Took me a week to set up, but now I'm enjoying the speakers
I bought a 5.1 speaker set from Anthony, which he delivered in Cabuyao, Laguna last April 29. He was very friendly, and quite unassuming despite being an accomplished inventor. (Anthony, thanks for being such a nice guy to deal with.
It was my pleasure to meet you.)
Fronts: Tablette 6.5"
Center: Tablette 6.5"
Surrounds: Tablette 5"
Sub: 10" downfiring 160 watts active sub
I upgraded the speakers of my Samsung HT-Z220 home theater in a box. The A-Audio speakers sound great. I am now in the process of breaking them in, so I mostly just play music from the FM tuner, or from my iPod.
REVIEWI bought these speakers for HT use (90%) and maybe 10% music but ironically, I have only used it for music so far. I'll update this post once I am able to watch a few movies.
The most noticeable improvement was in the clarity of the vocals. Lyrics were so easy to discern because the voice comes across as crystal clear. I'm using Dolby Prologic II - Music, hence the vocals are spread across the fronts and center.
Next, I could hear a few instruments that were either absent or very faint in the Z220 speakers. Even compared to my Sennheiser PX100 headphones, using the same mp3 file, the A-Audio speakers delivered more detail. Some instruments (notably percussion) were much more pronounced in the A-Audio.
I also noticed a marked improvement in string intruments, both over the Z220 and PX100. When a guitar is playing for example, I used to hear just the notes being played. But now, for some songs, I can hear the sound of the guitar pick scraping the guitar strings, on top of the notes being produced. Awesome.
The surround effects (again, haven't tried movies yet, only DPLII-Music) are far more pronounced, even at low volumes. Before, I could hardly hear anything from the surround speakers when playing music. Now, it really feels like I am surrounded by music.
If I could sum up my initial impression, I would use the word "clarity". The speakers produce very clear sound even from MP3 and FM sources. I haven't even tried audio CD's yet. Even my parents, who are not particular about sound (they are happy with TV speakers), commented that the sound was very clear. Can't wait to watch my new DVD's with this. Very happy with the purchase
Sorry I can't compare it with major-branded speakers (Wharfdale, JBL, B&W, etc.), because I haven't really owned any. Maybe the other folks here at PDVD can do that. At the start of this thread there was a comparison between A-Audio Clone series vs. major-branded speakers for music, but I haven't seen a comparison between the Tablette series vs. other brands in HT performance.
Now I wonder how these would sound if I replaced my Samsung with an Onkyo 507 or Denon 1610, and better speaker cables (the Z220 uses 22ga cables).
Mada mada...