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What
you get:::...
Despite
not being made out of the thickest card money can buy, the
speakers are well protected and nicely packed inside. All
the important information is there to be seen, including,
right on the front, a thoroughly misleading PMPO rating
of 6200watts!
PMPO
is NOT an official rating and is worthless in that
it doesn't actually exist outside of the marketing departments,
and I strongly urge Mercury to remove this ridiculous figure
from there packaging if it wants any respect from those
who know better.
In
its defense it does then go on to quote some more realistic
ratings of 15 watts RMS per satellite and 25 watts RMS for
the Subwoofer, though in smaller text.
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The
Subwoofer
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Well,
if retro is back these should fit the bill nicely. The faux
wood effect is actually not entirely faux as all the speaker
cabinets are indeed made from wood. They're then laminated
to make the wood seem more expensive than it is.
I can see this look working well in a living room but I'm
not sure if they'd go with my PC. Maybe I'd need to live
with them for a while after coming from matt black enclosures
and aluminium stands. Perhaps it's an acquired taste? Or
perhaps I just have no taste?
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The
System
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The
satellites have a removable front grill behind which hides
a rather ordinary looking cone. No separate tweeters or
fancy phase plugs here, but that wasn't really on the cards
anyway (refer to price).
Each
satellite sits on four rubber feet and there's no quick
option for wall-mounting them. I didn't photograph the satellite
as it's simply a double-wide cabinet with two of these cones
sat side-by-side.
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Satellite
- Grill Removed
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There
are two magnets per satellite. The one on the end is reversed
in comparison to the one driving the speaker, thus reducing
its magnetic field. In layman's terms, the satellites are
shielded and should be okay sited reasonably close to your
CRT monitor. According to the sticker, these 6 ohm cones
are rated to 8 Watts, less than the 15 Watts RMS quoted
on the box though not by so much it becomes unreasonable
if they're treated well by the amp. They are however perfectly
in keeping with the 8 Watts RMS quoted on Kobian's website??
Confused yet? I am!
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Satellite
Cone
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Inside
the cabinet we can see the MDF (or is that chipboard) and
resin glue construction. The walls are quite thin and the
speaker would certainly benefit from some sound-deadening
wadding inside the cavity.
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Satellite
Construction
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Wood
at this price is pretty impressive with the profusion of
plastic around lately, and on the whole the satellites are
nicely put together and quite stylish, though the lack of
wadding is almost certain to colour the sound to some degree.
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