Philips amBX Speakers (Premium Kit) €59

sk282

Available from Pixmania, standard delivery €15.90. This is the premium kit which includes:

Left & Right Lights
Wall washer light with controller unit
Left & Right 2.1 sound speaker and sub woofer
Set of fans
Wrist rumbler

Detailed info at Philips & ambx websites, don't forget to check out the video of "Mr Shake" under pranxters on philips site

projectgtr

nice find never even heard of these, any idea what sound quality is like??

good review here http://www.trustedreviews.com/multimedia/review/2008/08/22/Philips-amBX-SGC5103BD-Premium-Kit/p1

sk282

projectgtr wrote: »

nice find never even heard of these, any idea what sound quality is like??

good review here http://www.trustedreviews.com/multimedia/review/2008/08/22/Philips-amBX-SGC5103BD-Premium-Kit/p1

Was about to post the same link

I ordered mine but haven't received them yet, looks like not many games are officially supported but I would be happy just with some random light effects while listening to music or watching a video.

craze7

I seen a similar version of this in TKMAXX this morning for €30 i think!

sk282

There are 3 versions of this priced differently (Starter, ProGamer and Premium kit) and this one includes everything like I said in the first post so others could be cheaper...

Kevin!

Very good deal, I have the same kit (I got off ibood for about 110€), even if you don't want to use certain features of the kit they can just be removed from it.

I can't get over the price ;o

jameshayes

These were on Ibood a while ago for 89 inc delivery, pixmania have shít CS but this is a good price...

rgunning

TKMaxx definitely have these in stock, two different versions: the standard and premium. If you throw in postage and the bricks and mortar factor, you are far better off buying from TKMaxx.

They had plenty of stock as well.

craze7 wrote: »

I seen a similar version of this in TKMAXX this morning for €30 i think!

jameshayes

I think I'll pop over to stephens green now and take a look - will post back in a few mins!

sweetie

the standars version in tkmaxx is the light only one which I bought by mistake...doh! and the premium is 90 euro

jameshayes

Just back, they didn't have the cheap one, only the 90 quid one... well I didn't see it anyhow!

Sweetie, where did you get your one?

sweetie

jameshayes wrote: »

Just back, they didn't have the cheap one, only the 90 quid one... well I didn't see it anyhow!

Sweetie, where did you get your one?

I got the last cheap one but as I said it's only light!
I wasn't sure and grabbed it anyways but realised
when I went online! doh! I'll return it and get the other
one on pixmania I think.

Nehaxak

I have a premium set of these and although when you do get them working eventually, the lights are fantastic and do indeed add a great deal to gaming, particularly so with world of warcraft.

...but, and it's a big but, the driver support is absolutely terrible, the sound is also horrible from the speakers and there's a constant high pitched whining noise from them all the time. They also lack any form of on-board sound control so you're stuck with using the PC's controls for adjusting volume. This is not usually a problem but the speakers are generally very loud so if you're playing at night, even at the lowest volume, they can be loud enough still to piss anyone else off that might be sleeping around you.

The rumble rests and fans are also pretty much useless as they only work with a couple of crap games.

Also, the amount of wires, omfg, no matter how much you try tidy the wires up or hide them away you just cannot get away from the sheer amount of them.

If you're running any operating system other than windows XP then you've little or no chance in getting these speakers working correctly and stable.

In short, the lights are fantastic when you get them working but the sound from the speakers are utterly crap, with whining noises and probably the worst ever driver support I've ever come across for a product, ever.

Nehaxak

sk282 wrote: »

Was about to post the same link

I ordered mine but haven't received them yet, looks like not many games are officially supported but I would be happy just with some random light effects while listening to music or watching a video.

Just to say that the lights at least (ignore the rumble rests and fans) work with tons of games even though they're not officially supported. Lights also work with VLC media player quiet well.

Nehaxak

...and see this post for latest info on drivers and the workarounds required for getting these to work with Windows 7...

http://www.ambx.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3046

They work best with Windows XP from my own experience and very frustrating trying to get them to work stable and well with Vista. I haven't tried them with Windows 7 as the whole set is currently put away unused for the moment as the whining noise and lack of volume controls onboard annoyed me too much.

rgunning

So it's:

TK-Maxx €90
or
pixmania €75 (incl. delivery)

Hmmmm. On the borderline - €15 extra to not have to deal with pixmania's CS? Sounds almost reasonable. TKMaxx will prob let you take it back and change it, sweetie.

sweetie wrote: »

the standars version in tkmaxx is the light only one which I bought by mistake...doh! and the premium is 90 euro

jameshayes

rgunning wrote: »

€15 extra to not have to deal with pixmania's CS? Sounds almost reasonable.

Bang on!

sk282

I received the kit and I am very pleased with it.
It actually includes 3 games also with full ambx support
(Toca Race Driver 3, Broken Sword - The Angel of Death, Defcon - Everybody Dies)
so overall very good value imho.

I didn't install any drivers that came with the speakers but followed
the instructions on ambx site so everything seems to work fine now (Vista).
I agree with Nehaxak about the amount of cables and lack of on board sound control
so I tried a different set up, I did not connect the audio directly from pc to speakers
but running it through my monitor. This way I have a bit more control
and I can use the speakers when playing ps3 also or watching TV.
There is a free tool called "amBX Illimunate" which lets you to set custom effects
so even the lights are working with ps3 & TV this way. It is fairly basic and
you need to have the pc on obviously but still nice to have.

Windows Media Player plug-in works great also but it doesn't seem to
properly support visualizations like G-force or WhiteCap even though they show
up on the list.

rgunning

Hmmm now I see boffer.co.uk is offering the starter kit (no need to bother with the premium one!) for a superbly priced

£69.99

plus delivery and Paddy Tax.

Hopefully their servers won't melt from too many orders all at once!

Their helpful link to "best price on the net" funnily enough neglects to list pixmania, TKMaxx or indeed anywhere were the superior kit can be bought for considerably less.

dingding

got the Staryer Kit in TKMAXX. Having trouple getting the audio to work on XP.

It does not seem to recognise them as an audio device.

Installed the latest drivers to no avail.

DamoRed

So this is not a thread offering the opportunity to 'pimp my ride' 80s style...


I was all set to go get some of these speakers, to make mine, the hottest, yet coolest BMX bike on the block!

sweetie

dingding wrote: »

got the Staryer Kit in TKMAXX. Having trouple getting the audio to work on XP.

It does not seem to recognise them as an audio device.

Installed the latest drivers to no avail.

i did too but the starter kit is lights only and not speakers!
was wondering why I couldn't see a rms wattage rating on the box