If you enjoy watching LGR for his "oddware" videos, then you'll immediately know this thing.
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| eBay listing image from which I bought my particular unit. |
This is a combination PC speakers + subwoofer set that fits entirely within a 5.25" PC drive bay slot. According to other's thoughts and memories about this product, this speaker set was simply a built-to-cost unit sold in bundles to places like school computer labs. Spaces where density of computers per room was high and portability or complexity in terms of components was a concern. Would it be easier to have a set of satellite speakers alongside your case and monitor or just a compacted set completely contained within your case? Especially with a large computer lab, this sort of factor adds up quickly.
If we take a look at the packaging... these came in beige color only, and from the box, are credited to two possible companies - easy-connections.com and Simtechs.com. Simtechs was supposedly the designer/creator of the speaker+subwoofer combo and easy-connections boxed and distributed them via online retail. Both domains are now defunct and have long since been sold to new owners, but web archives can help with this. simtechs lasted a bit longer than easy-connections, but both were interconnected around 2001. The easy connections site proudly announces the two's partnership ("by SIMTECHS.COM") as well as showcases simtechs' lineup of PC accessories. Among these accessories is the drive bay speakers+subwoofers. They also sold front panel USB hubs, Ethernet cards, and an 8-port ethernet switch that could fit inside of your computer case.
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| web capture of simtechs' product lineup, circa 2001 |
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| information flyer displayed on easy-connections.com's former homepage. Retrieved via wayback machine. |
My particular unit arrived without packaging, and was supposedly removed from a formerly complete machine that used the hardware. It included the cables and a simple PCI bracket with a hole cut out, so you could run the unit's audio cable to the rear panel. The audio cable is a simple 3.5mm audio jack which is plugged into your motherboard's stereo audio header. The bend formed in my unit's audio cable suggests it was plugged into some pc for quite a while, before a recycler on ebay sold it on.
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| Fresh out of the packing. |
A quick and easy disassembly reveals the interior bits - the 'subwoofer' looks quite similar to a speaker that came off of an 80s portable TV I disassembled for a home project. It is also apparent that the side-to-side directional pivot the front speaker panel can do is an intentional design decision. Overall, it's quite easy to tell this unit was made on the cheap. Hot glue is a commodity in here.
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| Only a mere two screws give you ready access to the insides. |
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| Why waste four metal screws when you can simply hot glue the speaker in there? |
Looking at the side, the jank-iness just increases with the mounting solution - they simply drilled some self-tapping screws into the plastic casing, rather than having some standard threads around the side (which is standard on pretty much every other drive bay... thing). This creates some resistance when installing the unit but it's not a major inconvenience. I wouldn't recommend removing and installing it too many times over and over.
On the front panel you get two ventilated spots for your puny front speakers, a tactile volume wheel, a 'loudness' toggle button, and a headphone jack for simple pass-through. Right next to the wheel and in between the headphone jack, there is a green LED power indicator. Above the center cluster, there's an oval port for the subwoofer.
The top of the unit has a large perforated section for the upwards-firing subwoofer.
To install, simply slide the unit into an open drive bay and screw it into your case's provided mounting rails or screw holes. Despite the 'DIY' nature of self-tappers, the mounting holes are of a standard width/height and can be installed on most PCs with normal drive bays. If you wish to have a filled-in rear card slot section, install the provided pass-through bracket. When you have the speaker set installed, plug in the provided molex 4-pin power connector to your PSU, and route the audio cable through the pass-through bracket. Then, simply plug the audio connector into your motherboard's audio jack. With the PC powered on, the power LED on the unit should illuminate green.
I don't know if this is how the unit was designed when new, or if it's a product of age, but I heard a significant amount of electronic noise through the speakers when they were simply powered on and idle (no audio coming through). Despite this, actual audio playback comes through quite clear, and the volume slider gives you a really nice amount of headroom. You can really crank it up if you wanted to, but the cheap included speakers probably won't sound all that good maxxed out.
Another interesting thing I noticed, the PC I installed this in has a lot of electronic noise during normal operation, and this kind of interference was picked up through the speaker set. For instance, I could hear slight variations in the buzzing when scrolling through a website, or when the secondary hard drive had activity going on.
The loudness button simply boosts the audio level a bit, if you want to fine-tune the volume level a little bit. The distortion noticeably increases, of course.
Headphone use was just unbearable. The noise is impossible to ignore now and is quite irritating to listen to. It was probably fine in the late 90s.
Pressing on either side of the front panel will pivot the unit towards whichever direction you want, but the impact of this on acoustics is negligible.
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| Powered-on state. Notice that the speaker panel is pointed towards the viewer. |
Overall, this could be a really neat unit for your space-saving flat beige box build or just a funky accent for your retro-themed build. PCs from then never really matched colors unless you had a rattle can handy so don't be afraid to mismatch! If your desk doesn't really have space for a set of sattelites, or your powerstrip ran out of outlets, then this can be of use.
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