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If music is as important to you as it is to me, then you’ll be as frustrated with the performance of even the iMac’s speakers. VideoLogic have been building a name for themselves as manufacturers of high-quality powered speaker systems for computers, so we decided to take a look at one of their newest offerings, the Sirocco Spirit.
The pair of small black boxes we unpacked looked fairly unassuming, but looks certainly proved deceiving. These are based on the award-winning Sirocco speaker system, and are designed to provide the same kind of serious hifi quality sound at an affordable price. They’re built using the same materials - MDF - as serious audiophile speakers, and have ‘accoustically transparent’ speaker covers. There’s no subwoofer, but nevertheless the bass response is still very impressive, thanks to something VideoLogic call ‘Dynamic Virtual Sub Technology’ and a bass port below the 4 inch bass/mid speaker cone and 10mm tweeter. The magnetic sheilding prevents monitor distortion even when the speakers are placed against the display.
The four separate power amplifiers used in the Sirocco Spirit speakers are true hifi-level components, the equivalent to those found in expensive ‘separates’ amps. They deliver 50W, but actually feel even more powerful than that. When I played really heavy, driving bass sounds and pushed the volume right to the limit I could - sometimes - detect just a touch of breakup. However it was concern for my neighbours rather than for the speaker’s safety that made me turn it down; these speakers really kick out the volume without a qualm.
The stereo separation these speakers deliver is nothing short of excellent; individual instruments sit in precise points in space in a sometimes spookily clear manner. Instead of providing a separate bass and treble control VideoLogic have equipped the Sirocco Spirit with an ‘Attitude’ control. This dynamically graduates the tone profile from rich bass to clear treble without upsetting the overall tonal balance of the source. The result is exceptionally clean from one end of the Attitude dial to the other, and a slight notch helps users place it in the unadjusted centre position.
The right speaker holds all the controls, from the power switch to the volume settings. Rather than use a separate power adaptor there’s a standard mains lead socket, so any ‘kettle lead’ power cable will do. Just below the power socket there’s a prise-out fuse drawer, and we were very impressed to note a spare fuse stored next to the one in use.
There are actually two sets of phono input sockets on the back; one pair for computer input and another for line-level input from a regular hifi device such as a separate CD deck or a portable MP3 player. The minijack to twin phono cable provided with the speakers have gold-plated plugs for improving connectivity.
The cable which links the left speaker to the right uses classic DIN connectors and is roughly 10ft long. This should be enough for There’s a 3.5 inch minijack socket for connecting headphones (which cuts out the main speakers), and another labelled “variable output”. This is for connecting an active subwoofer, if the virtual sub performance isn’t enough for you, or another complete set of Sirocco Spirit speakers. This could be used, for instance, to string a whole collection of Sirocco Spirits together in a large auditorium to provide clear audio all over rather than trying to blast sound from a single speaker stack.
If there’s one downside of these speakers, it is just that they are almost too good for some audio sources. If you play MP3 tracks that were encoded using average or low frequencies or at lower quality settings the flaws aren’t masked at all. With most other speakers these weaknesses in the encoded audio tend to get slurred over and hidden to an extent, but the Sirocco Spirit pair show no compromise. Don’t worry, well encoded MP3 tracks sound stunning, and you’ll start hearing detail in your music you never knew was there.
When we first unpacked these speakers we expected good results, but we weren’t prepared for quite how good these sound. They’ll make your games and multimedia take on a new lease of life, but they’ll also have you sitting entranced by, or even dancing to, your own CDs. |
