Living With a Nerd

While the added subwoofer of a 2.1 speaker set provides great bass, sometimes you just don’t have the room or a need for a subwoofer. If you fall into this camp and want to spend $100 or less, look no further than the Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II.

The younger sibling of the Creative T40 Series II, the Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II provide excellent sound in a small package.  Driven by 14 Watts RMS per channel, the attractive cloth dome tweeter and glass fiber cone driver put out clear highs and full-sounding lows.  The bass port located on top makes a big difference; if you cover it with your hand, the bass response is noticeably lessened.  While you won’t get room-shaking bass out of the small 10.2″ x 6.3″ x 9.5″ T20s, the low-frequency output defies the relatively small size of the set.  The bass, treble, and volume control knobs on the right speaker feel solid and turn smoothly.  Some may find the blue ring that surrounds the volume knob to be annoying, however the light is fairly dim and shouldn’t cause distraction.  There is also a 3.5mm headphone output and aux input on the front of the right speaker, putting extra connections within easy reach.  The left speaker is detachable from the right and uses a standard composite connector, allowing for easy extension should your setup necessitate it.

After an 18 hour break-in period, I tried out the track Jareth’s Church from Deepsky to test how the speakers worked with Electronica.  The T20s made the album sound very spacey and wide, with little to no localization present.  Bass was punchy and accurate, providing a great foundation for the rest of the frequency range.  While I didn’t get the “feel” from lows that would come along with a subwoofer, there was a distinct low-end presence within the room.  Highs were crisp, with no distortion even though the volume knob was at 2 o’clock.  For acoustic music, the song Wig from the B-52′s was used.  The drums were deep and clear, while the guitar strumming was especially detailed…you could hear the pick hitting individual strings throughout the song.  geekbrief.tv, Japanese entries from survivalphrases.com, and Mitch Hedburg standup were used to test spoken word.  Japanese phrases from SurvivalPhrases were easy to understand; the subtleties present in the language came through perfectly.  Spoken word audio was overall a pleasant experience.  The T20 Series II are great for gaming as well, so long as you can accept tight and accurate bass as opposed to booming bass.

Brittnie's setup

Overall, the Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II is one of the best 2.0 powered speaker sets you can buy for under $100.  If you are on a budget and don’t need/want a subwoofer, they are definitely the way to go.