Introducing the Soundscience Rockus 3D 2.1

When Antec decided they wanted to introduce sound products to their portfolio with their new Soundscience brand, they weren't kidding around. They sent representatives to demo the Rockus 3D 2.1 speaker system to the press and take questions in person. I was sat down in front of a Toshiba notebook connected via analog minijack to the Rockus 3D and allowed to play with the speakers, play different music, try some tracks off of YouTube, listen to a movie demonstration. And when it was all over, they sent me home with a set of the speakers that I have rigorously put through their paces during the past 10 days.

So before we get ahead of ourselves, let's talk about the Rockus 3D itself. The Antec rep was adamant that this speaker system be near perfect out of the box, and I believe him. It's a "basic" 2.1 system: two satellites rated for 25 watts and a frequency response between 10 Hz and 20 kHz, and a large (but surprisingly not too large) subwoofer rated for 100 watts. The satellites themselves connect via an RCA jack in the back and use a fairly robust cable that splits into speaker wire when it connects to the subwoofer. Build quality on the satellites is impressive: they use anodized aluminum for almost the entire build save a glossy plastic rim around the speaker proper that serves more for decoration than anything else. This is supposed to produce a cleaner, distortion free sound that plastic speaker satellites may have more trouble with, but it also gives them some heft. We have no complaints about build quality at least; these feel solid.

The subwoofer is simultaneously more and less fortunate. As the basic control hub for the speaker system the housing is a sturdy plastic with the typical cloth front, and it's actually comparatively small, measuring at 13.8"x7.7"x10.6". The subwoofer fires forward instead of down the way many cheaper units I've seen do, and spoiler alert: it can fill a room. Connectivity on the back is kept fairly clean and manageable: there's a port to connect the remote controller (which is heavy enough to actually hold its place on your desk without being at the mercy to the cable connecting it), a power switch, the two sets of speaker inputs, and then three audio inputs. This is important: the Rockus 3D accepts a dual RCA connection, a standard 3.5mm minijack connection, and a TOSLINK optical connection. This last one is supposed to make the Rockus 3D ideal not just for your computer but for your blu-ray player or gaming console, but frankly it's just nice to see a digital connection. Finally, there's a hard switch to choose between three levels of bass, and that's disappointing: it would've been nicer to see an analog knob to let you finetune the output of the subwoofer.

Last but not least we have the remote, which is weighted fairly well but does feel comparatively cheaper than the rest of the kit. The top disc is the volume knob—press down to toggle mute—and the front of the unit has four indicator lights and a toggle button: one of the lights indicates whether the speakers are in digital or analog mode, the next two indicate whether they're in music mode or 3D mode (more on this later), and the last indicates whether the speakers are being muted. To toggle between digital and analog inputs, just hold the button for three seconds. Otherwise, one press switches between music and 3D modes.

The package includes pretty much everything you'll need to connect everything to everything, but there are a couple of major shortcomings. The cables used to connect to the satellites may be of good quality, but they're fairly short and made positioning a bit difficult on my desk. Despite including robust minijack-to-minijack and minijack-to-dual-RCA cables, Antec also neglects to include an optical cable. I understand these aren't the cheapest cables in the world, but having to go out and buy my own was a little irritating, especially when this is really one of the better features of the speaker set.

It's also worth pointing out that there isn't a single certification on the box or the unit: no THX, no DTS, no SRS, no Dolby, nothing. And I can confirm: the optical input takes PCM audio and that's about it.

Testing the Rockus 3D

I'll go ahead and preface again in saying this testing is largely subjective, and with a $249 speaker set that admittedly becomes a little harder to excuse. That said, if this is going to bother you, I strongly recommend curling up with your studio monitors, because at the end of the day this is still a consumer product. A moderately expensive one, but a consumer product.

The first big point that needs to be made is the difference between the Music and 3D modes for the Rockus 3D. The Music mode could probably be more accurately referred to as "reference mode:" the Rockus 3D simply tries to produce as clean and accurate a sound as possible and functions as a basic albeit high quality 2.1 speaker system.

Switching to 3D mode invokes what Antec calls "3Dsst," a sound processing algorithm designed to simulate a larger space. This should be fairly familiar to most users, as even many sound cards include some way to try and simulate surround sound using only two speakers (i.e. the HS1 we reviewed recently had a similar mode it could operate in). I'll tell you right now, 3D mode isn't going to produce accurate sound, but its value depends entirely on how you're using the speakers at a given time. The rep was very proud of 3Dsst; I personally tend to be skeptical of simulated surround environments and haven't yet heard one that felt convincing.

I'll also point out that I tested the Rockus 3D using three different connections: I used the optical connection plugged into my ASUS Xonar DX, tried it again with the TOSLINK port on my motherboard (Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R), and then used an analog connection with the Xonar. I actually asked the rep via e-mail which connection he felt would present the Rockus 3D in the best light, and he suggested using the analog connection with the Xonar. Color me surprised when I found that the digital connection seemed best overall, regardless of whether I used the motherboard sound or the Xonar DX. In fact, the Xonar's equalizer wouldn't affect the sound quality at all, while the equalizer in my motherboard's Realtek ALC889 drivers was able to manipulate the digital signal just fine.

I also frequently double-blinded my existing Bose Companion II speakers connected to the Xonar against the digitally connected Rockus 3D. It's not entirely fair, but close enough: the speakers and sound card together cost about $200, just $50 shy of the Rockus 3D.

With all that said, I did the majority of my testing with the Rockus 3D connected optically to my motherboard, and before getting into any of the nitty-gritty of it, I feel it prudent to note that unless you have a more expensive sound card, an optical connection is probably going to be the way to go. Analog quality is for the most part comparable, but the digital just works, requires very little calibration, and operates independent of the quality of analog components used by the audio hardware itself.

Music on the Rockus 3D

Music playback testing was done much more comprehensively than I had previously; I tried just about everything. The first issue I took with the Rockus 3D, but one that became progressively more minor as I became accustomed to the character of the sound the system produced, was that the high end feels a bit tinny. Double-blind with the Bose, the Rockus generally sounded better and produced clearer, more dynamic sound that was in many cases far less muddy. The problem is that some of that muddiness did mask compression and artifacting in some of the songs; you can't really fault the speakers for doing what they're told, but the highs can be so thin that it can get to the point of making some of the artifacts physically painful to listen to.

The sound also isn't quite as rich and full as one would hope. It certainly has worlds more depth than you'll get from a hundred dollar speaker set, but the highs and mids nonetheless can feel a bit thin and sometimes don't feel like they're separating quite as well as they could. You'll pick up nuances and details in the music better than you might with cheaper speakers; I just wish the sound had more body in those regions. When you get to the lows, the subwoofer does a solid if unexceptional job of picking up the rear. Not having a more fine-grained control over the subwoofer's power beyond the three presets hurts, but even the highest preset can feel a little weak.

Across different types of music, I found that industrial and electronic music could actually feel the thinnest in the highs and mids, but softer more instrumental fare works far, far better. If "Spitfire" by The Prodigy produces a good if not outstanding listening experience, something more downtempo like Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Otherside" can sound quite lovely.

Trying to buff up those thin highs and mids through the equalizer is an exercise in futility, though, and this is one of the Rockus 3D's biggest perks and worst flaws: the speaker system is calibrated to sound as good as it possibly can from the factory, a point the Antec rep was keen on mentioning and something that I can confirm in practice. The Rockus 3D is never going to sound better than it does shipped from the factory, and tweaking the equalizer in either analog or digital connection modes only seemed to make it worse.

That said, across the board the Rockus 3D sounded better than the Bose Companion II's attached to the Xonar DX.

While playing music, however, just go ahead and keep your finger off the 3D mode. It allows the speakers to suddenly produce a tremendous amount of body, but it more or less massacres the arrangement of the instruments in whatever you happen to be listening to. On a couple of songs I felt like the listening experience was slightly improved by 3D mode, but in almost everything else the distortion completely ruined them. Listening to music in 3D mode on the Rockus is akin to watching a standard-aspect movie stretched across an HDTV.

Movies and Games on the Rockus 3D

The 3D mode on the Rockus 3D seems to exist more for these two purposes: producing—or at least simulating—a surround sound environment in video games and in movies.

First, when playing games where pitch-perfect sound accuracy isn't as big a deal, the 3D mode can actually shine. While Grand Theft Auto IV sounded a bit thin regardless of which mode I played it in, I found that the simulated surround space in Left 4 Dead 2—a game where spatial recognition can be downright vital—was much better than I expected. The weather effects in the Hard Rain campaign sounded excellent, and I found I was able to locate my teammates and the infected more easily than I could using the Music mode.

Playing Modern Warfare 2, the 3D mode didn't feel quite as impressive as in Left 4 Dead 2, but it still produced a notable improvement in sound quality. Everything in the game felt like it had more body and depth, and it was a little easier to spot enemies than playing in Music mode.

The other big usage for the 3D mode is in watching movies, and here I ran into my first real snag with the Rockus 3D. I'm not sure whom to blame on this one, either, but it goes something like this: to test movie playback I use ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 3, and for the majority of my testing I had the Rockus 3D plugged into the optical jack on my motherboard. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, someone (we'll say Realtek) screwed the pooch. Realtek's implementation of Dolby Surround doesn't work and results in a silent movie, while the Xonar DX is able to produce audio perfectly fine. No combination of settings between the Realtek audio (with a digital connection) and ArcSoft worked, while the Xonar had no such issues.

When I was finally able to test movie playback and actually hear the movie, I used Iron Man 2 and routinely switched back and forth between the Music and 3D modes during the attack at the Stark Expo. My findings here essentially echo the experience I had when gaming: Antec's 3Dsst produces a fuller, richer sound and improves the spatial quality of the movie's audio track compared to the basic Music mode. While it was still nowhere near the level of having dedicated satellites, it was at least a marked improvement over just having the basic 2.1 sound. Audiophiles and purists may very well take some issue with this: 3D mode does change the character and quality of the sound of the movie in a very real and obvious way, but that's what the toggle is there for.

My ultimate opinion on simulated surround sound remains essentially unchanged: while I was impressed with what Antec was able to achieve in 3D mode, particularly in Left 4 Dead 2, it's still no replacement for an authentic 5.1 system. That's fair, because it's not entirely intended to be (not the way Bose's Companion 3 and 5 systems grossly attempt to). The idea here is that if you simply don't have the physical space to hook up a surround sound system proper, 3Dsst offers a reasonable alternative and in that respect it's easy to say I'd rather have it than not. Turn it on when you like, and off when you don't—simple.

Wrapping it up

Unfortunately we're getting down to crunch time with Antec's Soundscience Rockus 3D 2.1 speaker system, and there's a lot to consider here.

First, sound quality can feel a little thin at the highs and mids, but this is made up for by the system's ability to render a fairly comprehensive sound. The Rockus 3D is capable of revealing nuances in music better than a cheaper system is going to, and if you can get past the slightly tinny character of the speaker set you'll find it may actually produce details in the songs you enjoyed that you haven't even heard before on lesser quality kit. Likewise, the subwoofer sounds good without producing excessive bass at even the highest settings, and there's no distortion or vibration that occurs even at high volumes. Antec's engineers set out to produce a clean, reference-quality system that works great out of the box without any tweaking and in that respect they've been largely successful.

Second, the included optical connectivity cannot be understated. We've had people post in the comments that this should be much more common and I have to agree: using an optical connection makes the speakers hassle-free and takes any interference that might have snuck in (like, for example, on the demonstration using the Toshiba laptop) out of the equation entirely.

The much-ballyhooed 3D mode actually does serve a purpose beyond being a checkmark and gimmick to flaunt all over the product packaging. If it were so amazing that it made everything better, they wouldn't have bothered to put a toggle on the remote to let you switch it on and off, but in games—where pitch-perfect sound reproduction isn't the foremost concern—it can appreciably improve the overall experience. Movies with more dynamic soundstages are also likely to benefit, and hey, if it still bothers you, you can always turn it off. For music listening, though, we really didn't feel it added anything worth having.

What we have here is an excellent 2.1 speaker system that has one crippling flaw: an onerous pricetag. Antec feels the $249 MSRP is reasonable; they're pitting the speaker system against Bose's Companion 3 and cite that in their own studies, most people preferred the sound quality of the Rockus 3D. I have no doubt that's true, but the Companion 3 is a terrible deal, and it's the wrong product to target. The 2.1 systems the Rockus 3D really has to compete with are going to be in the neighborhood of $100 cheaper. At this point, the most popular 2.1 set on NewEgg is the Logitech Z-2300. We can argue that the THX certification doesn't mean a whole lot, and the Z-2300 doesn't offer an optical connection, but you're still left asking if the Rockus 3D is $120 better. Without having Z-2300's on hand I can't say for sure, but I can say that as a consumer looking at speaker sets I'd probably err on the side of the cheaper set.

And that's really the question: is the Soundscience Rockus 3D worth $249? If sound quality does matter to you, and you're on something of a budget, and the optical connection is important to you, AND you don't have room for a 5.1 system.... At that juncture I would say yes, the Rockus 3D makes sense. There's no question it's an excellent speaker set, but the pricetag is awfully steep for a consumer 2.1 system.