Nothing I'd be interested in, and nothing I'm sure most of the people here would be interested in, but it suprisingly got a good review from Sound & Vision. For a $50 5.1 system, that is. From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to The Simpsons, many of the 20th century's great philosophical works have confronted the question of quality. For Homer Simpson, the answer is easy: Anything is good if it's cheap enough.

For the rest of us, the question is more complicated. We know an $8 bottle of scotch won't satisfy, and also that a $500 bottle of scotch is overpriced. But what if it's a $20 bottle claiming to be a single-malt from the Scottish Highlands? Tough question, indeed. It's the question I faced when I stumbled upon the JVC SXXSW6000 on WalMart.com. The boys from Bentonville offer this speaker system with five satellites and a powered subwoofer for a mere..

That makes it the least expensive surround-sound speaker system I've ever encountered — and I've been covering surround-sound speakers since there were only two systems on the market. I had to know: What kind of compromises did JVC make to get the price so low? Yesudas tamil songs free download.

But the SXXSW6000's sub actually performed its best in the same place where larger subs usually sound best in my room - along the front wall just to the left of my right front speaker. JVC designed the satellites to be crossed over to the sub at 200 hertz.

And could a 5.1 speaker system costing $50 actually sound okay? When I picked up the system at my local Wal-Mart (thus saving the shipping fee), I didn't even need a shopping cart — the 22-pound box was small and light enough to ride on my shoulder. Inside the box were five little plastic satellite speakers, roughly cubic in shape and measuring a little over 4 inches on each side. And under them, a real, honest-to-goodness powered subwoofer, with a power cord and a volume knob (although not much else). How to install wilcom 2006 sp4 r2 on windows 7. The package even included five color-coded speaker cables, though they're probably too short to use in anything larger than a dorm room. Each of the satellites houses a single oval-shaped 'racetrack' driver, the frame of which measures 2 by 3.5 inches. The speaker cone itself is about two-thirds that size.

It looked as primitive as the driver in the Realistic AM pocket radio I got when I was 7. To my surprise, JVC included a simple crossover in each satellite made up of a resistor and a capacitor in series —.just enough to block deep bass notes that would destroy the tiny driver in short order. In ultra-cheap speakers, the crossover is often the first thing to go because you'd have to disassemble the speaker to know it's missing. The subwoofer has an ordinary-looking 6.5-inch woofer and an amp rated at 100 watts, both housed in a 12-inch-high, rear-ported enclosure.

Its grille is made from acoustically transparent fabric and stretched over a sturdy, curved frame. I'm touched to see that JVC's product designers took the time to bestow even this marginally profitable product with some style. [SNIP.] BOTTOM LINE There's no question that offering six functional speakers for $50 is an impressive feat. When you consider that the speakers look nice, JVC's accomplishment seems nearly miraculous. The critics on Amazon.com agree; most of them seem satisfied with the SXXSW6000 despite their acknowledgement of its faults. And if you ask me to cite something better for $50 — or even $100 — I draw a blank.

Indeed, it seems snobby to criticize this system; it's as easy a target as a Paris Hilton CD or a McDonald's hamburger. But just as I wouldn't hesitate to spend $35 for a decent bottle of single-malt rather than $12 for a mass-market blended scotch, I'd rather spend $300 or so for a more competent surround-sound speaker system than $50 for the SXXSW6000.