It never ceases to amaze me how so many people still have speakers on their home PCs that aren't much better than a $10 pocket radio. Some folks do pay $100, $150 or more for subwoofer/satellite speaker systems to try to get better sound – though that's sometimes disappointing – and some people connect their PCs to conventional home audio equipment for better sound. (One music reviewer I know took a spare Onkyo stereo receiver and a pair of floor-standing NHT speakers to work so he could listen to classical CDs using the CD-ROM drive in his office PC. Fortunately, unlike Les Nessman he has an actual office with walls and a door.)

A lot of companies have claimed to offer high-performance speakers for PC multimedia applications, and some of them have even put serious engineering effort into their products. Cambridge SoundWorks started offering multimedia speaker systems several years ago after making a name for themselves in home audio, and they've stepped up their efforts since being acquired by Creative Technology Limited (the Sound Blaster people) a while back; while their first PC sound systems were moderately expensive ($100 for the confusingly named SoundWorks system, $250 for the deluxe MicroWorks) they dropped a real bombshell not long ago with the PCWorks system – an actual three-piece system for $50. Could anybody – even a well-known speaker maker – really deliver good sound for half a C-note? They could, and did.

PCWorks follows the same subwoofer/satellite principle that is used in so many deluxe PC speaker systems today, and which Cambridge SoundWorks made popular in home audio in the late 1980s with their Ensemble system. The secret is that the human ear can't discern the direction from which low-frequency sounds come, so instead of each speaker having to cover the entire frequency range (as with traditional stereo setups) a "sub/sat" system can have one fairly large box for the low notes, which can be placed out of the way, and two little boxes for the medium and high frequencies that can be placed as needed for good stereo sound (and in this case won't take up much room on your desk).

In this case, the bass unit is just under 9 ½" wide, a bit over 6" high and about as deep, which would be way too big to have two of them on your desk but is big enough to hold a 5" subwoofer. The two satellites are very tiny cubes, a bit less than 3" on all sides, with 2" speakers. The bass unit does have a plastic case (as do most PC sub/sat systems), but it's relatively dense and feels quite solid, and has been designed with a special duct for improved bass response. The bass unit also contains three amplifiers (one for each speaker), rated at 9 watts for the subwoofer and 4 watts per channel for the satellites, but that's at a rather high distortion level; a more realistic specification is 3 ½ watts per channel at 1% distortion, which is plenty for this application.

Before hooking up PCWorks to my computer I first tried it in the living room.  I stuck the speakers over on one side of the room and ran the long cable (included with the system) over to a Sony Discman on the coffee table.  I loaded a surf music CD and picked a track by Laika and The Cosmonauts (the hottest thing out of Finland since Nokia as far as I'm concerned).

The first thing I found out was that PCWorks' bass control needed a delicate touch to get the right setting.  This control (on the back of the subwoofer) is provided to compensate for differences in subwoofer placement; you just set it once to get the right balance between the low and high notes.  If it's set too low, the speakers will start to sound thin, as you might expect from small speakers like these; set it too high and you'll get something that sounds like a typical car radio with the tone control turned too far up. As things turned out it took a few tries to get just the right setting, but once that was achieved I was hearing a high grade of sound that I never expected to hear for just a hundred dollars (counting the CD player).  For that matter, I've heard a lot of $300-400 stereo systems (and used to own one) that couldn't hold a candle to PCWorks.  I had a ball trying various CDs on the PCWorks and even listened to the Grand Old Opry live on WSM from Nashville, in AM stereo no less.

But I already have a good stereo setup (with Cambridge SoundWorks' Ensemble II sub/sat system), so the PCWorks system was definitely going to end up on my PC, which coincidentally has a Creative Ensoniq AudioPCI card.  The subwoofer went on the floor, with the satellites on a shelf above my monitor and slightly above ear level. (The satellites come with snap-in stands for use on your desk, or you can attach them to your monitor with Velcro strips, also supplied.)  After I reset the bass control for this location I got sound from my PC that if anything was even better than what I'd heard in the living room.  While it may not really be fair to compare a $50 speaker package to the $400 Ensemble II, the PCWorks speakers gave an excellent account of themselves, producing well-balanced and natural sound that was surprisingly similar to that of the Ensemble II and easily equaled two other, more expensive multimedia speaker systems that have come through our office in recent years.

The one area where PCWorks might have fallen short is in deep bass, but even there it can't be faulted for the price.  Cambridge SoundWorks claims that its bass response will make it down to 65 cycles per second (or hertz, if you're a devotee of the metric system), which is a lot lower than many manufacturers manage to go in the multimedia field.  (By comparison, the Ensemble II in my main audio system is rated to work down to 42 Hz, though I've heard useful response below that figure from that setup.)  This may be the biggest reason why careful bass adjustment is needed; the easy temptation is to compensate for the "missing" low bass by pouring on more bass in the region that the speaker can deliver, but this produces an unnatural sound that isn't really desirable.  If you're used to good audio at home, my advice is to set the PCWorks bass control for a little less bass than what you get from your big speakers – not a lot less, just a little.

As with the more expensive SoundWorks and MicroWorks speaker systems, PCWorks comes with a remote volume control with two cables, one which plugs into the bass unit and the other into the audio line output on your PC.  (The volume control is also sold separately for $13, in case you want one for another speaker system.) It's very important to use this volume control in the line (not a straight cable from the computer to the bass unit), because the PCWorks amplifiers are powerful enough that you'll hear a lot of unwanted noise from the PC.  It's also a good idea to set the various level controls to roughly equal settings (something I learned at a young age, from J. Gordon Holt's column in Popular Electronics), so – with Windows 95 or later – start by setting the main volume control in Windows to the center position, set the various source controls (wave, MIDI and the like) to center as well, then use the PCWorks volume control to get the level you want.  (If you have an older sound card with a volume control wheel on the back of the card next to the output jacks, set that to its lowest position, set the PCWorks volume control to about 4, then adjust the sound card volume control for the desired level.)

If this were a bookshelf stereo system selling for $170, I'd call it a heck of a good deal.  (Cambridge SoundWorks sells a bookshelf system for that price, the MusicWorks 100, consisting of the PCWorks speakers and a tiny tuner/CD player unit.) As a multimedia speaker system, it's everything most home PC users will ever need, though if I were doing professional audio or music work I'd consider getting something more sophisticated (such as the MicroWorks system). The PCWorks is easily the best $50 I ever spent on computer hardware, and something I have no qualms about recommending either for PC sound or for good listening in general.

–Ed Ellers

 http://www.cambridgesoundworks.com/ (all products)