Creative Labs SoundWorks SW320 review

Posted by Thomas McGuire on March 14, 2002
Manufacturer: Creative Labs     Product: SoundWorks SW320

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The Creative SoundWorks SW320 is one of the latest additions to the Cambridge SoundWorks 2.1 Speaker systems, which based on what Creative's website says, should be considered into the Music listening speakers category. So for $49.99 (actually a bit less than that), is this system really a worthwhile buy for those of you who are more interested in good musical reproduction than positional audio for Games? Read on, and find out...

Installation & Connectivity

Setting up the SW320 wasn’t too much of a problem, though like all other Speaker systems it involved a lot of box unpacking & cable/stand connecting. After connecting all the pieces together I just had to position them & connect the Subwoofer to the Speakers, power supply & Soundcard using the cables provided. There’s also a “remote” volume control of sorts that shares the same cabling as the Line In cable does.

As an analog 2.1 system you’ll (not) be surprised to know that the SW320 is rather limited Input wise, coming with a single Line in port as you might have expected. The image beneath displays all the connections on the Subwoofer (Thanks to CLE for sending this image which was “taken from other on line reviews”, should the site who took this image wish to email me I’ll post up a proper crediting link).

Subwoofer

The Subwoofer comes in a robust wooden enclosure, which if SoundWorks are to be believed will result in powerful bass output & reduced distortions. Being rated at 12 watts RMS the strength of the subwoofer was fairly surprising, at least compared to that of the Subwoofer on the other systems I have available, the DTT 2500 & Inspire 5300, at similar Bass level settings – though this is a slightly unfair comparison given those are both 5.1 systems as the SW320 is a 2.1.

According to the specifications the system can go down to 42Hz, which should keep most happy considering what it costs. Quality wise the Subwoofer wasn’t as pleasing as that with the other systems mentioned (Again, an unfair comparison but hey) given the tendency for it to be fairly boomy at times (Could be alleviated somewhat by moving it to a more exposed location, though this reduced the strength). That said on a pure strength level it was rather impressive all things considered (As described in more detail later).

Specifications

Listed beneath are the specifications for the SW320 Speaker system.

Sound Quality impressions

Music

Playback of CDs or other digital audio formats was fairly pleasant. The CDs I tested ranged from Lord of the Rings (The Bridge Of Khazad Dum track in particular seemed to bring out the worst in the Subwoofer), Total Recall, Titanic, The Empire Strikes Back, Rambo 2, Blade (The last 2 or 3 dance tracks at that) & the MP3 Soundtracks of several Games I have installed.

Quality of playback was good & not too different to that of the other, more expensive, systems I have, though as noted the subwoofer did get a bit too boomy at times during certain tracks, which might be a cause for concern for some, or not too much of a problem who just like the subwoofer to be strong & easily felt without detail being too important (Which will depend on the Music you listen to of course).

Overall Music playback is likely the strongest aspect of playback with these Speakers, at least as far as I’m concerned.

Select The SoundWorks SW320 2.1 speakers Sound Quality impressions and Conclusion

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