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Gaming

Gaming really takes a toll on speakers, it's like a more abusive form of the movie test. I selected a few titles that have hit the market recently for the test. Lets skip the rest of the details and see how well the speakers handle them.

Need for Speed: Underground

Need for Speed: Underground brings a lot to the table, you have environment effects, car sounds, traffic and a really intense soundtrack and a big THX certified screen that welcomes you in. While I'm sure everyone thought that there would be no THX title in all of this I managed to sneak the curveball in. The testing went through everything the game had to offer for racing modes. Sound to max pedal to the floor I put the MX5021 through everything the game could lay down, cars swapping paint, near misses with trains, punching the NOS to break away from the pack it was all vibrant and well experienced. I found the MX5021 to do very well under the conditions even when I rolled the car numerous times or drilled the life out of cars coming too hot into corners at 160+ mph. THX certification really showed here as the sounds weren't cluttered and the drivers appeared to be under stress but not to the extent where it would distort the sound field overall. I do have to warn that the soundtrack is a bit too high in the volume setting when initially playing. I backed things down a bit so the sound was much clearer.

Painkiller

Painkiller is a new entry on the market, the MX5021 was able to do its job and then some, when going into levels such as the asylum sounds were all too well reproduced with crys and ambient room effects constantly haunting the background. Freakish yes? I found it to be on par with using a set of headphones especially when trying it out at night. The speakers in this setting suffer from one classic item though, with high treble there is a bit of hiss, the reason it wasn't noticed in the other test items was due to the amount of use that the drivers were under. While the hiss isn't high pitched, it can be tuned out using a hardware equalizer and midrange treble settings instead of higher levels. The 3D soundfield is produced quite well I love the way that the music and the chaos blend so well when things really get moving. The speakers deliver a good atmosphere to compliment the game; without the hiss it would have gone off without a hitch.

Unreal Tournament 2004

If chaos has a name it would be Unreal Tournament, I can't think of a time that this game ever really settles down at all especially when using instant action and a room full of bots. With this said we open up the bottle of mayhem and pour out the nonstop gunfire, explosions and taunts of the UT world. Starting out in deathmatch the settings are turned to EAX+3D Audio. Map after map the landscape is destroyed as missles, rounds and bodies collide with the ground. Pure chaos? Yeah and you can hear and feel it with hard work from the sub and satellites working together to bring a full soundfield around the gamer. Miniguns, Flak Cannons, Rocket Launchers or even the Redemeer had no problems making their contact sounds known to all. The speakers do a great job to work with the EAX and put out a solid environment out of only 2 satelites.