Antec Soundscience Rockus 3D 2.1 Speakers
by Dustin Sklavos on November 18, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Audio
- Antec
- Soundscience
- Rockus 3D
Music on the Rockus 3D
Music playback testing was done much more comprehensively than I had previously; I tried just about everything. The first issue I took with the Rockus 3D, but one that became progressively more minor as I became accustomed to the character of the sound the system produced, was that the high end feels a bit tinny. Double-blind with the Bose, the Rockus generally sounded better and produced clearer, more dynamic sound that was in many cases far less muddy. The problem is that some of that muddiness did mask compression and artifacting in some of the songs; you can't really fault the speakers for doing what they're told, but the highs can be so thin that it can get to the point of making some of the artifacts physically painful to listen to.
The sound also isn't quite as rich and full as one would hope. It certainly has worlds more depth than you'll get from a hundred dollar speaker set, but the highs and mids nonetheless can feel a bit thin and sometimes don't feel like they're separating quite as well as they could. You'll pick up nuances and details in the music better than you might with cheaper speakers; I just wish the sound had more body in those regions. When you get to the lows, the subwoofer does a solid if unexceptional job of picking up the rear. Not having a more fine-grained control over the subwoofer's power beyond the three presets hurts, but even the highest preset can feel a little weak.
Across different types of music, I found that industrial and electronic music could actually feel the thinnest in the highs and mids, but softer more instrumental fare works far, far better. If "Spitfire" by The Prodigy produces a good if not outstanding listening experience, something more downtempo like Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Otherside" can sound quite lovely.
Trying to buff up those thin highs and mids through the equalizer is an exercise in futility, though, and this is one of the Rockus 3D's biggest perks and worst flaws: the speaker system is calibrated to sound as good as it possibly can from the factory, a point the Antec rep was keen on mentioning and something that I can confirm in practice. The Rockus 3D is never going to sound better than it does shipped from the factory, and tweaking the equalizer in either analog or digital connection modes only seemed to make it worse.
That said, across the board the Rockus 3D sounded better than the Bose Companion II's attached to the Xonar DX.
While playing music, however, just go ahead and keep your finger off the 3D mode. It allows the speakers to suddenly produce a tremendous amount of body, but it more or less massacres the arrangement of the instruments in whatever you happen to be listening to. On a couple of songs I felt like the listening experience was slightly improved by 3D mode, but in almost everything else the distortion completely ruined them. Listening to music in 3D mode on the Rockus is akin to watching a standard-aspect movie stretched across an HDTV.
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sinPiEqualsZero - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - link
Hi Dustin/Anandtech,I truly believe that you’ve given your best recommendation based on the available data, and I appreciate the time spent doing the review. I pay particular attention to speaker reviews since I wear hearing aids and need amazing speakers to understand speech, and thanks to you I have some more data with which to make a decision. I'm even in the market for them since my old ones just died last week.
In general, as you are well aware, audio review is an under-appreciated and subjective process. In this case, I have reservations about the one used for the review. But first, a small bit of relevant background based on some of Anandtech recent accomplishments.
When SSDs were coming out, you picked apart their parts, algorithms, and used the awesome collective knowledge of Anandtech to make big waves in the industry. We are still benefiting from those articles today and I guarantee that the major manufacturers and engineers are reading all related articles they can. You even referred to working directly with some manufacturers!
Then the iPhone4 reception issues came along, and you did what no one else did; you measured the effect of the wild claims that were flying around and erased all doubt. We may never know the true extent that your article influenced the notoriously secretive Apple, but I bet the impact wasn't small.
Let's get back to speakers. There are so many things that can be measured with speakers: distortion, maximum/minimum settings that can be compared to manufacturer's claims, and more. The quantifiable data is there, you just need to find ways to measure it. Heck, you could even disassemble the speakers and look at their components, and comment on how their use/placement/etc. affect the sound and cost.
I'd love to see a true "Anandtech"-level audio review where that creativity was on full display. Given the shady claims and misinformation that pervade the speaker market, connecting repeatable readings, analysis, and some physics know-how with the overall listening experience would be amazing and unique. That is exactly the reservation I mentioned above - there is no reason that a speaker review should only be subjective, and I've love to see some of our finest minds in the industry tackle the problem of defining "good" speakers.
Again, thank you for the time and effort you’ve put in. No matter how many negative comments you get, there are many who appreciate what you do. In this case, though, I believe you have chance to once again take up the mantle of industry leader and go where almost no one else does. Best wishes to you and to all of the people at Anandtech!
VietPham - Friday, November 19, 2010 - link
I can't believe that this review was on AnandTech. I've read the criticism of the review methodology (all warranted) but there are more fundamental issues. The reviewer just doesn't seem to understand the basics.For instance, he uses the term "double blind" when it's clear that he doesn't understand what it means. It's okay if he's not already familiar with the term, but he could have taken just a few minutes to google the phrase if he was unsure if he should use it. To skip this basic self-education is a disservice to readers, who expect better from AnandTech.
I'm also troubled by his claim that he uses a set of Bose as his standard speaker system. Bose? I believe this is the same reviewer who compared the HS1 to a set of Bose headphones a few weeks ago. Lots of people do think Bose products are of sufficient quality, but I'm worried when an audio reviewer uses them as a benchmark.
Between his admission of his liking for Bose, his testing audio with YouTube clips, and his misuse of very basic terms, I'm afraid that this review has told me nothing about the actual quality of this product. It's more like a diary of his experience with a free set of speakers he got, written from the point of view of a non-audio expert.
Not AnandTech quality.
rscoot - Friday, November 19, 2010 - link
I'm not an audiophile but I concur with using Bose speakers as a baseline. They're overpriced snake oil junk.Shinobi_III - Friday, November 19, 2010 - link
For that kind of money you could easily get a pair of Behringer 2x20watt digital studio monitors.Obviously there's no subwoofer, but accuracy and pressure is high. probably more bass anyway. And since they already contain DAC's, you won't even need a good sound card..
Matrices - Saturday, November 20, 2010 - link
I don't really see the need for an army of numbers in this sort of review, since they will simply march past the consciousness of readers who don't measure their listening experiences quantitatively - but I do think that you really need to have at least two comparable systems for comparison. And I also think that those systems should almost never be Bose products, for obvious reasons.At any rate, $250 for a 2.1 PC setup is, quite frankly, ridiculous. The reason Klipsch and Logitech all but stopped producing PC speakers around that price range is because most PC users who have that sort of money to spend on PC sound realized that they could do far better with real speakers hooked up to a cheap receiver. Even back then, Logitech's mid-tier 5.1 system went for around $250. A 2.1 system from a new contestant that's the same price? It's going to tank terribly.
plague911 - Sunday, November 21, 2010 - link
but seriously why does it seem like none of the major manufactures put any effort into that for these smaller sound systems. I mean half of them are outright ugly.musicgadgetz - Friday, June 4, 2021 - link
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