A closer look

The five satellites look futuristic. Perhaps out of the sheds of NASA or elements in Dubya's Star Wars' weapons system. Each of the five – Creative calls them, Neo Titanium Tri-Array speakers - houses, as you've may have already figured, three drivers with titanium domes. They're further described as "high-precision".

According to the company's web site, "Titanium is a relatively low-density, high-strength and easily fabricated metal that is also resistance to corrosion" – unique properties, it says, that "make it an excellent component to these high-quality and fashionable speakers. "Listen", the site urges us, "to accurate, balanced and natural audio, with wider dispersion for a wholesome audio-listening pleasure." Indeed. Couldn't have put it better myself.

The plastic shell on each individual speaker has an opening towards the back that's part of a design intended to enhance their bass. Or, as Creative would have it, "I-Trigue introduces a revolutionary patent-pending Acoustic Loaded Module (ALM). Departing from the conventional ported satellite speaker design, I-Trigue employs an innovative technique of sound wave channeling through multiple concentric chambers for lower frequency extension, by means of an Acoustic Loaded Module." Mmmmm.

Each satellite is mounted on a silver-coloured metal base. The four surround satellites are fixed in position – they don't tilt – which might make them look better but struck me as odd from an acoustic perspective.

Just think about it. Who's to say where and how these satellites are going to live? And they're having a fixed angle means you'll have to change their location, rather than just tilt them, to get the best result – likely having to put them below ear level. More puzzling still, Creative supplies wall mounts, but how many of us would want to see speakers mounted down low, rather than high up and angled downwards?

In contrast, the centre speaker – mounted horizontally rather than vertically – can swivel up or down on its stand to vary its angle of attack, making it doubly odd that the surround satellites lack this flexibility. Staying with illogicalities, Creative's web site shows an accessory that really will put the centre speaker in your face – a mount for placing it on top of an LCD monitor or an LCD TV set.

Questions of good taste aside, though, I'd personally pass on that option even though I use a beast of a monitor - a 24in widescreen panel. I'd worry about having the weight of Creative's centre speaker box on top of it, even though the monitor has a substantial frame.

A little worryingly, one of the surround satellites sat on its stand like it's spent a night on the tiles – something that would have me rushing back to the shop or requesting my on-line reseller for an RMA note.