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Creative Inspire T7900 Speakers | 
 enlarge | Brand: Creative
Category: CE
Buy New: £73.85
New (3) from £73.85
Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 23313
Media: Electronics
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 11
Dimensions (in): 16.4 x 16.1 x 14.7
Legal Disclaimer: Layer One UK does not offer any warranty other than the one imposed by the manufacturer. Consequently, the warranty conditions proposed by Layer One UK will be an exact copy of the manufacturers.
MPN: 51MF7020AA007
Model: 51MF7020AA007
EAN: 5390660072543
ASIN: B00064BA72
Release Date: March 17, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Creative Inspire T7900 speakers deliver unrivalled 7.1 surround sound immersion in games, movies and music. When used with Sound Blaster 7.1 sound cards they support the latest and most advanced standards for surround audio available today. The front satellites incorporate tweeters and mid-range drivers for detailed mid-to-high tonality, and the reinforced wood subwoofer provides dynamic bass. The front centre speaker has extra amplification for improved dialogue and effects, while its horizontal design ena...
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
A mixed, but generally positive experience. March 21, 2008
Mr. J. D. Febry (South West England)
I've owned this speaker system for the best part of a year now. A musician myself, it was bought after I decided I wanted surround sound - but didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for it.
In that respect, these speakers have performed wonderfully and it's an amazing experience to sit in the centre of a 7.1 surround system and just let the music immerse you completely.
One of those remarkable things about 7.1 systems are of course - the practicalities. If you are not carefull, you'll end up propping speakers up on digerydoos and having small black cables running everywhere like some bizzare space-ant colony. That being said - the system does come with a perfectly adequet amount of stands for your convenience which work fairly well - even if you have to drill a few new holes in the wall.
After setting up the process and getting everything to work, my first views on the experience with the system were mixed. First I was struck by the beauty of hearing surround sound - I simply cannot describe how different an experience it is to simple two-speaker-sub setups. But this is a review of this speaker system, not surround sound itself - so I have to say, I was slightly disapointed.
The sound was tinny, it didn't have the crisp-clear sound I wanted and the bass felt a little lost around there under the desk with the empty crisp packets and told me distinctly that it wanted to go back to the factory rather than be here supporting the mid and trebel frequencies. The trebel, meanwhile - was stuck in 1969 listening to King Crimson and was quite happy remaining there in it's merry flute-filled world. The mid-frequencies were uprooted without the base and were flailing around trying to find purchase like an insect stuck on it's back.
At first I thought to myself - well, that's alright, it was a relatively inexpensive speaker system, I should have expected it. I can tolerate it to get that nice surround system and hear those bullets fly over my head in video-games.
A few hours later... I caved in and plugged two high quality speakers in as my Front Left and Front Rights.
Completely. Different. Experience.
With two speakers of higher quality making up the frontal edge of the surround and supporting the rest I got the balance I wanted and I havn't used anything else since. Yes I could buy more expensive set-ups, but all I would be looking for is that extra crispiness and louder volumes - and i'm not the kind of person who orgasms over how loud he can play drum and bass. With an extra booste and a bit of tweaking I realised what a fine thing this system is - it's cheap, and it does it's job.
So, overall:
If you're looking to buy a surround system for your DVDs or are a professional musician looking for the perfect sound-world experience - i'm afraid you'll have to shell out a lot more cash than this.
If you're looking just for an average, good surround system that wont break the bank and will give you some of that lovely sound-world experience - this will do.
If you're a person who wants something a bit better than that, can afford a bit of extra cash but not enough for a more expensive system. Buy this one, and replace the Front Left and Front Right speakers with ones of higher quality.
One final note of warning, if you're not fed up with me already:
You'll want a good sound-card.
As a shameless fan of Creative products, i'de get a soundblaster, but there are cheaper and better things out there.
 Good but not great! September 3, 2007
Momtazul Arefin (Raktim) (Dhaka, Bangladesh)
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
Creative Inspire T7900 is a decent balanced set from Creative . I have been using this speaker set for over six months and what seems to me that the manufacturer has tried to produce a product as good as possible with its somewhat outdated and cheap technology. Their intention and outlook is quite sincere but due to price constraints, the outcome induces somewhat a mixed feeling. One thing is for sure that the speaker is not for the most serious of audio listeners. As the manufacturers understand their limitation and not try to exceed them with some flawed and ambitious tactics, the speaker sounds very much balanced- neither accentuating nor diminishing any particular frequency band. Nevertheless, as the speaker does not have enough clarity or punch it cannot generate the necessary feel and very often, the audio sounds weaker than average speakers.
Pros
A 7.1 speaker set and thereby supports all known audio formats.
Well balanced set. Almost even frequency response from 40 H 20,000Hz.
Good directional PC audio.
Good natural bass from the subwoofer.
Sounds perfect for modern day music, sci-fi action movies and games.
Respectable speaker design.
The headphone and auxiliary input jack on the volume controller do come handy in time.
No noise and no distortion even at high volume.
Lots of cable.
Cheap for a 7.1 speaker set.
Cons
Often sounds muffled with a bit older weaker recordings.
Loses quite a lot of details during sound reproduction. You would never understand it if you play only sources that have quite an even frequency distribution or is full of sharp percussive instruments. However, if you play something that has high frequencies in actual mid frequency band (that is lack of true high frequency sound, above 12 kHz, may be because of older recording, low bit-rate mp3 or because of the nature of the song), the output is something disgusting.
Poor sound imaging. Sound imaging indicates the size and location of the source as exhibited by the output audio. In spite of developers effort to give the sound a bigger fuller effect, it is quite easy to ascertain that the satellites are small and produces only high frequencies.
Poor midrange performance, as stated earlier. Sounds awful with audio dependant on mid frequencies below 12 kHz.
The satellites are weak. Therefore, the speaker turns out to be something tiny sounding when there is not lot of bass and treble too make the sound feel bright.
The speaker has too high threshold value for the higher frequencies. One positive outcome is no noise but sometimes it also skips high frequencies and the audio sounds muffled.
The speaker looses clarity with softer and weaker sound. So you cannot hear the low voice and faded background music from DVDs.
With too many musical instruments, the audio sounds overloaded and stressed.
The volume controller is very difficult to stably place. A remote controller would be preferable or the controller and the jacks could be front mounted to the center speaker or the sub.
Bare-end copper wire for satellites gets a bit rusty in time.
The speaker is cheap and its sound quality does not exceed its price.
Suggestion
Casual computer users looking for a good cheap all-format supporting speaker should buy this stuff. Those who love music from different ages and critical about the sound quality should look for a better set, may be from Altec or Logitech. I am one of them and therefore I have sold it out to one of my friends!
A few problems and solution:
The 7.1 cable supplied works only with Creatives Soundcard: to solve this, connect the stereo cables with your built-in soundcard as directed. Then all the satellites will sound apart from the side speakers. Notice that there are 4 stereo jacks on the subwoofer rear side. So buy a single stereo cable and connect it with your soundcard and directly to the rear of the sub replacing the side satellite jack.
Too short cables for the satellite: Buy some RCA MF extension cable from creative website at $10 (not available everywhere)!
 7 reasons to get wrong July 24, 2007
Luicpend (Germany)
3 out of 14 found this review helpful
I have had this sytem for 14 days, and I can't recommend it to anybody.
I had made my mind to buy a 5.1 system, but my room's configuration required some large wiring to locate correctly the left rear speaker; the cables in the Creative T6100 and the Logitech X540, were too short for me, but getting an extension was easy. Then, I saw the Creative T7900, read that the cables were long enough, and that silly little detail made me choose the 7.1 system. Error #1.
I spent 90 good minutes setting the system, hiding the cables in corners, under the carpet, etc.... But the sound was not good: it was not surround sound at all!
I spent them longer time, moving the speakers at freedom, giving a damn then about seeing the cables all over the room or not... The problem is that, to get really surrounding sound, I should get some speaker stands to setup the rear and side speakers to some height, and then put them in a perfect circle around me... and, if possible, really close.
This is the error #2: my room was not adequate. But, I cannot imagine which room could fit. Mine is rectangular, quite small, I have complete freedom to locate the speakers...
And also the error #3: if you get this system, please buy as well some speaker stands for the rear speakers. And error #4, as the side speakers require as well hight positions.
And error #5: price is not anymore fine. Speakers plus two sets of stands makes the system not cheap anymore...
Well, before ordering the stands, I used some boxes as stands. I could hardly move, but I was surrounded by speakers... I guess that receiving noise from several locations around you could pass for surround sound, no? Perhaps I was already too sensible, but music didn't sound specially great. And that keeping low level,s trying to get it loud was another mistake: error #6.
Error #7 was playing with the bass control... better let it alone, in some low to very low level...
On the 14th day, I discovered that I could return the system in 14 days... so I spent another 90 minutes to disconnect the speakers, pack them again and carry the heavy box to the shop.
I have now decided to buy the Logitech Z-5500. That is much more expensive, but perhaps it will worth the money. I am not sure if the cheaper Logitech systems will fare as bad as these Creative ones, but all I can say: if your budget does not buy a good Logitech/Creative system, perhaps the T6100 or Logitech X540 are good alternatives, but the additional speakers on the T7900 count only as additional errors.
 Great! April 28, 2007
Jords (New Zealand)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
Had these speakers for about a year now, so I can give a reasonably unbiased review :D
I have a Audigy 2 ZS sound card (Works best out of the creative cards on linux, Incidentally the ALSA drivers for this card are great, sound better to me than the windows ones) and setting this sound system up was very easy, but as others have said it's not so easy without a Creative sound card.
The Speaker quality is really good, I listen to a wide range of music and play games and it all works very well. The subwoofer is quite powerful, I usually turn it down a little from normal to stop the bass being too loud in my small room... There's plenty of power in the speakers. As others have said, the Sub, Front, and Center speakers are defiantly the best, the rear/side speakers are'nt as good but the overall effect is good.
The wired remote is'nt too great, considering getting the wireless remote add-on. It has the volume control, bass level, headphone socket, and aux input, but It's not exactly stylish and has strangely thick wires running between it and the sub/amp.
These speakers are pretty cheap for the quality you get, but you really need a good and preferably creative sound card to get the best out of them - little vendor lock-in there.
Quite a good 7.1 set-up but don't expect it to work out of the box with on-board PC sound January 16, 2007
Keith Joseph (West Berkshire, England)
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
This is quite a good value and good looking 7.1 set, and the sound is more than adequate for games and listening to music (far better than a Ghetto Blaster). It goes loud too without distortion. While you don't get HiFi quality reproduction it's fine for the odd CD and DVD movie, although essentially you are buying into a surround sound experience from a lot of cheap speakers rather than top quality sound from a couple of expensive ones. We are happy with this 7.1 set and use them mostly for ambience during games [where you do need to hear what is going on]. The wired remote is fine for my son and I, as it sits happily on the desktop and controls overall volume and subwoofer bass volume via two rotary knobs (including power on/off) - much easier than using windows/games menus or crawling under the desk to reach the subwoofer. The wired remote also has analogue line-in, great for MP3 players, and a headphone socket (via standard miniature stereo jacks) - you can't tell which is which easily though. The headphone socket cuts out the sound to the speakers when used.
We have managed to place all 7 speakers around my sons bunk bed/under desk unit, even hiding all the cables. I can't imagine fitting this 7.1 speaker set into our sitting room though, as I just couldn't live with all the trailing black speaker leads. See Creative.com's website for the speaker sizes. Other than that the only downside - and it's a biggy - is that the four standard RCA mini-jack lines into the subwoofer unit combine to just three for the PC's motherboard/soundcard sockets (colour-labelled 1, 2, & 3 to match a PCI Creative X-Fi sound card). This means that the supplied cable simply won't work with most on-board PC sound that have the standard 4 output jacks for the respective speakers position. I wish Creative could have included a converter cable to split the jacks input correctly as it is hardly an unforeseen problem. I have had to buy a few stereo jack leads to bypass the supplied one, which has now got all the speakers working. Our motherboard integrated sound is 7.1 but you can switch the woofer/control unit to upmix from 5.1 and 6.1 sound cards - but I don't how succesful it is (even 7.1 sound can be hit and miss with a stereo signal as the source, particularly with an on-board sound chip and driver). If the 7.1 upmix and EAX sound has problems, don't automatically blame the speakers - in our case it has always seemed to be poorly written soundcard drivers.
Our PC's motherboard SoundMax 7.1 sound chip, drivers and output sockets weren't really up to running these speakers properly (software & games rarely recognised the 7.1 setup and mostly we just got the front stereo/centre and subwoofer actually playing. So we have now bought a Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Music PCI card from an Amazon reseller to get these T7900 speakers working correctly to their full potential. This card cost almost as much as the speaker set, but we think it was worth it to get proper CMSS surround sound and a noticably improved sound quality, e.g. when using the excellent XFi crystalizer chip to enhance DVDs & MP3s (plus there's the X-Fi card's optional extra's like a real wireless remote, in/out expansion box and home theatre connections). We have had the speakers for a year now and the speakers/volume control are still looking/working as new. So by all means give this excellent set of Creative 7.1 speakers a go, but be aware that you may run into some hardware problems (and get noticeably inferior sound quality) if you aren't using an X-Fi Creative sound card and it's latest drivers.
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