Creative Inspire 5300 5.1 Review

Developer: Creative | Product Type: Speakers | Price: £99.88 Inc VAT

Fusion Hardware reviews Creative’s Inspire 5300 5.1 surround sound speakers which are Creative’s answer to cost effective home theatre entertainment aimed at Movies, Music and Games. For as little as £99.88 Inc VAT home users can start to enjoy the benefits of surround sound entertainment. The Inspire 5300 speakers can also be purchased with the Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Player card at just £150. The Sound Blaster Audigy is an ideal companion to the Inspire 5300 speakers which provides complete support and utilizes the full capabilities of EAX and Microsoft 3D DirectSound. So how do these speakers perform?

Product Features and Specifications
The stylish Inspire 5300 speakers are ideal for small – medium room use while running in conjunction with Creative’s Sound Blaster Audigy card which provides the best performance output and support for today’s 3D and 2D applications. Ideal for games, movies and music the Inspire 5300 speakers provides 18 watts (RMS) of power output from it’s subwoofer and 6 watts of (RMS) power output from each of the five satellite speakers giving consumers high performance Dolby 5.1 home theatre entertainment at an affordable low cost price. Here are the main product specifications and features from the official Creative product website:

• High performance 18 watts RMS subwoofer plus 30 watts RMS (total) from 5 satellites - ensures ultimate sound quality with Sound Blaster® cards.
  
• Advanced satellite design with contoured satellite face plate - optimises sound staging.
  
• Enhanced 5.1 sound quality on EAX® and Microsoft® DirectSound® 3D supported games.
  
• Wired Remote control with power switch - for total ease of use.
  
• Stylish new design with colour-customisable grilles.
  
• View full product specifications.

The Inspire 5300 speakers are quick and easy to install using the supplied product documentation and labels. When using the speakers in conjunction with a Sound Blaster Digital, Live or Audigy card you can easily connect the two products together using the colour coded connectors. The recommended Sound Blaster cards also come with easy to use software applications to configure your Inspire 5300 speakers and get the most out of your surround sound experience.

The Inspire 5300 speakers come with a wired remote control with power switch which enables you to control the volume and balance of the speakers. We thought that this looked a little tacky and didn’t really offer much significance to the user since the cable only spanned about 5 feet once wired to the back of the subwoofer, having said that it still provides an alternative way of controlling the volume and balance of the speakers and comes in particularly useful for when playing full screen games.

The speakers come with stylish black and silver plated covers to blend in with the rest of your stylish black and silver bedroom furniture ;). You can also get replacement colour-customisable grilles which can be purchased from the Creative product website. Other optional accessories include speaker stands for your rear speakers which come in handy for positioning your speakers to ensure you get the best surround sound experience possible. If you do not wish to purchase these stands the speakers can easily be mounted to the walls, when doing this you must take into consideration the distance of the walls as these speakers only give out a combined power output of 48 watts (RMS).

Audigy Sound Card Benefits
The Audigy Sound card ensures complete compatibility with the Inspire 5300 speakers, not only do these two products work great together but you can also get them both at a low cost price of just £150 giving you the complete sound entertainment experience.

Utilizing the latest features of the Audigy Sound Card the Inspire 5300 speakers can provide exceptional results in 3D gaming while using the latest EAX Advanced HD technology which delivers the following advantages running under today’s modern games:

• Multi-Environment - up to four simultaneous audio environment in real-time.
  
• Environment Morphing - natural audio transitions between environments.
  
• Environment Panning - 3D spatialisation and localisation of an upcoming or distant environment.
  
• Environment Reflections - hear real world 3D audio reflections in games.
  
• Environment Filtering - high-pass audio filters for accurate simulation of environmental characteristics.

To test the advantages of the Audigy sound card whilst using the Inspire 5300 speakers we ran a series of games which utilizes Creative’s latest EAX Advanced HD technology. In the tests we found that the speakers performed better in some areas than others and found that EAX features such as Environment Panning, Multi-Environment and Environment Morphing worked to a greater effect than Environment Filtering and Environment Reflections. Whether this was to do with the speaker setup or the programming of the game we simply do not know. We also found that the rear speakers were slightly under powered to that of the front speakers which created an unbalanced effect in our surround sound tests. This however was easily corrected by adjusting the balance and fade settings to compensate for the rear speaker power output.

Being a keen gamer I would have to say that the Inspire 5300 speakers were a bit of a power down grade over my previous 80 watt system, having said that the surround sound features of this package is some what of a bonus and at the asking price you really cant go wrong. The Creative Inspire 5300 speakers are without a doubt the best surround sound speakers we have seen for budget consumers.

We did however feel that these speakers would not cater for the more extremist computer user and in our power tests this became clear. We found that at 50% of the volume setting these speakers coped reasonably well but when we notched it up to 75% and beyond it was clear to us that these speakers are significantly under powered and are likely not suitable for the extreme gamer or home entertainment fanatic.

Conclusion
Whilst the power aspects of these speakers may not be particularly appealing to the home entertainment enthusiast the Inspire 5300 speakers still provide great features and more importantly value for money to the casual home user and therefore are the clear choice for anyone who is looking to bring theatre entertainment into the comfort of their own home. With the addition of the Audigy Player card the Inspire 5300 speakers make the complete home entertainment package for playing games, watching movies and listening to music. Because of its price benefits we are going to give this system a “Best Buy Award”.

Posted by LNorton at October 20, 2002 05:53 PM