Sound Quality:

For our sound testing, we hooked our XD3′s up to our HT Omega Striker 7.1 sound card. We will be testing the XD3 with several genres of music: rap, country and classical. We will also be watching a movie, Rambo, as well as playing Battlefield 3 to round out the testing.

With the music, we tested several genres to get the best overall feel of how well the XD3 desktop speakers really perform. We started with rap music by listening to a few songs to figure out how accurate the bass is with the XD3. Surprisingly, the bass scaled very well with the volume. Now that is not to say these two little speakers rattled our walls and made the roof cave in, but it did not leave us feeling as though we were attacked by the tweeters either. Everything else was very crisp and clear in the mids and highs. Now we moved on with our testing,  and went to the best genre, country! The guitars and string instruments came through very clear and had the impact on our ears that we were expecting. Even the raspy voices came through more “raspier” than ever and gave us the full enjoyment of their hard-partying life style, without actually being at the concert. Moving on to the classical music, we popped in one of the greats of all time, and no, not Beethoven, I am more a Tchaikovsky person myself. In the “1812 Overture,” the strings, brass, and wind instruments battle each other, going back and forth. Everything is crisp with the highs and mids from the orchestra. There is no sound distortion when the volume is fully cranked up, and it sounds just as clear and crisp as it would at any other volume level.

For the movie portion of the review, we used  Rambo, circa 2009. We feel it gives you everything that you need to test the full capability of the XD3′s with its huge explosions, surround sound fight scenes, quiet conversations and who can forget the .50 cal ending! Starting with the dialog  in the quieter parts of the movie, the XD3 projected it crisply, even during the fight scenes, such as when the village is getting attacked by the army. During the attack, while the village and the lady doctor are trying to get away, you can hear mortars exploding all around her, you can still hear her perfectly. You can also hear all of the gunfire from the advancing army with a mostly solid portrayal of the actual sounds. However, the best scene in an action movie, probably ever, is when good ol’ Sly jumps on the back of the truck and mans the .50 cal machine gun. When he is mowing down the army, the deep bass of the .50 cal is portrayed decently through the XD3′s. The sounds of the bullets striking objects was crisp with zero distortion, such as when the bullets are hitting people and you are hearing the supposed guts of people being splattered all over, it was very clean.

Moving on to the game testing, we now have Battlefield 3. We played this game for a few hours to get a good overall feel of how the XD3 would do in a game. We charged into the plant sites, like we normally do, because who doesn’t love to run-n-gun just to annoy the other team! With the XD3 we could hear a lot of people firing while we ran for the plants , but could not decipher exactly where the shots were coming from. This was to be expected as these are not meant for surround sound. When we were held up inside a building, we could clearly hear people running around us and knew when to stay hidden and when to pop out and eliminate a few enemies. It almost seemed a little like cheating with as crispness and accuracy of the sound.

With the final testing being the Vega-Bass on/off switch, we found it to be a non-factor. It seems to always need to be “on”  to get the perfect sound. With it off, the sound just seemed to be too much treble for us to thoroughly enjoy the listening experience. It is not a huge deal since you can control it and have it “on”  if you so choose. We guess the one positive from it is:  if you have roommates and you like to listen to music at night, you could turn off the bass so you do not disturb them while sleeping.

Conclusion:

Overall, Cerwin-Vega has one of the better sounding 2.0 desktop speakers we have heard in the XD3. Installation took a little longer than most 2 speaker setups, but the results were well worth the extra time! The aesthetics of the XD3 were nice and fit in well with our desktop motif we have going. The sound quality, as mentioned many times before in this review, was phenomenal for these two little speakers. We are not sure how Cerwin-Vega jammed so much goodness in such a small setup, but we applaud you. With the Vega-Bass switch, you will have full control over just how obnoxious you really want to be while listening to your music.

With what we have seen from the XD3, we would have no problem recommending these speakers (MSRP $99.99) to anyone who is looking for a small setup on their desktop to improve their music, movie, and gaming experience.

The Cerwin-Vega receive the Techreaction.net Gold Silicon Award!

For more information on the XD3 and other products from Cerwin-Vega, please visit their website.

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