Closer still

Wires! Don't ya hate 'em? If so, you'll not be happy to realise that the I-Trigue 5600 has six cables making their way back to the subwoofer - five from the speakers and one from the controller that'll likely be sitting on your desk. But, until some super-clever techno comes up with wireless speakers – and don't expect that any time soon – you've got to take the pain to get the gain.

The controller has a big Fisher-Price-style dial on the top for volume, plus a micro wheel on the side for bass level. It also carries two 3.5mm output sockets - one for headphone, the other for line out. The controls work well and modders won't need to get out their soldering irons - Creative has already built in a softly glowing blue LED.

Now for the brains of the operation - the subwoofer box. Even with its black mesh grill surrounded by a silver bezel, this predominantly black enclosure doesn't look out of the ordinary the way the satellites do, though it does chime in with their design and is perfectly acceptable. Mind you, since it's likely to live out of sight on the floor, you probably won't care what it looks like once you get it home.

More important is how it performs and this really is a clever piece of compact design, not least because it uses CMSS technology - the Creative Multi Speaker System. This allows you to connect an MP3 player into one socket on the back and, with the flick of a nearby small switch, generate a 5.1 signal from the portable device’s stereo output.

CMSS is no gimmick - the sound emulation system works well – and it's a quality addition to the 5600’s specification. However, Creative needs to think again about the position of the switch. Why have a wired remote and force the user to grovel on the floor every time the switch needs to be thrown? And I ask that knowing that Creative has already improved the controller by adding the bass wheel - something that, on its earlier systems, was inconveniently located on the subwoofer.

Overall output of this set is 74W RMS. There's a 24W punch from the subwoofer; 14W from the central speaker; and 9W from each of the four surround satellites. That's way more than you get from a typically cheapo speaker system from a company in the middle of China, and the sound quality is way better, too.