3DsoundSurge Reviews: Altec Lansing ADA880


	Mikael Hagén puts Altec Lansing's ADA880 speaker system to the test

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ADA880 - Mikael Hagén - May 8, 2000

Performance:

Now loudness is of course not as important as the sound quality. There is a tendency for people to associate quality with volume and in fact louder often does sound better. However, to compare systems of differing power, you should do your best to compare at the same or similar volumes. Testing in this manner showed that the ADA880 high-end and especially midrange is good, but not excellent. It’s noticeable clearer and more accurate than the DTT2500 and about on par with the DigiTheatre. It is however, significantly behind high quality speakers such as the Sirocco Spirit (2-speaker system for $250) which should come as no surprise given that that Altec Lansing has to factor in the cost of a Dolby Digital decoder into producing the system. The front satellites offer better quality than the rear thanks to the tweeter but high-end is still lacking but noticeably better than the DTT2500. Having said that, I found the rear speakers to be well matched to the front speakers when playing DVD movies.

The subwoofer is the real strength of this system that thanks to its good design, including an 8" driver, can deliver powerful and deep bass that really can shake your room. According to the specs, the frequency response is 20 Hz -20 kHz but there is no mention of the crossover points. I found great subwoofer response down to 40 Hz, with a gradual tailing off from 40 Hz down to 30 Hz where it dropped by 20 dB. From 30 Hz to 20 Hz it drops another 15 dB. At 20 Hz there is a sound but not very loud. When it comes to crossover the satellites starts to dominate somewhere between 150-170 Hz and at 200 Hz the subwoofer is almost completely silent.

The result of the subwoofers very good frequency response is a deeper bass than either the DTT2500 or DigiTheatre can deliver and, if you crank it up it will cause a lot of things in your room to shake or at least vibrate! When it comes to the quality, it’s good but not excellent. Overall its better than the DTT2500 and deeper but not quite as tight as the DigiTheatre subwoofer and clearly behind higher quality subwoofers. In this price range, that level of performance was of course not expected. However, I wanted to point out that while it does have an 8" driver and frequency response close to or on par with many higher quality subwoofers (such as the one shipping with the Sirocco Pro and the recently announced DigiTheatre DTS) the quality is significantly behind. In general, while the ADA880 subwoofer is notably better than the DTT2500 or ACS56 subwoofer, its still closer to that general performance bracket than it is to the other end of the performance spectrum. It’s more like the subwoofer found in systems like the DTT2500, FPS2000, and ACS56 but more powerful and much deeper.

Speaking of quality, it's again worth mentioning that I didn’t find the digital input to offer much if any quality difference. Again, your experience can be different depending how good your analog outs are and how electrically "noisy" your computer is. Dolby Digital streaming aside, the difference between using the analog out and the digital output of a soundcard is that you will use the speaker's DACs (Digital to Analog Converter) instead of the soundcard's. Speaking of noise, I can say I had no noise issue when I was even as close as one foot away from the satellites.

As mentioned, there are 3 uses for this system: gaming, listening to music and watching movies which all stress the speaker system a bit differently.

Music

When you play music you can choose either Pro Logic or stereo mode. Choosing stereo will make the rear silent. The Pro Logic mode will take advantage of the fact that many regular stereo recordings contain natural ambience that a Pro Logic decoder will treat much like surround sound. If you choose the Pro Logic mode when playing such recordings, the ADA880 will give you what some find to be a pleasant surround-like effect, while others find it to be annoying noise from the rear satellites. Personally I found it to be very nice when the rear sats were behind me. If I placed them on top of the front sats in the side firing mode, I found it sounded really odd and clearly preferred normal stereo (in which case the side firing sats are silent). Dolby Pro Logic decoding will of course work much better if the music has Dolby Surround encoded, which is true of many movie soundtracks.

Regardless of the mode you select, the system offers good quality for all types of music, thanks to good bass, midrange and high-end. The midrange offers neutral sound that is pleasing to listen to. The difference in quality is noticeable better than the DTT2500 and roughly on par with the DigiTheatre but significantly behind the Sirocco Crossfire to my ears. This is especially true when the music includes a lot of instruments with more high frequencies such as orchestral music that includes cymbals. For most pop music the difference is less noticeable, both compared to the DTT2500 and the Crossfire. The bass is as mentioned deep and powerful and of good, but not of excellent, quality. Using the bass and treble control you can tweak the sound more than with most other systems like the DigiTheatre and DTT2500 that lack a treble control. If you exaggerate the bass it’s a bit boomy and at max volume it can even crackle.

When it comes to loudness for music, the ADA880 system easily fills a small to medium sized room with loud music. If you want to leave the room and go to the kitchen and still hear loud sound then the ADA880 doesn’t deliver what you want. The same is true if you intend to fill a rather large room or if you want to play music extremely loud. As you saw in the loudness tests the ADA880 is clearly louder in Dolby Digital mode than in stereo mode and that will be important when it comes to movies.

Games

For games you have 2 options you use the speakers as a 2.1 system or as a Dolby Pro Logic system. There is no way to use it as true 4-speaker gaming system.

Gaming as 2.1 system

There is no question the ADA880 is an even better system for gaming than it is for music. In games the fact that it is lacking a bit when it comes to high-end isn’t really important and the good, but not excellent, midrange is also of less importance while the low frequency sound of explosions becomes more important.

As you already know, I found the ADA880 subwoofer to be quite good at bringing out more low frequencies (that is deep bass) than any other system I’ve tried in this price range, including the DTT2500 and DigiTheatre. The bass frequencies in games are not anywhere close to as low as in DVD movies but it still makes a significant difference compared to the DigiTheatre and DTT2500. If you like explosions to shake your room the ADA880 shouldn’t disappoint and if you hate it you can always turn down the bass! It's worth mentioning that while the sound level tests noted earlier show that the ADA880 isn't much ahead of the DigiTheatre when it comes to loudness, there is no question that the ADA880 can provide much more powerful bass than the DigiTheatre in games. The difference, however, is less in DVD movies. The reason that the difference is more significant in games is a result of the DigiTheatre doing a rather poor job on directing low frequency effects to the subwoofer in games compared to what it does in movies.

When it comes to 3D imaging, there isn't a huge difference between different speakers. However, just like any other sound, low distortion and good frequency response will help the imaging since it will be closer to real-life sound. What has the most effect on how well the 3D imaging works is how directional the speakers are and with most speakers in the PC market there isn't much difference. In the home theater market it's quite common to find rear speakers that are dipole and hence very non-directional. The ADA880 imaging for the front channels is good, but not amazing, similar to the DTT2500 and behind the DigiTheatre. While the ADA880 3D imaging is good, no matter how good your 3D sound card is, a 2-speaker setup will never be even close to as effective at rear placement as a true 4-speaker system.

The lack of amplified headphone out is one downside of this system that it shares with almost every other 4-speaker gaming system on the market. As previously mentioned, the $20 Boostaroo is a nice solution to this oversite, but it would have been nicer if the ADA880 included an amplified headphone output.

Dolby Pro Logic games and Live!Surround

You can also use the system as Pro Logic system with games that support it (e.g. Unreal Tournament, most Electronic Arts games and many console games). I tried Dolby Surround in a few games (including Turok, Unreal and Expendable) and found it to a good step-up from stereo but far behind 3D sound with 4 speakers. How big a step depends a lot on the game. For example, UT is much better than Unreal and not that far behind 3D sound with a 4-speaker system.

If you have a Live card then you can also use the Live!Surround option. This is a feature Creative uses to allow owners of surround systems that don't have a separate input for the rear channels to still take advantage of the rear speakers, athough only in mono and with a limited frequency response (100 Hz - 7 kHz). Because of the mono rear output, you will also lose all HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) processing on the rear. If you don’t know what HRTF means, the short explanation is it’s what the 3D sound companies use to create 3D sound with headphones and 2 speakers. For 4-speakers it improves the positioning between the speakers and also makes elevation cues (sound above and below you) possible. The lack of HRTF on the rears will mean no elevation sound cues for sound behind you and sound between the front and rear speakers will not be placed as well as when in 4-speaker mode. The lack of stereo will of course mean there is no way of knowing if a sound is supposed to be positioned slightly to the rear right or rear left. Its worth noting that the front will still have HRTF processing. Its also worth noting that Vortex 2 based card don't have any HRTF processing on the rear speakers but the better HRTF on the front compared to the Live makes up for it a bit. The Vortex2, of course, has stereo in the rear so its clearly better than the Live!Surround mode.

While in theory the lack of stereo in the rear means 2-speaker 3D sound offers better sound cues than Live!Surround mode, in practice the sound from behind is now much more convincing and for that reason I still think this is a lot better than just using 2-speakers. I can also say that Live!Surround in Unreal is a significant improvement compared to Dolby Surround in that game. The sound effects are clearly better when using 3D sound compared to the Dolby Surround option and the rockets passing by me sound significantly better in Live!Surround mode than in Dolby Surround. Note that the "flying by" feeling is even stronger when using stereo in the rear. In Unreal Tournament the difference is again less noticeable.

Now when using the Pro Logic mode the subwoofer will work well even when explosions occur behind you, but because of the limited frequency response for rear channels (starts at 100 Hz) you will still here a clear difference between explosions behind you and explosions in front of you.

I also tried the Live!Surround when the rear sats were plugged into the front satellites in the side firing mode described earlier. I didn’t really have high expectations but I was pleasantly surprised. It really offered better front to rear positioning than the 2-speaker mode of the Live, despite the fact that it’s just virtual mono in the rear instead of the virtual stereo that you would get by using the Live’s algorithms. In a circle test the Live’s virtual stereo rear channels will do a better job. However, overall, in actual game testing, I found that Live!Surround, combined with the side firing speakers on top of the front sats, offers a more convincing 3D sound experience than the Live’s 2-speaker mode.

As you probably figured out by now, if you have a soundcard with front and rear out and you play a lot of games making use of 3D sound then the ADA880 is probably not your best choice. The ADA885, which you can buy for $246 from Dell's online shop Gigabuys, is then a better choice. I have never heard the ADA885 system and there are other changes beyond the rear inputs. For example, it’s now THX certified and now have power output of 120 Watts instead of 80 Watts.

Back to the sound level tests

So on to the DVD tests and conclusion.