7. Creative Labs Inspire 5300

If you have a 3D sound card which handles 5.1 sound, and you don't want to pay extra for an external decoder, Inspire 5300 is what you need. This is the offspring of the DTT2200, which has similar equipment. There are the four speakers and a center channel of 6 watts each, as well as an 18-watt subwoofer. The technical data for the Inspire 5300 are more like the FPS 1600 than the Inspire 5700. But appearances are not deceptive and it is plain that this system is a cut above the FPS 1600. There is a small wired remote control for adjusting the volume as well as front/rear distribution. As usual, low frequencies are adjusted at the back of the subwoofer along with the connections. These are the mandatory minimum with three mini-jack sound inputs for six channels.

Overall sound quality is perfectly satisfactory. Creative uses SLAM technology for the Inspire 5300, so low frequencies are deeper and more percussive. Very low sounds are better than on the earlier DTT2200, so there is progress here. The high frequencies are fairly clear and true, and the medium frequencies are quite marked, even if not one hundred percent. Here, on the other hand, it regresses compared to the DTT2200, which was a bit more percussive in the medium frequencies. Instruments are properly distributed and the sound position is almost perfect. The Inspire 5300 stands out from the rest because it is general-purpose. If plugged into a 5.1 sound card, it is as good for DVD and music as it is for gaming. Of course, music buffs will prefer to have a more neutral and faithful system like the Altec Lansing 641, but this is not in the same price range. For games, this is definitely one of the best quality/price ratios around at the moment. For DVD, obviously, software decoding by a sound card is not going to be as good as a proper external decoder, but the results are still pretty good. Sound power, while a bit less than on the Inspire 5700, gives an adequate saturation level when listening at a distance from the screen.