3DsoundSurge Reviews: VideoLogic Systems' DigiTheatre DTS


	Mikael Hagén puts VideoLogic Systems' DigiTheatre DTS speaker system to the test

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DigiTheatre DTS - Mikael Hagén - August 1, 2000

Sound Quality:

Now loudness is of course not as important as the sound quality. There is a tendency for people to associate quality with volume and in fact louder often does sound better. However, to compare systems of differing power, you should do you best to compare at the same or similar volumes. Testing in this manner showed that the DigiTheatre DTS satellites high-end and midrange are both excellent, almost on par with the Sirocco Crossfire. It’s noticeable clearer and more accurate than the DigiTheatre and the ADA880 and significantly ahead of the DTT2500. That midrange and high-end is almost on par with the Sirocco Crossfire shouldn’t be surprising since it uses the same satellites but it was nice to find out that the lower quality amplifier hasn’t had more than a slight effect on the quality. To be more exact than slight I would say the quality would get a rating of about 8-9 if the Crossfire sats got a 10 when you play music. Using the same scale the DTT2500 wouldn't get more than 2 or 3. The difference between the Crossfire amp and DigiTheatre DTS amp is mostly noticeable in quite parts of the music or movie, especially if you cranked up the speaker volume and sit relatively close. You will then hear that the Crossfire amp offers a much cleaner signal. Unless you crank up the volume beyond what’s healthy the difference is as mentioned above slight when playing music or movies. If you play test tones the difference is more noticeable. The removable grill has almost no impact at all on the audio quality. Most will probably not even be able to tell if it's on or not in a blind test but if you listen very carefully you may notice a very slight difference.

The center speaker uses, as mentioned, different drivers. The sound it produces is relatively close to the others but it's still a noticeable difference. In terms of quality I think it handles lower midrange better while the other satellites pulls ahead When it comes to high-end clarity. The center speaker also offers better dynamic range, especially for vocals. I will go into more detail what impact this have in the music and especially the movie section below.

The subwoofer is the real strength of this system that, thanks to its good design that includes a high quality 8" Audax driver, delivers powerful and deep bass. According to the specs, the frequency response is 24 Hz -20 kHz with a crossover at 120 Hz. I found great subwoofer response down to 35 Hz, with a gradual tailing off from 35 Hz down to 25 Hz where it dropped by 20 dB after that it remains rather flat to 20 Hz after which the drop off is very significant. It’s worth noting that the bass response can vary quite a bit between different rooms. When it comes to crossover the satellites start to dominate at about 140 Hz in my room.

The result of the subwoofers very good frequency response is a deeper bass than the DTT2500, DigiTheatre and even slightly better than what the ADA880 can deliver. If you crank it up it will cause a lot of things in your room to shake or at least vibrate, but it’s clearly less room shaking bass than the ADA880 delivers. The subwoofer is even more impressive when it comes to the quality, not only significantly better than VideoLogic’s less expensive DigiTheatre, Cambridge SoundWorks DTT2500 but also significantly better than the one found in Altec Lansing’s ADA880 and even the Sirocco Crossfire system.

Speaking of quality, it's worth mentioning that I didn’t find the digital input to offer a significant difference other than when no sound is playing where the noise level is clearly lower using the digital input. When music is playing the difference is very slight. Your experience can be different depending how good your analog and digital outs are and how electrically "noisy" your computer/DVD player is. Dolby Digital/DTS streaming aside, the difference between using the analog out and the digital output of a soundcard or DVD player is that you will use the speaker's DACs (Digital to Analog Converter) instead of the soundcard's or DVD players. Speaking of noise, I can say I had no noise issue when I was as close as 1.5 foot with the volume at 75%. Increasing the volume to 100% will increase the noise quite a bit but still barely audible 3-4 feet away and no one sitting closer than that should crank up the speakers beyond 75% if even 50%. When in digital mode with no sound playing there is almost no noise even 0.5 foot away at max volume!

As mentioned, while the main use of this system is reproducing home theater audio it can also be used for gaming and listening to music. Each of these uses stresses the speaker systems a bit differently so we will examine each separately.

Music

When you play music you can choose Pro Logic, stereo, Hall or Theatre mode. Choosing stereo will make the rear and center speaker silent. The Pro Logic mode will take advantage of the fact that many regular stereo recordings contain natural ambience that a Pro Logic decoder will treat much like surround sound. If you choose the Pro Logic mode when playing such recordings, the DigiTheatre DTS will give you what some find to be a pleasant surround-like effect, while others find it to be annoying noise from the rear satellites. Personally I usually find this to be very nice and with most music I prefer this to the stereo mode using the DigiTheatre DTS as well. With music with more high frequencies and less vocals (e.g. classical music) I found the stereo mode to offer better clarity.. Dolby Pro Logic decoding will of course work much better if the music has Dolby Surround encoded, which is true of many movie soundtracks. As mentioned in the detailed overview you can also enable the Hall or Theatre mode for a similar (but less pronounced effect.

When it comes to tonal quality and clarity for music the system, as you might correctly surmise from the general comments above, is an excellent performer significantly ahead of the other DD 5.1 systems we reviewed including VideoLogic’s $400 DigiTheatre and only slightly behind the Sirocco Crossfire’s midrange and high-end. As mentioned it's the exact same driver and cabinets so the slight difference is only due to the different and lower quality amplifier. When using the center speaker the quality difference is also due to the different drives and cabinet of the center speaker. As noted above the center channel's different drivers has both its advantages and disadvantages.

The imaging of the DigiTheatre DTS satellites is excellent and offers precise imaging of instruments. Music is the area where you’ll find the most significant difference compared to less expensive DD 5.1 systems such as the DTT2500, ADA880 and DigiTheatre but also where you make the most significant trade off compared to buying a 2.1 system for $600, unless you of course buy music using more than 2 channels. The difference is not just apparent when you play more sophisticated music with many instruments such as classical music. Even for standard pop music the smoother sound, thanks mostly to detail and clarity of the mid-range are significant benefits. The difference is of course even more significant when you listen to an orchestra. The subwoofer is an excellent performer for music, clearly beating any other subwoofer we have tried with the exception of the Sirocco Pro that uses the same driver for the subwoofer but a different cabinet. I found it offers a clean, tight bass response that is relatively smooth all the way down to 35 Hz. This smooth response means less coloration to the low frequencies and results in a very pleasing tonal quality which holds true even for bass heavy music. If you want to artificially enhance your bass then the DigiTheatre DTS can, as noted, deliver a boost of 10 dB. Unlike some other subs we tested this boost is very even (+/- 1 dB) across the frequency range that the subwoofer covers. This should be sufficient for most listening tastes, and unlike the other DD 5.1 systems we reviewed, the quality is still excellent with a 10 dB boost. Thanks to the very deep bass response you will not miss many low notes from instruments, the notable exception being the organ which can go as low as 16.4 Hz! No multimedia subwoofer and few home theater systems will deliver flat bass response down to 20 Hz.

Compared to similarly priced DD 5.1 systems the subwoofer is still quite impressive. The midrange and high-frequency response also fairs very well compared to other sub $1000 DD 5.1 systems I’ve heard.

Aside from the great, if not excellent, high-frequency and midrange and amazing bass the system also impressed me with how well it all blends together during music playback. Thanks to the relatively low crossover the illusion that the bass was emanating from the satellites is quite effective. I don't consider it to be perfect and full frequency speakers are more impressive but there is no DD 5.1 even close to this price range that offers full frequency speakers.

When it comes to loudness for music the DigiTheatre easily fills a normal living room with loud music.

One major reason to use a DD 5.1/DTS system for music other than the ones you'll find in movies is of course to play music that goes beyond stereo. There are many concerts that are available on DVDs with a DD 5.1 sound track and it's also far more common to find music with a DTS soundtrack than DVD movies. You can also find plenty of DTS-CDs. In case of DTS-CDs it's worth noting they are sampled at 44.1 kHz and while the DigiTheatre DTS does support DTS-CDs I don't know any way to play those on a computer unless you connect the digital output of your CD-ROM drive directly to the DigiTheatre DTS bypassing the soundcard. If you have a standalone DVD player or CD with digital output you should do just fine. In the future you should also expect to see many DVD-Audio discs with DD 5.1 and/or DTS soundtracks but some may also only include a soundtrack in the LPCM format which the DigiTheatre DTS doesn't support. LPCM is a new lossless format that with up to 6 channels at sample rates of 48/96/192 kHz (also 44.1/88.2/176.4 kHz) and sample sizes of 16/20/24 bits. The DigiTheatre DTS doesn't support PCM (not compressed) beyond 48 kHz/16 bits stereo either. For differences between DTS and Dolby Digital see the Movies section below.

Games

For games you have 2 options you use the speakers as a 2.1 system or as a Dolby Pro Logic system. There is no way to use it as true 4-speaker gaming system.

Gaming as 2.1 system

In games the differences between the audio reproduction of the DigiTheatre DTS and less expensive DD 5.1 systems are less significant but it's still a clear difference. That difference itself differs quite a bit between different gaming genres because of the type of sound effects that are most frequently used. The most extreme case is deathmatch gaming like Quake3 and Unreal Tournament where the mostly bass heavy weapon sound effects completely dominate. You also have the optional soundtrack and some ambient sound effects but the action is intensive enough that most of the time it will be overshadowed by the weapon sound effects. It’s obvious that the bass response and how well it blends with the midrange will be the most significant aspect of the system. In the case of the DigiTheatre DTS, the bass response is excellent and blends well with the midrange frequencies just as noted for music. This gives a realistic feel of the weapon sound effects that are as good as I have heard from other similarly priced DD 5.1 systems and better than less expensive systems. It’s of course still behind a $600 2.1 system, but clearly less so than when it comes to music.

However, tight quality bass is not as important in games as it is in music. Gamers tend to lean more towards how loud the bass can go rather than how tight it is. The DigiTheatre DTS can deliver an exaggerated bass effect up to 10 dB above neutral, which as mentioned is pretty good. It's not quite as much as the Sirocco Crossfire offers, but its enough to allow the DigiTheatre DTS to deliver a lot more presence to the bass heavy effects. This is to compensate for what appears to be a lack of dynamic range in the "loud" bass heavy explosions offered by many games. Compared to the DigiTheatre the difference is very significant, much more than in movies. The reason for that isn’t that the DigiTheatre DTS subwoofer is less impressive for movies it’s just that the original DigiTheatre subwoofer for some reason was clearly less effective in stereo or Dolby Prologic mode compared to DD 5.1 mode. Using a soundcard with separate subwoofer output solves that issue but even then the bass boost possible with the DigiTheatre subwoofer is clearly less than for the DigiTheatre DTS which matters more for games than movies. The ADA880 and DTT2500 can both offer a bass boost similar to the DigiTheatre DTS but the quality suffers more and as mentioned the quality is already significantly behind when not boosting the bass, especially the DTT2500 subwoofer. One area where the ADA880 is superior is its ability to shake your room. Now that isn’t directly an advantage since some may hate it (I do when it comes to music) but others may find it very cool. The DigiTheatre DTS sub only shakes your room at very loud volumes even then it’s not even close to the same room shaking bass the ADA880 delivers.

In games with less intensive action, such as single player mode in Unreal and Half-Life the realism of the ambient sound effects that the DigiTheatre DTS offers will give a more immersive feeling than the DigiTheatre, ADA880 and especially compared to the DTT2500. The more immersive feeling comes from a more convincing simulation of reality that the DigiTheatre DTS achieves thanks to better low level resolution. That is, details of the soft ambient sound effects are not obscured. However, the detail and quality of the ambient sound effects are usually not enough to offer a significant improvement over the DigiTheatre or ADA880 but it's still noticeable and compared to the DTT2500 the difference is clear. Where the far better satellites will make more of a difference is the improved reproduction of the soundtracks, where the comments made in the music section applies. This will be more important in the less intensive single playing mode than in death match gaming.

When it comes to 3D imaging, for the most part there isn't a huge difference between different speakers. However, just like any other sound, low distortion and good frequency response will help the imaging since it will be closer to real-life sound. What has the most effect on how well the 3D imaging works is how directional the speakers are and with most speakers in the PC market there isn't a huge difference. One exception is Monsoon’s MM-1000 that offers clearly better 3D imaging with the trade off of being suited for only one listener, something that’s not practical for a home theater system. Some other flat panel systems may also offer a clear advantage here but it’s worth noting that some flat panel systems are also clearly less directional than tradition cone based speaker systems. In the home theater market it's quite common to find rear speakers that are dipole and hence very non-directional. The DigiTheatre DTS imaging for the front channels is great but not amazing, ahead of most other cone based satellites I’ve heard like the DTT2500, DigiTheatre, ADA880 etc. Low cross over point will also improve the 3D imaging. While the DigiTheatre DTS 3D imaging is good, no matter how good your 3D sound card is, a 2-speakers will never be even close to as effective at rear placement as true 4-speaker system.

The lack of amplified headphone out is one downside of this system that it shares with almost every other DD 5.1 speaker gaming system on the market. If you are going to use it in your living room with a DVD player it’s probably not an issue but if you plan to use it with your PC it’s a disadvantage. The $20 Boostaroo is a nice solution to this as previously mentioned but would have been nicer if the DigiTheatre DTS included an amplified headphone output.

Dolby Pro Logic games and Live!Surround

You can also use the system as Pro Logic system with games that support it (e.g. Unreal Tournament, most Electronic Arts games and many console games). I tried Dolby Surround in a few games (including Turok, Unreal and Expendable) and found it to a good step-up from stereo but far behind 3D sound with 4 speakers. How big a step depends a lot on the game. For example, UT is much better than Unreal and not that far behind 3D sound with a 4-speaker system. I don’t own a console but if you do or plan to buy one you will find more use for the Dolby Prologic mode than PC games were few games support it.

If you have a Live card you can also use the Live!Surround option. This is a feature Creative uses to allow owners of surround systems that doesn't have a separate in for the rear channels to still be able to use them, but then only mono in rear and limited frequency response (100 Hz - 7 kHz). You will also lose all HRTF processing on the rear. If you don’t know what HRTF means, the short explanation is it’s what the 3D sound companies use to create 3D sound with headphones and 2 speakers. For 4-speakers it improves the positioning between the speakers and also makes elevation cues (sound above and below you) possible. So the lack of HRTF on the rears will mean no elevation sound cues for sound behind you and sound between the front and rear speakers will not be placed as well as when in 4-speaker mode. The lack of stereo will of course mean no way of knowing if it’s slightly to the rear right or rear left. The front will still have HRTF processing. Note that the Vortex 2 doesn’t have any HRTF processing on the rear speakers but the better HRTF on the front compared to the Live makes up for it a bit. The Vortex2 of course has stereo in the rear so clearly better than this Live!Surround mode.

While in theory the lack of stereo in the rear means 2-speaker 3D sound offers better sound cues than Live!Surround mode, in practice the sound from behind is now much more convincing and for that reason I still think this is a lot better than just using 2-speakers. I can also say that Live!Surround in Unreal is a significant improvement compared to Dolby Surround in that game. The sound effects are clearly better when using 3D sound compared to the Dolby Surround option and the rockets passing by me sound significantly better in Live!Surround mode than in Dolby Surround. Note that the "flying by" feeling is even stronger when using stereo in the rear. In Unreal Tournament the difference is again less noticeable.

Note that when using the Pro Logic mode the limited frequency response for rear channels (starts at 100 Hz) will result in a clear a clear difference between explosions behind you and explosions in front of you.

As you probably figured out by now, if you have a soundcard with front and rear out and you play a lot of games making use of 3D sound then the DigiTheatre DTS is probably not your best choice. The Sirocco Crossfire together with an external decoder is a better option.

Back to the sound level tests

So on to the DVD tests and conclusion.