Tuesday, November 25, 2008

GigaWorks T20 & T40 Series II

4 comments:

Jat said...

DO you know what the difference is between the Gigaworks T20 and the T20 Series II?

I can't find the details anywhere...

kingone said...

Basically, the T20 series II is just a design upgrade. The old T20 has a very glaring blue LED light in the front, which is now removed from the series II. It's looks much nicer with the new design la, i feel :)

Anonymous said...

According to one review I found differences between T40 and T40 Series II are:

1) New color scheme (Glossy Black)
2) Changed the 3.5mm headphone jacks from silver to gold plated
(The sound quaility makes a huge difference btwn silver & gold plated in my experience)
3) Changed the on/off switch on the T40 from the back to the front
4) Included front side aux input jack for T40
5) Removed the extremely bright blue power LED
5) Increased size of the knobs to improve grip (possible even changing the texture)

dwight looi said...

OK, I own two sets of the T20. The original Grey-Black T20 and the new piano black Series-II. The original sounds much better and its only big flaw (the in your face LED) can easily be taped over. The new series II is NOT just a cosmetic overhaul. The sound is different and not for the better.

Firstly, the bass and treble settings at neutral is very much like the original set at about +50%. Really kinda unnaturally bright and boomy. The Series II sounds best with bass and treble both turned back to about -20~30% from neutral.

Secondly, the series II has an annoying background hiss at anything above 30~40% volume that is much less pronounced than in the original. I originally thought its just the over boosted treble, but turning the knob back doesn't really reduce the hiss that much.

In the end, it does have a bit more brightness and clarity of the mid range and upper mids than the original. But, the price is a hiss that won't go away and limits the unit to about 30~40% of the available volume whereas the the original can be listened to at up to 50~60%. The Series II being more annoying limited by hiss whereas the original is limited by a graceful increase in distortion.

Vocals still sound great though -- if you listen at 30% volume. My advice is... if you can still find the original buy it. It is a better speaker and probably the best 2.0 ever made for PCs.