3DsoundSurge Special Feature: Early Impressions of Philips MMS305/A 3.500


	A quick look at Philips MMS305 4.1 Flat Panel Speaker System

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Philips MMS305/A3.500 - Initial Review

Published: October 18, 2001 - Mikael Hagén and Mark Muschett

Philips has been a major player in the multimedia speaker market for quite sometime but for the most part it has been 3-piece USB system that gamers have not found very interesting. The MMS/A series should change this with three 4.1 systems in addition to two 2-piece (MMS101/A1.2FP and MMS102/A1.2FFP) and one 3-piece system (MMS205/A2.5). Philips will also later add a 5.1 system to this series.

The unit we got to check out is the top of the line 4.1 system, the MMS305/A3.500, which carries a SRP of $150. The system features 4-satellites using modified NXT flat panel technology and a subwoofer with two drivers, one standard 5 Ľ driver and one 6" driver Philips refers to as a wOOx bass driver. It’s not clear to us how this differs from other dual firing subwoofers but one thing is visually clear. That is the wOOx bass driver, mounted in the front of the subwoofer cabinet, uses a unique dual suspension design. It also appears that enabling the wOOx control may change it from a passive to an active radiator. In the full detailed review we will get and provide more information on the wOOx design but in this initial review we will focus on the end result. The other driver is mounted on the bottom in a down-firing position. As is typical of almost every multimedia speaker the relatively compact subwoofer cabinet also houses the amplifier, but in this case it appears to be outside the wooden enclosure and in a separate vented molded enclosure that makes up the rear of the cabinet. The amplifier powers each satellite with 10 Watts RMS and the two subwoofer drivers with 20 Watts RMS each, for a total of 80 Watts RMS.

The remote control

One feature that sets this system apart from most if not all other $150 4-speaker systems in the market is the bundled wireless remote control (uses IR). On the remote control you find buttons for mute, standby, master volume, fader (which despite its name only affects the rear speakers), bass/treble, enable/disable wOOx , select input (the system has two stereo inputs in addition to the 4-speaker input) and 3 bass/treble presets (game, speech and music). There is no other way to access these features, something that may be problematic if you can’t find the remote or run out of batteries. Perhaps more of an issue is the fairly limited visual feedback of your current settings. What you can see is if the system is muted, what input you have selected and if it’s in standby mode or on. Beyond that the only other visual feedback is if your press on a button has any effect. This latter feedback turns out to be very useful since it will let you know when you reached maximum/minimum volume, rear output (fader button) bass or treble settings.

When it comes to the bass you have 9 levels while the treble control has 7. You can quickly get the flat settings by pressing the speech button. The game and music both boost the treble and bass. In our opinion boosting the treble makes the system sound very harsh, but apparently the designer finds it to improve the clarity. In addition to reducing or increasing the bass levels you can also "disable/enable" the wOOx. I put disable/enable in quotes since the wOOx bass driver is always moving, enabling it just boosts it.

Satellites, midrange and treble

The visually appealing flat panel satellites are quite different than the NXT panels we have seen in systems from Benwin. When it comes to sound the most significant difference is the much more prominent treble, which Philips credits the high frequency booster they added to the NXT design. With the notable exception of Polk Audio’s AMR150 most other 4-speaker systems in this price range are lacking considerably when it comes to high-frequency response. Now the MMS305 falls considerable behind the AMR150 when it comes to the quality of the treble it’s ahead of other systems we listened to at this price point ($100-$150).

The difference compared to other systems using the NXT or the SLAB flat panel technology is really night and day difference. With the treble control set to a flat response we found the high frequency quality of the MMS305 to be quite good but harsh when boosted. Others may of course like the extreme boost, something that Philips appears to be counting on by offering that ability.

Moving on to the more important midrange the quality is again quite good, but as with most other flat panel systems, especially of this small size, the bass extension is fairly poor. That is the upper bass/lower part of the midrange is handled by the subwoofer. In this case the crossover is around the 300 Hz. This makes the satellite sound quite bright compared to many other systems, something some may prefer that but other will also most definitely prefer satellites with better bass extension. This relatively poor bass extension of course also means the stereo soundstage will be less impressive due to some instruments and even vocals being placed in the subwoofer rather than the satellites. When it comes to gaming this means the positioning will be hurt, especially when it comes to explosions. For the most part this is not a huge difference since even explosions includes frequencies above 300 Hz, but it’s still clearly noticeable. Locating the compact subwoofer under your desk can optimize the overall perception of the upper bass/ lower midrange imaging of this system, particularly for stereo material (vs 4 channel material).

Overall I would say the midrange performance is better than average at this price point, matching or beating systems like the ACS56 but clearly behind the slightly more expensive ($160). Polk Audio AMR150, which in our opinion is the best 4-speaker system for music at this price point. The system is also offering a very clean sound, which is low noise levels even at high volume.

Subwoofer and bass response

The dual subwoofer offers good quality, which doesn’t suffer much when the system is pushed. The depth of the 5 Ľ driver isn’t that impressive reaching the –3 dB point at only 75 Hz, but the wOOx driver fares much better reaching down to 35 Hz with incredibly smooth response. Unfortunately the combined response of the two drivers does not reach down to 35 Hz at neutral levels. It’s more like 50 Hz, which is similar to other systems in this price range. The overall impact of activating the wOOx setting appears to be much greater, and notably more beneficial, at lower volumes.

For music I found the bass response to be quite good, perhaps not quite as well defined as some of the better subwoofers just on the outside of this price range but it’s definitely not a muddy subwoofer. I would also say better than average, beating the quality of systems like Altec Lansing’s ACS56 for music.

For gaming I was less impressed. The quality is not bad but I found it to not have the same impact as several other systems, particularly at higher volumes (e.g. Altec Lansing ACS56 and ATP3 (which gives me an indication of the $50 more expensive ATP5’s impact)). I consider this difference quite significant, enough to put the Altec Lansing ACS56 system clearly ahead when it comes to games and movies with plenty of bass effects. The fairly small subwoofer cabinet used by the MMS305 may be why the impact is noticeably less, but Mark found that even the smaller AMR-150 subwoofer delivered somewhat more impact in games, but also not nearly as much impact as the ACS56. Having said that, we don’t consider the system to lack bass or offering a poor gaming experience, it’s just less impressive than the ACS56 and AMR-150 when it comes to explosions. Other effects in games like the ambient sound effects are clearly better on the MMS305 than the ACS56, due mostly to the better high frequency response but behind the AMR-150.

Conclusion

The MMS305’s major strengths are the compact size, visual appeal, tweakability and perhaps most importantly the remote control. Some will also be attracted to the multiple inputs. When it comes to sound quality it offers overall good playback with no major tradeoff. This is in particular true for those that find prominent treble more important than getting good bass extensions of the satellites, to go along with the above average quality (but not quantity) of the subwoofer. For games I do think many will prefer a subwoofer with more impact and better bass extension on the satellites. Having said that, if you don’t put powerful bass as a high priority and are looking more at the good quality for the price point, then the MMS305 will also be an interesting option for gaming.

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