- The Good: Hard-hitting sound enhances gaming experience. Sound effects really come to life. Easy to set up and configure. Wired controller can make all the adjustments. Truly made for the PC and gaming enthusiast.
- The Bad: Sound quality is sometimes questionable with music. Doesn't have enough options for televisions. Would have been nice to see better support for game consoles.
- The Verdict: Great sound for gamers but not for anyone else.
REVIEW:
Despite the time and money it takes to make your living room the home theatre experience you're hoping for, there are those who prefer to have that kind of setup for their PC.
Consider those who watch just about all their content on their PCs because it's simply convenient to connect everything to the monitor and makes for a nice viewing experience in tighter quarters. Surround-sound for the PC gamer is arguably a two-edged sword because the best sound card is only as good as the speakers connected to it and the margin for error is possibly even smaller than it is for home theatre systems.
At a price point of $300, Creative Labs' GigaWorks ProGamer G500 surround-sound system looks a little too good to be true. As expected, it's THX-certified 5.1 sound quality. The 310 watts of power comes from the eight-inch subwoofer that distributes it to the five satellite speakers, each of which contains three-inch full-range drivers.
So what does all this mean?
Well, the setup is pretty straightforward, so you won't have too much of a problem getting the G500 in gear. A wired controller also comes with the unit, and it proves to be instrumental in getting just the right sound for the right circumstances. Five LEDs on the controller provide you with a visual on what each speaker is doing, so if you want to change the level of the rear or even mid-tone speakers, you can do so easily via the controller.
Hooking up the G500 is very much an exercise in plugging and playing, since the plugs are easily distinguishable. After all is said and done, the only outlet that remains untouched is the auxiliary input that allows you to connect other audio devices like MP3 players and even a video game console (thanks to the two-pronged adapter that comes with the unit).
Once you're up and running, you get the chance to play around with the sounds and see how the G500 stacks up. Using a sound card provided by Creative, I was able to get good sound right off the bat, although the default level for treble was unusually low. Playing treble-laden Arabic and Latin music showcased the weakness in the initial level of treble, but that was easily solved with the wired controller.
Music with heavier bass like hip hop and certain 80s tracks had better results, though some adjustments had to be made there to offset this strange tingling sound that seemed to embed itself within the music.
This came across as very strange given the amount of power thrown into the entire unit because for speakers of this size and scope, the necessary precautions should've been there to ensure a strong and clear sound without unusual distortion. The power involved is obvious because by just moving the volume dial to the halfway point, you will easily shake your desk — along with possibly everything else in the room.
But the best way to make an audio splash with the G500 is by putting in a PC game. I used both Call of Duty 2 and Age of Empires III as my guinea pigs, and the results were so impressive that I honestly believed I had made a wrong connection of some sort when I originally set up the speakers.
The G500 suddenly found its mark and performed very well. The war-torn chaos of Call of Duty 2 was truly augmented by how the speakers brought the sounds to life. As a test, I put the volume to the halfway mark and opened the window to see how far the sound would travel. I let the demo and trailer run, walked outside the house and found there to be an eerie feeling that a war was going on somewhere in the distance, almost like the real thing. The dead giveaway was the music, but turning that off makes it that much more realistic.
The music takes a little hit based on the same issues that affected the MP3s and CDs I tested earlier, but it's not necessarily something that hinders the gaming experience because of the sound effects.
Age of Empires III, being far less hectic than CoD 2, also performed well, despite the fact that the music is much more noticeable. The large battles that take place in that game really come alive in a way that would be impossible to replicate with conventional stereo speakers.
The same is more or less true for game consoles, except that it would require you to play on your computer monitor. The G500 doesn't sync well with televisions, which is hardly surprising given that it was never really designed for that in the first place.
Though it's strange to see the G500 struggle a bit with standalone music, it stays very true to its namesake — ProGamer. This is the type of audio setup that a serious and dedicated gamer would consider because of what it means to their overall experience. But to give it a try as a speaker system for any other purpose is risky because of how shaky it is with music and its limited functionality with anything other than a PC.
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