ASUS Cine5 is 'world's most compact' five-channel speaker, doesn't forget the blue LEDs

Seriously, who told manufacturers that we're in love with garish LED status lights?ASUS has strapped a glowing orb of unnecessariness around the volume knob of the Cine5 -- an otherwise perfectly acceptable and appreciably diminutive PC soundbar. With an array of speaker drivers integrated into that curvy body, ASUS claims the Cine5 produces realistic multidirectional surround sound, but does admit it's mostly intended for smaller spaces such as study rooms. The announcement also includes a nod to FPS gamers, with claims that the improved positional audio on offer will benefit both gameplay immersion and accuracy when identifying a sound source, though we reckon the biggest boon will still be the elimination of the extra cables and speakers one usually needs to get one's surround sound on. Price and availability have not yet been made public, but knowing ASUS both should be in the reasonable range of the market.

[think before you react Posted Mar 11th 2010 7:29AM]

If this were powered by USB I'd buy three!!

[think before you react Posted Mar 11th 2010 7:30AM]

@think before you react
that's assuming price and quality is good.

[JoeRodricks Posted Mar 11th 2010 7:33AM]

That's genious! You would have awesome simulated 15.3 surround sound

[think before you react Posted Mar 11th 2010 7:39AM]

@JoeRodricks
I see what you did there. Very clever...

[Dick Lynch Posted Mar 11th 2010 12:25PM]

@think before you react 5.1 is so yesterday. Lemme know when the 7.2 bars are out.

[abedinthehouse Posted Mar 11th 2010 8:28PM]

@think before you react
You'd still only get a total 45 watts RMS

....not loud enough for my taste

[Cyrs Posted Mar 11th 2010 7:50AM]

I've never understood why companies that produce multi-channel soundbars, claim them to be surround sound. How exactly does that work? I mean, how can you get "true surround sound" with all the audio coming from one object, that's in one location? Even if Asus says it's multi-directional, doesn't that just mean the sounds are coming from one location at different angles, how exactly does that produce true surround sound, it's still just one unit. Heh, I'll just stick with the Energy Take Classic system.

[davepermen Posted Mar 11th 2010 8:41AM]

@Cyrs it's mainly a lot of psychoaccoustics + the possibility to send audio from different angles. done right, it can make you believe to have sound coming from quite some places.

but yeah, i understand you very well.

[OS Posted Mar 11th 2010 9:30AM]

@Cyrs
Technically, all sound is surround sound.

On Topic: I have a yamaha sound bar and an old pioneer soundbar and they both do a great job of making you think you are hearing sound coming from behind and to the sides of you. I am really interested in this product, but only if the blue led is really distracting, either overly bright or just a fast fading in and out pulse, something like 120+ pulses a minute.