Summary

The Sound

Throughout all tests, the audio at both the top and bottom ends was simply superb. I had some excellent, deep rumbling from the bass and some ear piercingly clear notes at the high frequencies. As stated the mid range is a little (and I do mean a little) dulled to start with but this can be easily adjusted with EQ or other settings.

While the stereo field is accurate, it would be nice to have a couple of extra speakers to the sides or behind to create that feeling of being within the sound, as opposed to viewing it from a short distance. In terms of immersiveness, a 5.1 or 7.1 kit will beat the Mako hands down, but up against other 2.1 setups, this one is the best I’ve used to date.

The omnidirectional nature of the sound can’t be ignored either. While listening to the music, I enjoyed being able to walk around the central speaker setup without losing much of the quality that standard speakers only deliver in front of them.

When comparing the Mako’s quality to that of other kits, you may not be that impressed at low volumes, but crank it right up and you will be amazed about the clarity of sound even at ear-ringing loudness levels. Where most sub woofers start to crackle and grumble with heavy bass notes at high volumes, the Mako just cruises through. The only crackle you hear is when there are incredibly loud mid-range frequencies proving that the mid range is the only slight chink in the Mako’s armour.

Onboard VS. Dedicated Hardware

During testing I used both Relatek onboard sound and a dedicated X-Fi based sound card from Auzentech and noted the differences heard between the two. If I am honest, I really couldn’t hear that much difference. Yes, the high and low notes were a little clearer and everything just sounded that bit better, but it wasn’t anything to shout about. Obviously certain games make use of X-Fi to add extra sounds to the game world, but that isn’t effected by speaker quality.

What this tells me, is that the Mako is able to ring every last ounce of sound quality from the onboard sound and those without a dedicated add-in card shouldn’t be put off buying the Mako because of this.

Cost

This is where the Mako kit falls down hard. It’s set to retail around the £300 inc. mark which places them well out of reach of many consumers as they will simply not be willing to spend that on a speaker setup that only has 2 speakers and a single sub. Bare in mind that the relatively average 7.1 Creative set we reviewed back in November was only £70 and you have an idea about how expensive the Mako actually is. That said, the sound quality and feature list is far, far better than that of the Creative.