Page 1: Musketeer 2
<B>Intro</B>:
It has been a long time since I reviewed something. I thought I'd get back into the swing of things and start by reviewing something simple and pretty much a sure thing. Boy, I was wrong about that.
<B>Box</B>:
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Here is the box in its colorific glory. Nothing more to see, let's move on.
<B>Parts</B>:
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Here is what is inside the box. Included: The unit, a LED switch pci plate, a 3.5" LED switch plate, speaker i/o plate, wires, and a manual.
<B>The Unit</B>:
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This is the face of the unit. It fits into a 5.25" bay. The analog readouts on it display the speaker channel left, hard drive utilization, and speaker channel right. I can think of a few better things to know rather than speaker throughput (temperature, CPU utilization), but it is simple to install at least. The dials themselves are easy to read. Also on the face of the unit is individual left and right channel volume knobs. I never understood why you'd want to control each channel separately, but I'm not the kind of person that tweaks out my audio settings.
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The back of the unit contains the needed I/O for the device to function. There are inputs for power, hard drive activity, speaker activity, and the LED switcher. Outputs are for hard drive LED and the speaker.
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Since something taking up a 3.5" slot was not my intention, I opted to use the pci blank for the LED control (which is utterly useless in my opinion, stick with one color that you can read).
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There is a 3.5" plate that does the exact same thing. It is your choice of which to use. I was using a black case and didn't want extra silver on it than needed.
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The last plate is for the speaker I/O. What you need to do is pass the speaker into the plate, then it connects to the unit, then it goes back out of the plate to your speakers. It is basically a pass through. No real hassle here.
<B>Testing</B>:
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The unit worked as expected, almost. The left and the right channel utilization works as intended, but if you look at the above shot where I put the colors in one image, the hard drive utilization is stuck at 100% (which is wrong, without the unit, the LED alone works fine). This is distressing since I bought a retail package. I'm very big on quality control, and this is a prime example of what not to do. It steers customers away from your product. Basically, the unit was 66.7% operational in my opinion. When you start scrolling through the colors, you realize that many of the colors are pointless. It makes the dials too hard to read. The sequential setting needs to be made so that it gradually changes color, as it is right now, it changes color instantly and abruptly.
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As I stated above, the left and right channels work fine.
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Looks like my hard drive is doing alot of work. It wasn't, this is a mistake.
<B>Conclusion</B>:
I cannot recommend this product for two reasons. The first is that the quality control on it is lacking to the point where I received a unit that was 2/3 functional. This may work in some other areas, but not where I come from. Get your act together and get on quality control. The second is that the left and right channel dials are useless as a form of feedback to the user. Think about it, you are listening to your speakers! You don't need some device to tell you how loud the sound is coming out. And there you have it.
It has been a long time since I reviewed something. I thought I'd get back into the swing of things and start by reviewing something simple and pretty much a sure thing. Boy, I was wrong about that.
<B>Box</B>:
<center>
</center>Here is the box in its colorific glory. Nothing more to see, let's move on.
<B>Parts</B>:
<center>
</center>Here is what is inside the box. Included: The unit, a LED switch pci plate, a 3.5" LED switch plate, speaker i/o plate, wires, and a manual.
<B>The Unit</B>:
<center>
</center>This is the face of the unit. It fits into a 5.25" bay. The analog readouts on it display the speaker channel left, hard drive utilization, and speaker channel right. I can think of a few better things to know rather than speaker throughput (temperature, CPU utilization), but it is simple to install at least. The dials themselves are easy to read. Also on the face of the unit is individual left and right channel volume knobs. I never understood why you'd want to control each channel separately, but I'm not the kind of person that tweaks out my audio settings.
<center>
</center>The back of the unit contains the needed I/O for the device to function. There are inputs for power, hard drive activity, speaker activity, and the LED switcher. Outputs are for hard drive LED and the speaker.
<center>
</center>Since something taking up a 3.5" slot was not my intention, I opted to use the pci blank for the LED control (which is utterly useless in my opinion, stick with one color that you can read).
<center>
</center>There is a 3.5" plate that does the exact same thing. It is your choice of which to use. I was using a black case and didn't want extra silver on it than needed.
<center>
</center>The last plate is for the speaker I/O. What you need to do is pass the speaker into the plate, then it connects to the unit, then it goes back out of the plate to your speakers. It is basically a pass through. No real hassle here.
<B>Testing</B>:
<center>
</center>The unit worked as expected, almost. The left and the right channel utilization works as intended, but if you look at the above shot where I put the colors in one image, the hard drive utilization is stuck at 100% (which is wrong, without the unit, the LED alone works fine). This is distressing since I bought a retail package. I'm very big on quality control, and this is a prime example of what not to do. It steers customers away from your product. Basically, the unit was 66.7% operational in my opinion. When you start scrolling through the colors, you realize that many of the colors are pointless. It makes the dials too hard to read. The sequential setting needs to be made so that it gradually changes color, as it is right now, it changes color instantly and abruptly.
<center>
</center>As I stated above, the left and right channels work fine.
<center>
</center>Looks like my hard drive is doing alot of work. It wasn't, this is a mistake.
<B>Conclusion</B>:
I cannot recommend this product for two reasons. The first is that the quality control on it is lacking to the point where I received a unit that was 2/3 functional. This may work in some other areas, but not where I come from. Get your act together and get on quality control. The second is that the left and right channel dials are useless as a form of feedback to the user. Think about it, you are listening to your speakers! You don't need some device to tell you how loud the sound is coming out. And there you have it.