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Hercules Gamesurround Muse™ 5.1 DVD and XPS 510 Speakers
Date: 2002-07-30 | Author: Tim Stetzer
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Introduction
When Scott told me I was getting a Gamesurround Muse 5.1 DVD soundcard and set of XPS 510 speakers from Hercules to review, I was pretty excited for a couple of reasons. First, I've had some audio issues with the integrated sound on my motherboard and haven't been able to get the surround sound to work on it, so I was ready to try something new. Second, I had used a Guillemot MaxiSound Muse before and found it to be a very good product for the money so I was curious to see how the latest generation of Muse cards would perform.
Why do I bring up Guillemot in an article about Hercules you might ask? Well, as many of you probably already know in 1999 Guillemot bought out Hercules (founded in 1982) and brought their audio and Hercules' video lines together under the Hercules name. This merger combined Hercules' proven video experience with Guillemot's excellent audio track record.
The Gamesurround Muse 5.1 DVD is the successor to the Gamesurround Muse XL 4.1 audio card, a card that's proven very popular for Hercules, and a descendant of my old Guillemot Maxisound Muse which I only recently replaced. A buddy of mine is still using that card in a system that Gene put together for him!
It's worth pointing out that both of these products carry on the same tradition of great performance for the money as my first Muse with a very reasonable retail price of $29.99 for the Muse 5.1 and $89.99 for the XPS 510. That's just under $120 US for a full 5.1 audio system suitable for gaming and movies!
Product Specs
Here are the list of features from both products as taken from Hercules' web site:
Gamesurround Muse 5.1 DVD Features
- 3 stereo outputs for headphones, 2.1, 4.1 or 5.1 speaker systems
- Dolby Digital™ Home Cinema experience Digital music on 5.1 channels
- D audio with Sensaura™ engine included for a realistic gaming experience on up to 5.1 speaker kits
- Great software suite including PowerDVD™ 4.0
- Microsoft® Windows® and even XP compatible!
- Designed for Multimedia three-dimensional sound entertainment. The XPS 510 is the ideal choice for PC home Theater.
- 3D surround effect for your games and your Home Theater movie playback will be enhance by the 60 Watts total output power.
- The 20 Watts subwoofer encased in wooden enclosure assures you thunderous penetrating, undistorted deep bass effects.
| SPECIFICATIONS | |
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Total output power |
60 Watts RMS |
| Subwoofer | 20 Watts RMS |
| Dual Satellites | 5 x 8 Watts RMS |
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Special Features |
Wooden Case subwooferBass, Volume and On/Off Switch Power. |
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Game compatibility |
DirectSound™ 3D, EAX™ 1.0, EAX™ 2.0, A3D™ 1.0, I3DL2™, MacroFX™, MultiDrive™, ZoomFX™, EnvironmentFX™ sound cards. |
| Audio compatibility | MP3 player, CD player and all sound cards |
| DVD compatibility | All Dolby Prologic™ and Dolby AC3™ Decoder |
| Package contains | Five independents satellites One subwoofer unit Three 1.9 m audio input wires One G9 cable 3m front satellites wire 6m rear satellites wire |
| Warranty | 3 years |
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