Creative Technology GigaWorks MF1545T20 2 Speakers

While researching laptop computers with my college bound son, the topic of a stereo system for his dorm room came up. Since the majority of his music is sourced through his computer anyway, we discussed the idea of just buying amplified speakers instead of an entire music system. As we browsed through a sea of unimpressive sounding techno-gizmos, "100 watt subwoofers" that make "whooomp" noise regardless of the music, and many downright nasty sounding noise makers, I happened to spot a picture of a small but real looking woofer that appeared to be possibly made of Kevlar, and a real soft dome tweeter on the box of the Creative Gigaworks T20s that were stuffed on a bottom shelf. The sales guy knew very little about them and needed a fair amount of help hooking them up to their selector switch system so we could even get a hint of their sound. I'm an admitted recovering audio fanatic and have been exposed to many $30K-$50K systems from alot of names even other audio buffs have probably never heard of. I've designed dozens of speakers and ran my own small highend speaker business for a number of years. Yes, I'm critical, but I don't expect audiophile sound from a system like this, but I was intrigued in comparison to the list of other predictable offenders. Prior to finding the T20s, I felt like a wine snob at a tasting of Mad Dog 20/20, Night Train, Wild Irish Rose, and Riunite lambrusco just trying to find something remotely good about the circumstances.

Now that we've established my perspective on these little buggers, let's talk about them. The T20's are a basic two-day design that simply starts with better quality drivers than the legions of big name high profit plastic noise makers that seem to get pushed in the big chain stores. The little T20's are given a fighting chance by way of reasonable quality components and simple design that doesn't try to defy the laws of physics. That little yellow woofer I spotted is actually woven glass fiber (aka fiberglass) with a rubber surround. It's not kevlar as I had originally thought, but still something more than the plastic and cheap paper drivers found in the majority of computer speakers. Creative doesn't specify a woofer size, but it's small...likely in the 3" range. The cloth dome tweeter has a similar appearance to many European made dome tweeters I'd tried and heard in other highend speakers over the years. Neither driver is expected to be remotely close to state-of-the-art at this price point and for this application, but they at least mimicked what the real McCoys offer. Even the placement and proximity of the drivers appear to have been conceived by an actual audio engineer as opposed to a marketing major. The drivers were as close together as physically possible, which cuts down on phase shift and offers a better sound stage to the listener. Driver placement also effects the "sweetspot" formed by the blending of two drivers to form a single soundwave. Locating the woofer above the tweeter makes sense, as it assumes a placement where the listener will be seated with ears at a higher level than the speakers, which will typically be the case in most desktop situations. The same logic is used with many highend home speakers that are angled back when the tweeter is located at the top of the cabinet closer to ear level. The T20's have separate knobs for on/off/volume, bass, and treble control. It's pretty obvious when the system is in the on mode because a beacon blue LED glares blindingly from the main powered speaker. The 20's also have a headphone output and auxiliary inputs. They're backed by a 12 month guarantee.

The enclosures of the Creative Gigaworks T20s are small and are made of heavy plastic...not my first choice of materials but certainly understandable given the price point, size, and intended application. They are however at least impressively solid...most we looked at are featherweights, which is an indication of their poor lineage. The enclosure of the T20's is ported like many smaller speakers to offer a bit more bass punch, but to the Creative's credit, they allowed the woofer to do the bulk of the work which improves the musical accuracy of the bass notes. Interestingly, the grills are removable too, much like many higher end systems, so you can remove the grills and eliminate any possible defraction and masking of the sound. I did not venture inside the enclosure to investigate the crossover design and components. It's safe to assume it's a bare bones design with inexpensive components. Being self-amplified means that there is a pre-amplifier stage and amplifier section inside one of the enclosures that replaces the receiver of a typical stereo system. Creative states a fairly believable 14 watts RMS per speaker (measured @ 4 ohms @ 10% THD @ 150Hz - 20kHz, two channels driven). Realistically there are probably closer to 3 or 4 usable clean watts from the amp, but they'll play loud enough to mildy rock most dorm rooms. Creative also claims a more suspect frequency range of 40hz - 20khz....I'd guess more like 80hz - 20Khz, as that bottom octave isn't overly deep or prominent.

Specs aside, the diminuitive T20's play with surprising clarity, sufficient volume levels in a moderate size room, lack of gross cabinet coloration, punchy reasonably well defined bass, and best of all have a pleasant midrange where the vast majority of music frequencies are found. Creative's designer have done a nice job balancing the output of the two drivers. Bass notes aren't deep and powerful and won't rattle many windows if that's what you're looking for, but it is reasonably neutral and is able to change accordingly when bass notes in the music change. The vast majority of competing speakers with little subwoofers have such hyped up bass that the sound you actually hear is largely produced by the enclosure itself and may or may not be part of the original music signal. Imagine the enclosure as a large bottle that resonates when blown across, which is exactly what many of these little sub systems do. It's intriguing to even begin to listen critically to a class of speaker that is usually downright void of anything resembling realistic high-fidelity music reproduction. The overall tonal balance leans toward the thin side which tends to make them sound just a tad "bright" to me, but they're really quite pleasant to listen to. Placement will actually influence the sound a bit, and of course there are always the bass/treble adjustments if needed. There's even a hint of a stereo soundstage! Their strongest attribute is the lack of glaring flaws, which is really a strongly positive comment from a critical listener remarking about computer speakers. These are not "amazing", "best ever", "startlingly realistic", or even remotely competitive with true high end speakers, but they are enjoyably "not awful", which is actually ironically complimentary in comparison to the horrid noises produced by the competition in this class speakers.

As I step down from my audio purist's soap box, it's easy to recommend the Creative Gigaworks T20s for use in a PC, or other application where there's a desire to get sound that remotely resembles a good stereo system. The sound quality is head and shoulders better than most other computer speakers and even better than most portable am/fm/CD/MP3 players. Wherever they can be hooked up to a line level music signal (MP3, CD/DVD player, etc.), and a 110v outlet to power the amplifier, the T20s will do their best for you. How "good" they actually sound to you is subjective and is partly influenced by what else you've been exposed to, or what you're used to hearing. In my opinion, they're "darn decent" for what they are ...a small self amplified pair of computer speakers. A $20 rebate and free shipping caught our attention and we ended up buying a pair for our home PC, while my son bought the slightly larger dual woofer version, the T40's. Considering that he's used to 12" woofers in a small room, the additional bass output of the T40s was $30 extra money well spent. Both parties are happy with their purchases.