Review of Sony SRS-DB500 and comparative analysis with Logitech Z-2300
Sony SRS-DB500
One of the unknown names, currently in Indian PC speaker market happens to be Sony. One of my friends being a Sony fanboy purchased their SRS-DB500 on September,2010 at Rs.9,000.
Yesterday i was spending some time with him at his home, so I was able to see it in flesh & also hear at full blast for quite some time. Here is my review:
Like Logitech Z-2300 or Z-623, Sony SRS-DB500 packs Tyson-strength. I mean they have the sonic wallop to make your ears bleed with its raw power. Sony states that DB-500 have 300W RMS of power. They subwoofer makes 150W & the satellites gets 75W each. But since the manufacturer had not stated either they are total peak power or total RMS power, they are almost always going to be the former.
So the total RMS power is half of total peak power which stands at 150W RMS. This is a very respectable figure. So real power distribution:
Subwoofer: 75W RMS
Satellites: 37.5W RMS X 2
Sony’s engineers have decided to get busy with the illuminations, placing a ring of red light around the large volume knob at the top of the system. Not only does this work as a volume indicator, it also throbs and revolves in time to the music or sound effects your listening to, with three different effects that you can select using the remote control. Though this to newcomers act as an attraction, to me being an audiophile are waste of money and should be better spent in providing better quality components.
Luminous 'bling' aside, the controls are simple, with an on/off switch, an input selector and two bass and treble buttons which toggle the volume control between master volume and bass/treble volume respectively. The one area where Sony has gone a bit light is on the sockets. Beyond the two non-standard connectors for the satellite speakers, we get a pair of stereo phono inputs for the main source at the back, plus a single 3.5mm auxiliary input and a headphone socket. This makes a certain amount of sense if you’re hooking up a games console, media player or Blu-Ray/DVD player as your main source, but it’s weird to hook up a set of desktop PC speakers to your PC using the slightly messy auxiliary input at the front.
The satellites are 2.5" full range drivers just like Z-2300 or Z-623. The sound produced by them are clear and vibrant. But they lack the characteristic precision, crispness and brassy sound notes of the Logitech's. Both Z-2300 & Z-623 uses polished aluminium phase plug drivers which are far superior and costs much more than DB500's satellite drivers.
Z-2300's satellites have the best sound quality, maximum power output at 40W RMS per channel and obviously the best looking of the lot. Z-623 have less power at 35 W per channel but are still better than DB-500 since it produces a much more wider & detailed sound-stage.
The subwoofer of DB-500 uses a 6.2 inch driver and packs 75 watts of earth rattling power. But the bass, while powerful, isn’t actually that well defined. That cavernous bass you come across in so many Massive Attack tracks works well, but the acoustic bass in the Bill Evans Trio’s working of Some Day My Prince Will Come lacks focus. Z-623's subwoofer at 130 W is much more powerful, and it's 7 inch driver is able to create a more precise and more well defined bass.
Z-2300 subwoofer at 120W RMS is the best of the lot. It wins hands down due to its technical advantage over the rest. The 8 inch driver is the biggest of the lot. The characteristic punchy bass that it creates is far superior to DB-500 and is not only suited to music but also movies and games as well. Z-2300's subwoofer have a Jackel & Hide character. It can produce punchy bass, cavernous bass, acoustic bass or any kind of bass you through at it. And the depth of the bass is stupendous.
The SRS-DB500s actually seem more sensible if used with a console to replace under-powered TV speakers, but here I’d counsel you to see if you can track down the Logitech Z-2300 or Logitech Z-632 or Altec Lansing MX-5021 sets, which produce much better results. The SRS-DB500s are still amongst the best as gaming speakers and also for watching movies.
DB-500 lacks the single minded attitude of performance over looks that I find in Z-2300. The Logitech engineers were so busy with the sound quality & the quality of the components used that they ignored this illumination makeups. The result is THX certification medal of honor which DB-500 does not possess.
Verdict
Big, beefy, somewhat brash speakers with the right credentials for big action games and movies. However, this isn’t as musical or versatile as Logitech Z-2300 system.
