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In
Use:::...
Physically
installing the speakers was a simple affair unless you need
to use one of the drooping brackets.
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Wall
Mounted
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Switching
them on was an experience in itself. After checking all
the connections I'd pretty much decided this was the worst
sounding set of speakers on God's fair planet. So bad in
fact that I couldn't believe any company would have the
nerve to try and sell them.
It
was then I had a Eureka moment and decided to swap the sub
and centre channel wires around. The transformation was
incredible. I don't know if it's a product-wide problem
or if, as so often happens, I was struck with the family
curse that led to my great grandfather confessing to eleven
rapes and fifteen murders on his deathbead before making
a full recovery. Either way, the channels were the wrong
way around, either on the speakers or on my DVD player,
and the latter seems unlikely, though not impossible to
be fair.
Placing
the speakers requires a certain ammount of care and a reasonably
sized dollop of trial and error. Unlike some speaker kits,
the sub has to be placed where you can see it in order for
the remote to access it. This limits your control over things
like corner loading or hiding it out of site.
The
speaker wires for the rear channels was also a touch on
the short side but I was testing in quite a large room.
Once
positioned I fired up the first few DVDs, which should you
care were Blade2, Ai and The Matrix and settled back to
form an opinion.
My
first thoughts were that the overall volume on offer was
surprisingly good. The flipside to this was that as the
volume increased, so the bass got less and less refined
becoming quite loose and boomy. In fact it had to be dialled
out quite significantly at higher listening levels, though
it maintained enough of a presence to still be quite impressive.
The
impression is that the satellites scale far better than
the bass does, and if the bass could be programmed to increase,
say 30% for every 50% increase in satellite volume it would
probably give a far more favourable impression.
After
I'd listened to a variety of film genres, music, games and
the like I was left with mixed feelings. Midrange and lower
midrange frequencies were quite weak but could be coaxed
back to life with a little bass level tweaking and moving
of speakers. Unfortunately it seemed just as you got it
right for one particular movie or music track another came
along and made it sound lacking again. Tweaking was all
the more difficult because the remote and on-sub buttons
seemed to increase and decrease levels in quite coarse steps.
Not a problem for just whacking up and down the volume but
a pain if you want bass levels just so.
Also
hindering the whole sound quality tuning process was the
lack of volume control over individual channels. If your
hardware doesn't let you boost or tone down the front, center
or surround channels then you basically get what you're
given.
Gaming
was good because the volume was good and, generally speaking,
games can get away slightly poorer quality bass than music,
though in-game music obviously suffers the same fete.
The
satellites weren't as directional as I imagined they'd be,
and having the two drivers able to face in different directions
lets you do a lot of fiddling and twiddling to get a more
room-filling sound and wider or less fragmented sound stage.
By
look or by design there were no buzzing or rattling cables
in either the sub or the satellites which is always nice
from budget speakers, which tend not to have things battened
down as well as more expensive setups do.
Conclusion
The
3DVelocity 'Dual Conclusions Concept' Explained: After discussing
this concept with users as well as companies and vendors
we work with, 3DVelocity have decided that where necessary
we shall aim to introduce our 'Dual Conclusions Concept'
to sum up our thoughts and impressions on the hardware we
review. As the needs of the more experienced users and enthusiasts
have increased, it has become more difficult to factor in
all the aspects that such a user would find important, while
also being fair to products that may lack these high end
"bonus" capabilities but which still represent
a very good buy for the more traditional and more prevalent
mainstream user. The two catergories we've used are:
The
Mainstream User ~ The mainstream user is likely to put
price, stock performance, value for money, reliability and/or
warranty terms ahead of the need for hardware that operates
beyond its design specifications. The mainstream user may
be a PC novice or may be an experienced user, however their
needs are clearly very different to those of the enthusiast,
in that they want to buy products that operate efficiently
and reliably within their advertised parameters.
The
Enthusiast ~ The enthusiast cares about all the things
that the mainstream user cares about but is more likely
to accept a weakness in one or more of these things in exchange
for some measure of performance or functionality beyond
its design brief. For example, a high priced motherboard
may be tolerated in exchange for unusually high levels of
overclocking ability or alternatively an unusually large
heat sink with a very poor fixing mechanism may be considered
acceptable if it offers significantly superior cooling in
return.
The
Mainstream User ~
If
you want to experience the joys of your first home theater
setup but don't want to blow a small fortune until you're
sure it's for you, then these are great. Plus, if you decide
it's not worth paying for a top-spec system, you've still
got yourself a perfectly capable system that vastly outperforms
the stereo speakers in your TV.
Great
volume, good design and, with care, good quality make these
a great way to enjoy the thrills of 5.1 home cinema sound,
but remember that unless your hardware is 5.1 capable, and
has three discrete outputs for front, surround and bass/center,
then you're limited to just stereo output as there's no
upmixing option.
At
the price you get a lot of sound for your pound, just accept
that you may need to take a little time getting all that
sound to behave how you'd like it too, and don't be afraid
to cut down some of that bass. It seems counterintuitive
but the improvements are considerable.
Plenty
of power, not enough poise, but for the money, hard to find
something that competes. In a world where everything is
relative, how highly you regard the sound quality from these
speakers will almost certainly depend on what you're using
now.
The
Enthusiast ~
Wayward
bass, no independant channel control and no optical input
are just two of the limiting factors that make the HT5800Rs
a less than stellar choice for demanding use.
They
are perfectly capable of reasonably good quality sound and
very good volume levels, but provided you know and can accept
the limitations or have a budget that simply won't stretch
any further you could do a lot worse.
It's
quantity over quality all the way but there's no denying
that with ten satellite drivers, a wooden cabinet subwoofer,
plus a remote control, you get a lot of speaker for your
money.
If
you seriously expect a champage lifestyle on beer money
forget it. If you want beer and lots of it these are worth
considering.
We're
always looking for ways to make our reviews fairer. A Right
To Reply gives the manufacturer or supplier of the product
being reviewed a chance to make public comments on what
we've said. They can explain perhaps why they've done the
things we were unhappy with or blow their own trumpet over
the things we loved. It's easy for us to pick a product
apart but sometimes things are done a certain way for very
specific reasons.
Should
Mercury decide to exercise their "Right To Reply",
we'll publish their comments below:
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