Creative Labs 7.1 Gigaworks S750 speakers

WE DON'T CALL Creative Labs the King of Retail for nothing, and if you are consumer I simply cannot imagine another company that offers such a variety of products from MP3 players of all kinds to speaker sets.

Creative made quite ambitions plan with its previous speaker as it wanted to get into many consumer homes. It drove audio from 2.0 to a 4.1 speaker set, and that was a step toward Dolby Digital 5.1. Just a year later it introduced 5.1 analogue, then 6.1. Now it has just introduced its 7.1 speaker sets. Creative has two brands of speakers - an analogue set that costs about €100 dubbed Inspire, and the marketing name and a second for more serious - or maybe richer consumers - under the name Megaworks. Its most recent kit is called Gigaworks and that name ought to promise something seriously better.

Creative Labs 7.1 Speakers Gigaworks S750 is an evolution in one way from Creative Megaworks 650 D speakers, but the S750 doesn't actually provide you with a digital decoder. I was quite surprised that state of the art speakers comes without digital decoder, but Creative tells us that it's simply because the speakers would end up too expensive. A decoder is available separately for about €150. Gigaworks S750 speakers cost around €470 Euros with VAT.

Gigaworks S750 is high quality and powerful speaker kit powered with 210 W speakers of 7 satellites that give you 70 W each. All together this ends up at a magnificent 700 Watts and trust me what I say we are talking about serious numbers that will seriously annoy your next door neighbours.

Each satellite is actually a two way speaker with two speakers inside and we are talking about extremely quality design here. You have enough cables to mount all of the speakers in your room with one in the centre, two in the front corners, two in middle and two at the back of the room. You control them with remote control player. You can also plug a microphone headphones into this remote unit as well as a Muvo player if you have one. The infra red remote control means you can blast your neighbours while you're lying in your pit of Acheron.

I tested those speakers in three ways. The first was listening to music and MP3s and CDs. Whether you are listening to Vivaldi, Metallica or RUN DMC you will literally be able to feel the music since the speakers are so powerful the sounds reverberate in your chest. At 70 per cent volume you can easily listen to your music in another room. Which means that unless you've got a 150 hectare estate with a schloss like I do in Vienna, your neighbours will most likely complain about you. Servants just have to face the music.

While CDs sound different, there isn't a qualitative change, you're just pumping up the volume.

Playing games with this system is breathtaking. Call of Duty sounds like a real war in your living room and Need for Speed will make you feel like you're in a heavily tuned car. In games you can actually see the good points of 7.1 since some of the games use it nicely.

Lastly I watched movies and the sound was absolutely magnificent. The power of these speakers will make your movies sound even better and Battleship Potemkin sprung into audio life.

The speakers have support for THX, DVD Audio but you need the right card to be able to experience it.

Creative targets enthusiasts that like state of the art audio when they listen to their CDs and eventually DVD audio disks, to gamers that really care about the sound, and to those DVD movie enthusiasts who can afford it.

From what I have seen this is the best system that money can buy. It will cost you quite a lotta cash, but if you are a high end player you will definitely want a set. You have to pair the speakers the to Audigy 2 ZX 7.1 card to be able to experience 7.1 from your PC. This set gets my highest praise. µ