Asus is a common name in computer components. We have taken a look at more than our share of their products from the mundane to the extreme. One area that Asus has been taking more of an interest is the higher-end side of the HTPC market. Here is where things get interesting. Unlike gamers, or overclockers a person that wants to build a high-end HTPC is looking for the best combination of performance, cooling and power draw. If you can build it fast, cool and power efficient then they will want that. But building an HTPC is not only about what you drop inside the system. You also need some good hardware on the final end of the output side. Not to worry, Asus has you covered there too. They have their own line of HD capable monitors and even speaker sets to keep you happy. We are taking a look at t new one to hit the market. It is a speaker bar that is capable of providing 5.1 surround sound to your viewing area. Called the Cine5, this small and stylish speaker system runs for about $130 on the internet. We are going to take a look and see if it is worth it.
Performance -As we mentioned very briefly above audio quality is very subjective. What you like I may not. To prevent you from getting only my opinion on the audio quality, we use multiple subjects to get differing opinions on the quality of the audio produced by the Cine5. This time we put each of our subjects into the three rooms and exposed them to the same five audio sources. From there we asked for a rating from one to five (one being the lowest and five being the best) for how good they felt the audio was. We also asked for a single word to describe the audio produced in each room.
The Living Room -This is a large room with a vaulted ceiling and one open wall. It follows a semi dead/live format with the wall behind the audio having been painted with sound dampening paint (multiple coats). The room has good acoustical properties and works well with the 5.1 surround sound presently installed. We placed the Cine5 directly in front of the 52-inch TV (at the base) and kicked off the tests. The seating area for this is roughly 13 feet from the audio source.
In the large and open living area the Cine5 did not do so well. While the audio was crisp, it was week and very faint. Even with the system turned all the way up most of our test subjects complained that they could barely hear it. It would seem that the small speakers and relatively low 15 Watt RMS output is just not enough to fill this type of room.The most common words used were; quiet, thin, tinny
The Bedroom -The bedroom setting represents your typical bedroom, the length and widths are fairly average as the distance to the audio source (about 12 feet). Again we placed the Cine5 near the base and centered on the TV/Monitor. With 8 foot ceilings and no active dampening on the walls the acoustical properties of your average bedroom are usually not that great. You can get some interesting bounces in the audio waves.The smaller bedroom setting improves the perceived volume somewhat but most of our listeners still felt it was quiet and thin. This is another time when the size of the speaker bar is working against its design. Here the words used were; clean, quiet, reedy
