Microlab 2.1 Multimedia Speakers - Articles / Reviews

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Microlab 2.1 Multimedia Speakers

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Kurtis Kronk
Brian
Xoxide
Jun. 8, 2003

The Box

Surprisingly, when I received these speakers, they arrived at my door in the Microlabs package without being packed in the standard brown box with peanuts. The box was left on my doorstep per my request, since I was out at the time. This could be a problem if you have some shady neighbors who would take interest in some new speakers. I would like to see Xoxide start packing these speakers in a box instead of sending the item in its retail box. Anyways, not a huge deal, let's open this box...

When you open the box, the first thing you will see is the Sub and the Satellites. Once you remove these items you will find the instruction manual and the cables needed to enjoy these speakers. The satellites are pretty stylish, with a a wavy front and a modern color theme. The sub is decent looking, it could look better, but it goes under the desk anyways. Let's take a closer look at this system...

Taking a Closer Look

If you look at the backside of the satellites you will see the wire connections, a removable stand, and a hole for them to be mounted on a wall. You can also take off the front cover on the satellites just by pulling them off. They look much better with the front cover on though, so don't take it off, or else! Taking a closer look at the sub, you will notice 3 adjustable knobs on the front: Volume, Treble, and Bass. As you can imagine, the Volume knob controls the overall volume of the speakers, but it does not click off when on low, which would be nice. Also on the front of the sub is a power indicator LED that glows green when the speakers are on. When you look at the back of the sub you will notice that there is an Audio Input plug (cable goes from computer's sound card to the Audio Input), an On/Off switch, and the Audio Output (cables go from Audio Output to Satellites). Something that would have been nice is if Microlab had placed the power switch on the front of the sub with the volume/treble/bass knobs, with a nice, stylish button. Let's take a look inside these speakers... It also would be convenient if the volume control was on one of the satellites instead of on the sub, but I personally don't really mind that, I just leave the volume on high anyway.

When I opened up the satellite speakers I found nothing but a hollow plastic mold, and of course the speaker. Nothing special about the satellites, let's take a look at the sub. When I opened the sub, I found that the entire box was made of wood, yay! Also inside the sub is the built-in amp. The quality of construction on the sub isn't anything amazing, but nothing horrible. Blah blah blah... time to test these bad boys!

Testing

To test these speakers I played a wide variety of mp3s, games, and DVDs, some of which can be seen below:

MP3s:
Beethoven - Flight of the Bumble Bee
Beethoven - Fur Elise
Blade - Rave Scene
Craig David - Fill me in
Disturbed - Down With the Sickness
Elvis Crespo - Suavemente
Evanescence - Bring me to Life
George Acosta - Diving Faces
George Acosta - Angel Falls
George Acosta - Taking Over Space
J. Lo - Waiting For Tonight
Karl Orff - Carmina Burana O Fortuna
Mozart - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Nas (ft. P. Diddy) - Hate me Now
Nintendo - Donkey Kong Country Remix
Nintendo - MegaMan Theme Remix
Olga Tañon - Hielo y Fuego
Papa Roach - Last Resort
Ramstein - Du Hast
Tatu - All the Things she Said
Tupac - Thugz Mansion Remix

DVDs:
The Matrix
Saving Private Ryan

Games:
Counter-Strike
BattleField1942

When I first hooked up the speakers, I immediately started playing some George Acosta and the sound was decent, but the bass was a little weak. The sound quality of these speakers is nothing spectacular, but I was quite impressed at the quality of sound coming from these $35.00 speakers. When testing songs such as "Bring me to Life," I noticed that the sub is quite weak in bass-intensive songs. In songs like "Rave Scene" from the Blade soundtrack, the bass sounds acceptable, it could be deeper, but it sounds okay. However, if you turn the volume up, you will notice that the bass is quite weak, it doesn't have much power at all. The speakers perform well with all types of music if the volume is low, but only sound good turned up with soft music.

To further test the speakers I rented Saving Private Ryan and The Matrix. In Saving Private Ryan, I watched the opening scene to test the sound. The bullets zipping by sounded great and the water splashing sounded great as well, but the mortars exploding sounded weak and didn't really excite me. I was still able to enjoy the scene, but I would really like the speakers a lot more if the bass was stronger. To test The Matrix I watched the lobby scene. I wasn't impressed at all, the low tones were non-existant, and the mid and highs were even a little weak. Overall, these speakers were okay for movies, but just didn't perform well in the mid to low range.

I also tested these speakers in Counter-Strike and BattleField1942. The sound in Counter-Strike was great, gun shots make your toes tingle, and the ambient sound is clear. Again, if you turn up the volume too high, the sound will lose quality. When testing in BattleField1942, the sound of tanks and bombs dropping around you brings the game to life, but sort of a dull life. With each bomb that is dropped comes a little tremble of bass, since that is really all the sub is capable of. These speakers are okay for music, and and perform decently for gaming. Below are some pictures of the speakers all setup.

Conclusion

Overall this is a pretty good set of speakers, and a good value at only $35.00 from Xoxide.com . If you are looking for top-of-the-line speakers, keep looking. But if you are looking for a decent set of speakers that won't put a huge dent in your pocket book and still sound pretty good, I recommend these speakers.

Pros

Good value
Volume / Bass / Treble Controls
Wood subwoofer housing
Magnetically shielded
Stylish Design

Cons

Weak bass
Power switch on back of sub
No volume control on satellites

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24 User Comments

1 - Posted by Shady1 on June 8, 2003 - 2:30 pm

Ok kurtis, i'm posting. :mrgreen: This is chad btw. (was in your java class)

Anyways the review was good for those speakers you reviewed but i'm wondering which way was the sub's port facing. Because if it was facing toward you like in the picture, it will give out a low base tone, it looked like it probably jetted str8 out underneth ya. Just wondering if you tried reflecting it at all to get a better bass response.

I have a set of altec lansing speakers which are pretty decent for what i paid. And of course the sub bass is NOT outstanding or anything but does the job. But it depends on the reflection of the sound. Just like car audio or home theatre it really depends where the subs are place and how they are reflected. That could make all the difference. As for car audio some port the boxes, some are sealed, and some are faced toward the trunk (for reflection), and some are not. And home theatre the sub is usually put in a hidden corner of the room usually porting directly into the corner of the wall for bass reflection.

I would like to see someone hook up a tru home theatre system to there computer. Cuz think about it, for a true digital computer theatre system, its going to be expensive as hell when comparing it to a home theatre system. Plus all that crap they think is extra, as for a remote will come with any home theatre system and for a simple digital input, computer theatre speakers charge about +$200 just for that input alone. But for computer theatre systems you will always have to pay extra for that feature. And the quality of speakers for home theatre are light years beyond computer speakers (not for all but for most).

The other good thing about home theatre systems, you have a ton of more options as for speakers. You will not have to buy the whole complete package for home theatre but you can if ya want to. You can buy everything speratly and get exactly what ya want. So basically I'm saying theres more options for home theatre and better quality and I would like to see someone do that cuz i'm sure many have. Anyway thats all i have to say. later peepz

2 - Posted by Brian on June 8, 2003 - 2:43 pm

I have access to a damn good home theater system with like 7 speakers (2 giant ones in front).

Maybe I'll check it out ;-)

3 - Posted by Shady1 on June 8, 2003 - 2:54 pm

Oh yeah i forgot to mention, equalizer's can be great on a computer system, exspecially when you dont have a volume control for your sub. My asus A7V8X came with a built in equalizer called Sound effect manager. Which is pretty cool, cuz u have some control. Oh and everybody needs a multimedia keyboard with the volume control and a mute button. It should be illegal to sell a keyboard with out it. :mrgreen: Yeah kurtis I would like to check out your home theatre on your computer, it would have to be sweet. Anyway i'm out. later

4 - Posted by Kurtis on June 8, 2003 - 4:17 pm

I have a home theatre too, but parents won't let me hook it up lol, these okay speakers annoy them enough. Constant bass from the good sub would piss them off lol. Btw, as for the reflection of the sub, the speaker in the sub faces the back of the sub, reflects off the back wooden wall, and then comes out that hollow tube, so it does reflect, it just doesn't have enough power to get the deeeeep bass or even deep bass :P

5 - Posted by knucks on June 8, 2003 - 4:39 pm

my inspire 4200 4.1 system offers only like 47Watts, but it still drives my parents nuts. Thanks bassdrive.com! haha

6 - Posted by Shady1 on June 8, 2003 - 4:47 pm

True, I know the reflection is already coming from the port, but it depends how it reflects also once it leaves the port. And my point was just saying that you can actually get a pretty good bass response depeding on where and how it reflects in the room itself. And most times u can enhance the bass to a point just by aiming the port towards a wall and having it reflect back to you. And true you will never get true deep bass from that little sub, but you be surprised how much of a difference it makes just turning the sub in a different direction. Will sound alot different.

And hopefully your parents leave on a vacation or something soon so you can try a good home theatre system and they wont have to hang ya. :mrgreen:

7 - Posted by Kurtis on June 8, 2003 - 4:53 pm

Just for fun I turned it around... it actually does sound about 25% better, maybe 50% better... it just looks tupid turned around :P

8 - Posted by Brian on June 8, 2003 - 5:08 pm

Right now, with my Labtec Pulse 424s, I am shaking the windows on the other side of my house, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

9 - Posted by Kurtis on June 8, 2003 - 5:09 pm

with christian music, wheeee :P

10 - Posted by Brian on June 8, 2003 - 5:11 pm

Oh, and those speakers will never have great base... I was watching _THE_ Matrix scene with em w/ Kurtis, and... no..... no no no...

EDIT: by "those" speakers, I was refering to the Microlabs, not mine :-P

11 - Posted by Brian on June 8, 2003 - 5:12 pm

Yeah, my dad has these speakers too, thats where the christian music comes in... until I blast it out with some Tiamat or something...

12 - Posted by Kurtis on June 8, 2003 - 5:13 pm

yeah they are just too weak. I mean, they are as good as you would expect for 35 but, I would rather invext in sometrhing a little more expensive. I got these for free though so its all good. :P

13 - Posted by Shady1 on June 8, 2003 - 5:15 pm

True it will look stupid when u just see the back but oh well. And christian music. MUAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA

Yeah and which matrix? Reloaded? I'll be watching that tonight hopefully. Seen half of it, just need to see the beginning. Dont ask why i only seen half, but i was just checking the quality of the movie. :roll:
later all

14 - Posted by Brian on June 8, 2003 - 5:16 pm

The orignial Matrix, the lobby scene... THE scene of all scenes...

Reloaded sucks :-(

15 - Posted by Kurtis on June 8, 2003 - 5:23 pm

reloaded wasn't fully reloaded, i think they didn't cock (sp?) the gun or some shit... gay movie, horrible plot, blablabla.... I would rather watch "Girl Interrupted" again... :roll:

16 - Posted by Shady1 on June 8, 2003 - 5:33 pm

I wouldnt say reloaded sucked (but i havent seen the whole movie) , cuz it did have some good action, plus the expectations for that movie were beyond reason. But ya the lobby part is awesum on the matrix 1. Plus reloaded is just building up for the 3rd one. Who knows if matrix 3 will be better or not. But one movie I really want to see is T3. I hope thats good but who knows. Ok time for a BBQ

-later

17 - Posted by Kurtis on June 8, 2003 - 5:36 pm

T3 looks like it may blow... Terminator was good in its time but I think it my be a mistake to bring it back. I also think Hulk is going to flop as well, the whole poorly animated Hulk scenes don't appeal to me at all...

18 - Posted by Brian on June 8, 2003 - 5:48 pm

T3 might be OK. It would be good or even great had James Cameron directed it.

This time some shmuck directed it and is going more for action and hot chicks and arnold clones rather than an actual story. Whoda thunk that movies should have good stories anyway? ...

It's my clone baby!

19 - Posted by Kurtis on June 8, 2003 - 5:51 pm

yea, the new terminator is a chick and stuff... i think they shoulda just showed the end of the war, they are making room for a T4... silly bastards

20 - Posted by knucks on June 8, 2003 - 6:03 pm

they always have to leave the endings open for sequels, damn bastards.

21 - Posted by Kurtis on June 8, 2003 - 6:06 pm

yea, just in case lol...

look at oceans 11, they r making oceans 12... pfft

im gonna see it, but still :P

and spiderman 2... omg thats gonna be gay. spiderman 1 wasnt even good. that toby guy is a bad actor and a total dork, spiderman should be cool or something...

22 - Posted by knucks on June 8, 2003 - 7:53 pm

they are? oceans 12? wtf! lol

23 - Posted by Mozart on January 13, 2007 - 2:39 am

whoever told you that Filght of the Bumble Bee is by beethoven? isn't it by Rimsky-Korsakov?

24 - Posted by Kurtis on January 13, 2007 - 8:38 pm

You could be right, but I should point out that this review was posted 3 years ago, so it's strange that you mention this oversight NOW. :-D

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