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FPS2000 Digital Speakers Manufactured by Cambridge
SoundWorks
Review by
Nirudha
Perera
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Introduction
When home computing began, with the likes of the Sinclair Spectrum and the Commodore 64, computer sound meant a tiny speaker hidden away inside the computer. There wasn’t much change in this with the advent of the IBM PC, either. I can recall some of the very first VGA games like Mean Streets, which came with diagrams of how to take the wires going into the tiny PC speaker, pass it through a capacitor and hook it to your amplifier. In contrast, now we have sound cards like the Creative Labs SB Live! which pack the processing power of a Pentium 90. This sort of computational power is pretty much wasted on the tiny non-powered speakers that ship with most computers. Even the better 3-piece speakers can’t really make much use of the new generation of sound cards. While they do give pretty decent sound quality, they do not provide the immersive acoustic environment demanded by the latest games. If you want to play games with your PC, then you must move with the biggest trend in the industry… 3D!
The
recreation of sound positioned in 3D space is of course best served through
the use of headphones. Since we have two ears, it would make sense that
two sound sources catering to them should trick us into believing the sound
comes from just about anywhere. This is probably the best way to have a
multiplayer Half-Life session, no doubt. But what if you’re playing alone
or with just a couple of spectators? Headphones will never give the booming
and quite palpable bass kicks of a good subwoofer under your desk! Quite
often, the most enjoyable way to race around the countryside -in NFS: High
Stakes, for example- is to have a subwoofer plus satellite setup. And if
you want to position that sound ahead of and behind you as well as to your
left and right, you need four satellite speakers. Positioning of sounds
above and under you is attempted by both the Live! and the Diamond MX300,
with some degree of success by using complex “psycho acoustic” filters.
The first generation of these “four point” speaker systems tended to be
a tad bit underpowered. To address that and to ensure people have good
reason to buy their sound cards, Creative Labs have released the Cambridge
SoundWorks FPS 2000. Let’s take a closer look and see how far PC
audio has come and how effective the FPS 2000 is in delivering gaming bliss!
| Table of contents | |
| Introduction | In Use |
| Specifications & System Requirements | Pros & Cons |
| Contents & Assembly | Conclusion |
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