volumes was NOT a problem
– the speakers gave as good a performance at ludicrous volumes as they did
at more humble rumbles. I haven’t had the opportunity to test surround speakers
from competitors yet (this will be remedied over the coming weeks), so I
had no reference to make comparisons, but I was very, very impressed with
the gaming performance of this surround speaker set.
In music, the speakers did not
disappoint. Music came through nice and clear, with excellent stereo separation
making individual instruments audible even in complicated group sequences.
The soundstage was solid, Front Speakers and vocal localization was superb…
it was so good that you could swear the vocalists were standing there right
where they should be - at center stage. Throughout the material that I used
with the speakers, I found that the overall balance of the sound was excellent,
though I did also notice that the speakers were not perfectly transparent,
and sometimes this affected the perceived soundstage in some material. The
bass was at once satisfying and a little narrow in its representation, I
would almost say it sounded ponderous and not a little biased towards the
less difficult low-end frequencies. Some of the material I tested had some
significant low-end bass, like really deep rumble, and the subwoofer didn’t
do too much for this type of material – it just couldn’t keep up with the
really heavy duty, deep end rumbles. For more upbeat type songs, I found
the woofer to crank out energetic and infectious bass for a very high-powered
reproduction.
One rear satelite The satellites
themselves gave off an impressive performance. Instruments sounded realistic
and nicely reproduced, though I detected less detail than on speakers like
the famous MidiLand S2 4100s, or even the revered BA635s. This is probably
something that could not be helped, since the BA4800 satellites use single
2.5” drivers, rather than a split midrange/tweater arrangement. Boston Acoustics’
earlier MicroMedia speakers, which I mentioned earlier, also had a similar
sort of problem – in fact, both the MicroMedia and BA4800s feature similar
drivers. The only major disappointment in the music tests was the slightly
narrow sound stage – it’s not necessarily a big thing, but a wide soundstage
has a great “wow” factor and makes music seem even more “in your face”.
Even with this complaint, I spent many hours listening to music through
the speakers, and I found them to be very excellent companions for just
about any type of music you may want to throw at them. If you are a music
buff, I would wager that these speakers will be a satisfactory main system
for your computer.
