Introduction
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| BA-4800 Boxshot |
Boston Acoustics is a longtime maker of quality home theater and home audio speakers, which gives them somewhat of advantage in the multimedia/computer speaker market thanks to their long time experience with speaker equipment in general. Ive had the privilege of having reviewed, quite extensively, nearly every multimedia speaker set that Boston Acoustics has come out with thus far (all except for their exclusive Gateway speakers), and all have turned out to be good speakers. In fact, the BA635s, a diminutive entry level set that simply blew me away during my testing, still remains one of my personal all time favorite multimedia speakers, with some of the most beautiful musical reproduction within the price range of normal PC speakers ($50-$250). In knowing the good track record of the company first had, it was with some excitement that I began my testing of the new 4.1 set from Boston Acoustics the BA4800s.
The BA4800 speaker set consists of 4 satellites and a single, jumbo subwoofer. I noticed that the entire setup was almost certainly derived from earlier speakers made by Boston Acoustics the satellites looked nearly identical to all the other satellites that Boston Acoustics has cranked out in the past
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| BA-4800 Set |
(the MicroMedia satellites are almost twin to the BA4800 satellites), and the subwoofer is almost a twin to the woofer that comes with BAs higher end MediaTheater speakers. Each of the 4 satellites almost certainly sports the exact same 2.5 driver, housed in identical solid plastic enclosures and protected by elegant gray metal grilles, yet two are designed for use as rear speakers, and the other two are designed as front speakers, by nature of their connectors at the back of each enclosure. The rear speakers are permanently connected to 20-foot long cables that end in industry standard RCA jacks. The front speakers are a little different the leftmost speaker jacks into the rightmost speaker using a 1/8 jack. The right speaker connects to the subwoofer via a thick DIN cable, which also allows the right satellite to transmit its operation commands, since the command module is mounted on this satellite.
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| Speaker Controls |
The speaker controls are fairly basic, with volume, surround, and bass knobs all seated within easy reach of the user. The volume control also doubles as a power switch, but this isnt as cool as a dedicated power switch because it means you have to displace your volume settings every time you turn the speakers off. Design wise, some may criticize the BA4800s because the front speakers and rear speakers are identical, but I see this as no problem, since it ensures that all speakers are tonally matched, allowing a more transparent front and rear soundstage which form a more uniform sound environment. This type of tone matching is especially important in movies and games where front to rear pans become a seamless experience, rather than a disjointed transition between two pairs of mismatched satellites.
