[jaqueh]

I was looking for speakers recently and found a bunch of forums including head-fi that said that the Creative Gigaworks T20 are some of the best speakers for the price and size ever made. I decided to get them because I needed 2.0 speakers because I was tired of really bassy speakers that most 2.1 systems are like. To my horror, the T20s are basically miniature subwoofers with tweeters sitting on top of the subs! Wow are these things bassy! And listen to that terrible treble overaccentuation! I am currently in the market again for >$70 2.0 systems for my computer, and I am considering the JBL Duet III because most of it's complaints are that it doesn't have enough bass for their liking.

 

[Brooko]

Quote:

I was looking for speakers recently and found a bunch of forums including head-fi that said that the Creative Gigaworks T20 are some of the best speakers for the price and size ever made. I decided to get them because I needed 2.0 speakers because I was tired of really bassy speakers that most 2.1 systems are like. To my horror, the T20s are basically miniature subwoofers with tweeters sitting on top of the subs! Wow are these things bassy! And listen to that terrible treble overaccentuation! I am currently in the market again for >$70 2.0 systems for my computer, and I am considering the JBL Duet III because most of it's complaints are that it doesn't have enough bass for their liking.

 
?
 
I have the Gigaworks T20 - and the last thing they are is bassy IMO.  And I'm not a basshead either - consider cans in my sig.  Are you sure there is nothing wrong with your pair of speakers?  Do you have an EQ preset in operation that you're not aware of?
 
The other thing I'd suggest is that:
 

 found a bunch of forums including head-fi that said that the Creative Gigaworks T20 are some of the best speakers for the price and size ever made.

this ^^ is pushing it a bit.  Mine are good for background music, or if the kids need sound for their games - but I still continue to do almost all of my listening through headphones.  They're reasonably good for the money - but as per my review (http://www.head-fi.org/products/creative-labs-gigaworks-t20-series-ii-2-0-multimedia-speaker-system-with-basxport-technology/reviews/5412) .... they're not giant killers.

 

[jaqueh]

I have no EQ on my iTunes and I even have the bass turned to 9 o'clock. Well i don't find them to be very suitable for metal or more acoustic stuff because the bass sounds unrealistic

 

[cel4145]

Quote:

I have no EQ on my iTunes and I even have the bass turned to 9 o'clock. Well i don't find them to be very suitable for metal or more acoustic stuff because the bass sounds unrealistic

 
I'm better your expectations don't meet your budget. Any pair of multimedia desktop speakers for under $100 will be a compromise in more than one way.  Most of them have cheap tiny drivers. 
 
If you have the room for the speakers, get a Lepai t-amp and a pair of these Pioneer speakers or Polk Monitor30s. Watch Newegg for specials and subscribe to their mailing list (those speakers have recently been on sale once or twice a month). Or the Dayton B652. 

 

[jaqueh]

Quote:

 
I'm better your expectations don't meet your budget. Any pair of multimedia desktop speakers for under $100 will be a compromise in more than one way.  Most of them have cheap tiny drivers. 
 
If you have the room for the speakers, get a Lepai t-amp and a pair of these Pioneer speakers or Polk Monitor30s. Watch Newegg for specials and subscribe to their mailing list (those speakers have recently been on sale once or twice a month). Or the Dayton B652. 

thanks for the suggestions but I am currently in an apartment in college so none of those will work. 
 
Has anyone on head-fi ever heard the JBL Duet III to make a recommendation or not?

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

thanks for the suggestions but I am currently in an apartment in college so none of those will work. 
 

 
If it's the size you're worried about, at the price you're willing to pay, the only way to get more even and closer to fullrange (20hz to 20khz) sound is through bigger - and maybe multiple - drivers, ergo bigger cabinets. At higher price points there are compact solutions but a college budget won't cut it. Even the Swan HiVi X4 might be too large and it's around $699+, I think.

If you can do with just smooth midrange and not much treble and nearly zero bass though there's the Swan HiVi S3W. There's already a MkII but on the website but not in retailers', so the price is still unknown. I was initially looking at the original version of this since I preferred midrange over just gobs of bass, but when I got to listen to them, they don't have enough "slam" on the bass drums when there are too many instruments playing.* Although the dealer's wasn't necessarily a Hi-Fi store with noise isolated listening rooms, but since we don't have the same kind of return policies as in the US, I decided since I was getting my new home office table customized next month I might as well get the larger D1080MkII 08, take these into account, and stave off upgraditis.
 
BTW don't get restricted to just Swan; there must be others out there, although for the most part they might be way beyond your budget (and mine), like the Focal XS Book.
 
 
 
*If its classic rock bass drums, the intro of Deftones' Digital Bath, or some blues tracks for example, the bass is there, just not knocking your chest; when it's the double pedals on Dream Theater or Nightwish, it's like my fingers following the beat by tapping on a styro cup.

 

[jaqueh]

I think that I got over my initial hesitations over the creative t20, and really do think that theyre as bad as I originally thought them to be. the bass is not as high quality as my tf10s but what can I really expect from speakers that are half of its price. also I don't think that it's possible to find better speakers at this price point.

 

[ChipnDalebowl]

One thing that definitely can be in effect here--you live in a small apartment. Are those bass ports near a wall or shelf or something solid? That could certainly give some boom to the bass you hear. Move those speakers away from anything solid and I bet the boom goes away. I've had this issue with ported speakers before because my desk is right in front of a wall.

 

[M1ther]

I just bought the T20, based on the massive amount of positive reviews and I am afraid of sharing your disappointment.
Even with the Bass-button turned down, these speakers sound Mega Ultra Turbo Super Bass Boosted.
Music sounds dull and when listening to speech (radio announcements, interviews, ...) makes me wonder how speaking while inhaling argon (countering the helium-sound) would sound like. A word of caution for those wanting to try this out: if you try it, do it in an inverted vertical position so that this heavier gas doesn't continue resting on the bottom of your lungs.
 
I arrived at this page looking for equalizer settings making the T20 sound more natural... my quest continues

 

[MRK1]

I'm resurrecting this thread because I 100% agree with everything said here. I bought the T20 Series 2 because I needed some generic speakers, I read a bunch of reviews on Amazon and people were complaining about "hurr not enuff base durr" and I'm definitely not a basshead so these would have been ok for me, anyway, my expectations were already bottom of the barrel low, but man these speakers are absolute trash, probably in the top 5 worst audio products I've ever listened to. Even with the bass knob to the lowest the bass is ridiculously boosted, to the point there are all kinds of reverberations and weird distortions going on. The sound is so muddy in a nasty bloated way I would go as far as saying that I literally prefer how my freaking phone sounds compared to these, man the integtrated speakers on my 6 years old Macbook Pro have better treble and mids than these two pieces of crap.
 
Maybe they changed the manufacturing at some point resulting in these disgusting mud beasts? How can anyone consider these not bassy when they can barely reproduce any sound that is not WHUUB and UNZ UNZ?
 
Guess that's what you get for not searching Head-Fi thoroughly before buying an audio product. Man what a complete waste of money, I even made the mistake of buying from Creative themselves so now I also have to pay for the return shipping.
 
And what were they thinking when they let the knobs influence the sound on the headphone jack as well, these pieces of trash aren't even worth it as a cable extender for your headphones so that you don't have to reach behind your PC every time since the output is not clean. On top of that, there must be some weird current going through these because when I connect my PS3 to the AUX-IN some kind of interference is displayed on the monitor as the plug goes in, if I fidget around with it the image goes black as well, so I doubt the electronics inside these things are safe, this literally never happened when I connected any other audio device to my PS3.
 
What a waste, honestly, I rarely get this angry from buyer's remorse after buying something but man these did it for me. Makes me wonder what unhealthy amounts of bass "normal" people like if they consider these mud beasts "not bassy enough".
 
Anyway, anyone who got disappointed with these found a better set of speakers without breaking the bank?

 

[ProtegeManiac]

 
Maybe they changed the manufacturing at some point resulting in these disgusting mud beasts? How can anyone consider these not bassy when they can barely reproduce any sound that is not WHUUB and UNZ UNZ?
---
What a waste, honestly, I rarely get this angry from buyer's remorse after buying something but man these did it for me. Makes me wonder what unhealthy amounts of bass "normal" people like if they consider these mud beasts "not bassy enough".

 
Normal people drive this or want to, based on some car charity show on MTV...
http://image.trucktrend.com/f/9766873+q80+re0+cr1/0608st_12_z%2Baudiobahn_spring_break_jam_2006%2Bcustom_sound_system.jpg
 
...as opposed to this, which is what normal music that isn't the kind that came out of a ghetto (or best enjoyed in a club with ecstasy) sounds like.
http://www.dls.se/econtent/img/418_zoom6.jpg
 
Similarly, they're more likely to have these...
http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NTAwWDUwMA==/z/AQQAAMXQyY1TVjZn/$_35.JPG?set_id=2
http://kingofwallpapers.com/beats-by-dre/beats-by-dre-007.jpg
 
...than these.


 
 
 

 
Anyway, anyone who got disappointed with these found a better set of speakers without breaking the bank?

 
I didn't get disappointed because I didn't pay for them (just tried them at the store), but off the top of my head, here are speakers I'd much rather blow money on (and did blow money on one of them):

HiVi D1080MkIV (bought the MkII 08 version)
Edifier E10BT
Edifier R19U
Edifier R1700BT
HiVi S3W

 

[MRK1]

I'll give you an example of a song that is nearly covered in wub when on all of my headphones including the 598CS and the Sony MDR 1A which are slighly bass boosted don't have the issue:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrCqrNKGlLI
 
Maybe this is a poorly mixed track (even though I doubt it, this song in FLAC sounds amazing on my headphones), Trance is often not very well mixed, but seriously, most of this song is covered whuwhuwhuwhu using these speakers even with the bass knob all the way down. I can't even fix it by using a software EQ on my computer by turning all the low frequency sliders down to zero. It's absolutely ridiculous.
 
The wub effect happens everywhere to some extent, even in video game music, and it's not an issue with my PC, with PS3 games it happens too. I notice the whub every time when I play this game, listen to this track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5ckAxkGxU
 
The theme begins with a disgusting distorted bass note, which I literally never heard on any of my headphones. These speakers can make crappy generic video game music sound several orders of magnitude worse by adding a consistent amout of wub to it.
 
It's not even reverberation caused by my desk, I literally set them up in the middle of the room to test them, still ridiculously boomy and artificially bass boosted, everything except maybe dubstep is unlistenable on these things. These are the quintessential dubstep speakers since they can barely reproduce any sound that is not wub-wub.
 
Absolutely disgusting, and these have 4.5 stars on Amazon, this blows my mind on so many levels, and I'm not even an audiophile used to high end gear. The only explanation is that they somehow changed the drivers or the build recently, and that most reviewers who gave them positive comments didn't get a boomy set. These are literally unusable, I'd rather listen to everything through my OnePlus 3's tinny mono speaker than these wub generators.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

 
The theme begins with a disgusting distorted bass note, which I literally never heard on any of my headphones. These speakers can make crappy generic video game music sound several orders of magnitude worse by adding a consistent amout of wub to it.

 

It sounds about as normal as ecstasy OST does on everything that isn't, say, Audiobahn (or a really schiity speaker enclosure).

 

The thing is they're forcing the tiny drivers to play too much low bass that it barely plays to begin with. And while headphone drivers (heck, IEM drivers) are much smaller, they're also measured with the mic a lot closer, since they'd also be closer to the eardrums. Speakers are measured at 1m, so they force the tiny drivers to work hard at 1m instead of at the very least designing it to work at half that distance with some balance between bass response range, loudness, and low distortion.

 

It's kind of like if you tried to actually play music through a subwoofer designed to dole out as much stomach churning bass from a test tone as it can. No, really, there are actual car audio competitions for that, and the number of idiots driving around sharing their bass with the whole town ends up with people who see what's in my car and ask how many blocks away is it audible. Really, screw that.
 

  Absolutely disgusting, and these have 4.5 stars on Amazon, this blows my mind on so many levels, and I'm not even an audiophile used to high end gear. The only explanation is that they somehow changed the drivers or the build recently, and that most reviewers who gave them positive comments didn't get a boomy set. These are literally unusable, I'd rather listen to everything through my OnePlus 3's tinny mono speaker than these wub generators.

 
Like I said, you have people whose idea of car audio is pimp my ride, headphones as Beats, and home speakers as "anything to make the neighbours call the cops during our kegger." 

 

[MRK1]

So, I was bashing these very hard some time ago, but I realized that for some reason, my room had a weird reverberation going on, maybe due to the low ceiling or something else, especially in the area where I have my computer. As I was literally packing them to send them back to where they came from, I decided to give them another final try while I was in another room and believe me the difference was like day and night, in fact I liked the sound so much I kept listening to many songs from my phone for like one hour. I wouldn't say they sound amazing or anything but they're more than passable for a casual listening pair of speakers that cost less than 100€, and I would honestly say that they sound quite good most of the time. I complained that they sounded like mini subwoofers, and yeah that was the reverberation in my room, and while these are definitely bass heavy, in a non reverbery zone of my house even with the bass knob at 1/4th the bass is ok for my taste, while before, in the reverbery area, even with the bass all the way down they basically sounded like mini subwoofers. So I finally had a reason to move my PC outside of my room and now I listen to them with the bass knob at 1/4 and the treble knob at 3/4.

Anyway, the only real issue I have with these is how the knobs also change the sound of the headphone jack (so you have to set both knobs to the halfway point to have a neutral output, and even then I'm not entirely sure the output is really neutral), and that for some reason these seem to have a current going through the wire, and they make a loud noise if you touch the exposed audio jack and also during connection to an audio source. On my PS3 if I connect them to the audio output I can see the screen going white for a split second, the same thing happens on the PS4 if I connect them to the controller while the controller is also connected to the system via the USB cable. I'm not entirely sure this is normal or safe for my consoles...

 

[Jack Mono]

All this thing needs is a little EQ-ing. Take from 125Hz to subtract from the boxy sound, add a little sparkle to open the sound up and you have a wonderful set on the cheap on your desk.