Subjective Listening
Tests
Dang it.
Sometimes pure measurements just don't tell the whole story. I was able to
hear the two midrange peaks, but that was far overshadowed by the overall
musicality (is that really a word?) of the 3050M's. MidiLand is one of those
few, and I mean very few, manufacturers that listens to their products.
Despite the obvious sonic aberrations, the 3-piece set always managed to draw
me into the sound instead of drive me away. This magic becomes addicting and
over the decades of listening to hundreds of speakers becomes painfully obvious
in the first few minutes of any decently recorded selection being fired up.
Yes, the
midrange was tilted to the lightweight side, but that is not to equate it
to sounding thin and harsh. Quite the contrary, voices and strings sounded
clean and clear and even if a bit too pronounced. I found myself wanting to
re-examine much of my eclectic music collection. This is a good thing.
Akin to the
excellent full range 4060 satellites, the little screamers did exhibit a surprising
high frequency extension. No, don't expect -3dB@20KHz, but the last octave
was there, just not as strong as it could have been with tweeters.
The subwoofer
was meant to be placed near the junction of at least two walls. If placed
far out into the room, it cannot produce enough SPL to keep up with the satellites
although the frequency response would be unusually flat for this price range.
I would have preferred a lower sub cutoff, but again MidiLand chose quality
over quantity. The woofer exhibited very little high Q sloppy bass. What a
welcome relief.
Conclusion
Frankly,
I'm ecstatic to find any speaker with this kind of sonic truth at any price,
let alone in the sub-$100 class. After reviewing units in the $200-$300 range
with dreadful results, I finally was able to listen and enjoy the music, not
have it assault my ears and make me eager for the time to arrive when I could
turn them off.
I'm disappointed
with the 50W claim being so far off. I think MidiLand should post more accurate
numbers or simply do what Boston Acoustics did, few if any specs at all. Do
people really buy subjective items by comparing objective numbers? I hope
not. The S4-3050M's slips into my very exclusive ranks of the long term listenable.
Recommended.
William
Yaple
11/19/00
