Manhattan Personal Cinema 5.1 USB
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I consider myself to be a bit of an audiophile. Maybe it comes from my days as a DJ; mixing music, counting beats per minute, I’ve become very sensitive to the nuances of music. When I had a chance to review Manhattan’s Personal Cinema 5.1 USB, I was like “Dolby 5.1 in a pair of headphones?! Yeah, I’ll review that!”
When I first received the package, I had to stop and think for a second. The average computer has two speakers and a subwoofer. Here is a pair of headphones that offers better sound quality than most desktop systems currently provide. Pretty cool, eh?
So how do they do it? How do they get 5.1 out of your PC, when your sound card only supports 2.1? It's pretty easy, actually. Seems that Manhattan didn't ONLY package a set of headphones, but a USB sound card as well. This USB device takes over the sound system from your computer, so you can't use them both at the same time (yeah, I tried).
So before I get started, let's take a look at the specifications and system requirements for these little beauties.
FEATURES
- 8 individual speakers: (2) front, (2) rear, (2) center, (2) subwoofer
- Delivers the absolute ultimate PC DVD movie experience
- Dolby Digital AC-3
- Digital DTS 5.1 Surround Sound
- Bundled with WinDVD 5 for DVD playback and InterVideo
- WinRip 2 for audio playback
- Bass response includes speaker vibration
- USB interface - Plug and Play
- Removable microphone
- Built in amplifier chip
REQUIREMENTS
- Intel Pentium III (Pentium 4 recommended)
- 128 MB RAM or more
- USB port
- DVD-ROM
- Video card that supports DirectDraw overlay
- Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, XP (2000 or XP recommended) Headphones
- Frequency Response: - Front / Rear / Center: 20 Hz-20 kHz - Subwoofer: 20 Hz-120 Hz
- Sensitivity: SNR (dB/V) 107 Microphone
- Frequency Response: 20 Hz-20 kHz
- Sensitivity: SNR (dB/V) 110
Next: Let's check it out! >>
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