3DsoundSurge Reviews: Videologic Sirocco Crossfire

Crossfire.jpg (19009 bytes)

Important Info:

Speakers By : VideoLogic Systems
Price : £200/$449 SRP in US
Power Output:
Subwoofer: 40 watts RMS
Satellites: 40 watts RMS , 10 watts RMS per satellite

Minimum/Recommended System Requirements

Sound card or other audio device

Reviewer PC:

-Mikael
- Win98
- Celeron 300a o/c 450
- 128MB PC100 ram
- Creative TNT
- 6.4 GB Quantum SE
- Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! (EMU 10K1), Outrageous 3D Sound (Vortex 2), Hoontech Sound Track YFM 744 Digital XG (Yamaha 744), Aztech PCI 368 DSP (VLSI Thunderbird 128), Trident 4Dwave NX and Terratec's DMX Sound system (Canyon3D)

Features:

Satellites

Bass/mid frequency drive unit: Audax 3" cone.
High frequency drive unit: Audax 10mm polymer dome.
Frequency Response 130 Hz – 20 kHz

Subwoofer

MDF cabinet, containing magnetically shielded bass drive unit.
Low frequency drive unit: Audax 6.5" cone.
Frequency Response 35 Hz - 130 Hz

Amplifier

Self Peak Instantaneous Temperature (°Ke) (SPiKe™) Protection Circuitry for protection against overvoltage, undervoltage, overloads, including shorts to the supplies, thermal runaway and instantaneous temperature peaks
Power supply unit: Dual rail toroidal transformer with 28000µF of smoothing capacitance.
Power output: Satellites: 4 x 10W RMS.
Subwoofer: 40W RMS. Full system (all channels driven): 80 Watts RMS at 1% THD; 100 Watts RMS at 10% THD.
Frequency response: < 3Hz to > 100KHz.
THD (nominal output): Less than 0.01% at 1KHz.
Input sensitivity: 200mV RMS for inputs 1 and 3; 1.5V RMS for input 2.
Controls: Power on/off, Volume, Subwoofer volume (relative to main volume), Front/Rear fade, Source switch, Quad switch (for stereo surround).
Connectors: Gold plated phono inputs for surround source, stereo source, and Dolby Digital LFE channel; 3.5mm jack for second stereo source; individual outputs to each speaker unit; 3.5mm headphone jack on amplifier front panel; IEC mains inlet.
Power supply: 220-240V AC 50Hz.
Frequency response: < 3Hz to > 100KHz.

Power Requirements

USA/CANADA 120 volts 60 Hz AC
Max Power Consumption 50 Watts
UL/CUL (CSA) CE approved

VideoLogic Systems entered the speaker market not more than a year ago but can already be considered one of the major speaker companies in the PC market, not because of how many units they shipped but because of the excellent quality their Sirocco speaker line offers. Currently the Sirocco line includes the original Sirocco, a 3-piece speaker system and the Sirocco Crossfire, a 4.1 speaker system. They have also announced the 2-piece Sirocco Spirit speaker system and the Sirocco Pro, an $800 3-piece speaker system. All except the original Sirocco will be available in US early next year.

In this review we will test the Sirocco Crossfire, a system for which we received many requests to review ever since Simon's review of the Sirocco earlier this year. It has been available for sometime in Europe for £200 and will enter the US market in May for $449. The first question that probably enter your mind is if it’s worth the extra money compared to other 4-speaker systems such as the FPS2000, ACS54, ProMedia (only available in US and Canada) or maybe how it compares to the original Sirocco. I will be able to offer you how it compares to the FPS2000 and ACS54 both in quality and loudness but for the ProMedia I can just offer you a loudness difference since I have never tried the ProMedia and Mark who did the ProMedia review has never heard the Crossfire. A comparison between the Crossfire and ProMedia is now available.

Compared to the original Sirocco the only real difference is that the satellites have been reduced in size (the mid uses a 3" Audax driver rather than a 4" Audax driver - the tweeter is the same), the cabinet is a custom plastic mould, not MDF and the Crossfire has just one amplifier for each satellite while the original Sirocco has two amplifiers for each satellite (one for midrange driver and the other for the tweeter). Apart from that VideoLogic used the same internal amplifier chips to drive each cone in the satellites as they used to drive each driver in the original Sirocco. What this all means is that the Sirocco Crossfire should be very close to Sirocco in terms of the quality of its audio delivery. Having said that, I never heard the original Sirocco so won’t be able to tell how close it is in reality.