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Cambridge Soundworks MegaTheater Solution 63 Theater System Product Technical DetailsTechnical Details:K1PK713E Key FeaturesIncluded Components...

Creative Technology Cambridge Soundworks® MegaTheater® Solution 61 Theater System Product Technical DetailsTechnical Details:C1MT610E Key FeaturesIncluded Components...

I have been trying to help a friend find a home theater in a box that is simple and also sounds good. After being disappointed with the entry level Cambridge Soundworks MegaTheater 60, it seemed to me that the biggest problem was the Cube Speakers. Skipping the Megatheater 61, we went right to a test of the MegaTheater 63.

What’s the Difference?

The MegaTheater 63 is very similar to the MegaTheater 60, its the same DVD/Preamplifer, the same Subwoofer/Amplifier, the same power the same remote and the same functions. The big difference is that instead of 5 MC50 cubes, you get 5 MC300 speakers! These much higher quality speakers made a huge difference in this simple Home Theater in a Box. Moreover, these speakers, although not cubes, are not big boxy bookshelves either. I recognize that not everyone is like me, and wants big towering speakers in every room in their house and that some don’t even want to see their speakers particularly. I myself own an MC400, the next step up from the MC300, and have found it to be an ideal match for my favorite Cambridge Soundworks speaker, the M-60!. (I will be writing a review on this speaker soon enough!). Let me say this, I was very pleasantly surprised with the sound of the Home Theater in the Box with the different speakers.

What’s in the MegaTheater 63?

You may notice if you read my review of the MegaTheater 60, that portions of this review sound similar. They are because the Megatheater line shares the same components, except for the speakers. However be sure to read the DIFFERENCES in the two reviews, because I think the differences in the two reviews, may convince someone who wants the simplicty of home theater in a box to spend the extra money for this system.

The MegaTheater is a simple one stop shopping solution that assumes you already own a T.V. You get a DVD player with built in FM tuner, and speakers. You also get a remote. The DVD Unit has the DVD player, DVD basic controls and the volume and buttons for selecting the radio, DVD player, or other source plugged in (like your cable box for instance). The speakers, are one medium size subwoofer (about a foot square) and five small speakers, the MC300s. They are not cube speakers.

Set Up

O.K. for you non audiophiles, this may be the toughest part, but here we go. Set the DVD player unit on your shelf where you want it. If you have a cable box, plug it into the back of the player. It has inputs for component cables (set of 3 that gives the best picture, like High Definition signals), S-Video or composite video. It also has optical ins and outs. So, if you have a Hi Def cable box, you can plug the optical audio out on your cable box, to the optical audio in on your DVD unit. The sales person at Radio Shack can show you what an optical audio cable looks like. You could also use a coaxial digital cable. Again, any salesguy at Circuit City or Best Buy can direct you to a coaxial digital cable. DON’T let them sell you a very expensive one, a regular one will be fine. Now, run the component cables from the OUT on the Cambridge DVD into your T.V. Blue to blue, green to green and yellow to yellow. That gives the best signal. If you don’t have that, run the S-Video cable which has the prongs on it, or the single YELLOW cable that we call a composite video cable. This unit doesn’t have HDMI out. Next, run the included cable that has six plugs on one end, and plug each into the back of the Unit. They are labled and colored, so you will do fine. Plug the other end into the big cube. That is the subwoofer, and the amplifier. Put the center cube under your T.V., the right one, off to the right, the left one to the left, and the rear left surround to your left behind your listening position or next to it, and the rear right surround, to your right behind your listening position or next to it. Attach the appropriate wire to each.

Alternate to Setup Described above Pick up personal address book. Find number of audiophile friend. Call him or her, and ask them to set up system. I do this for my friends quite often.

DVD Quality

The DVD player built into the main unit is quite good. This was hooked up to a large LCD HDTV monitor, and I am sorry I forgot to write the brand name down. It was set to progressive scan however, and connected via component cables. Scenes I watched were House of Flying Daggers, Master and Commander, and Finding Nemo. The picture was crisp and clear, and black tones were good. I had seen the same unit plugged into a 50″ Toshiba where it looked great as well. The DVD player is progressive scan, which means it will deliver a good film like image, if you have a High Definition T.V. Regular TV’s will display the image interlaced. (Progressive displays all the lines at once, interlaced displays the even lines, then the odd lines). It is not an upconverting player. The DVD player will also play CDs, MP3 discs (CDs made on a computer with MP3 sound files), and even DVD-Audio! DVD-Audio is a high quality six channel audio format that is usually only marketed to audiophiles like me, but this unit plays them! It also plays Dolby Digital and DTS (two audio formats movies use for the soundtrack).

Sound Quality

I repeated the tests that I performed with the MegaTheater 60 on the MegaTheater 63. Read on, the results were quite different.

Test One: House of Flying Daggers - The Bean Scene

The surround sound aspect was good, and the sound itself was much better than the cubes in the Megatheater 60. I could hear each bean hit the drum in front of me and behind me, and then hear the woman bang the drum with her sleeves. Like with my M-60s, each drum reverberates with a full rich sound. In the low end Megatheater with 5 MC50s the sound of the drums was weak, and you really didn’t get the sense of the drum sound at all. The MC 300’s had a much fuller sound to them, and you could hear more of the presence of the drum and the reverb they make after being hit.

Master and Commander - Under Attack Another great scene to really test audio systems is when Commander Russell Crowe is under attack by a French ship. Cannonballs shriek across the deck and explode into the cabins behind, erupting in a fury of splinters and crashing wood.

Again, the MC300s easily outdid the small cubes. You get much more of a sense of the explosions not only in front of you but also behind you. I felt very involved in the scene.

B%26W demo disc - Martyn Ware I got a great demo disc from Bower and Wilkins, a high end English loudspeaker manufacturer. One of the songs on it is by Martyn Ware, former front man for The Human League He whispers a poem that goes from channel to channel accompanied by eerie music. A good speaker will capture this whisper and you will be able to hear him clearly. The speakers here, did a good job reproducing the whispered voice of Ware, and you could hear his every word.

Peter Cincotti - Live in New York A disc made by Monster Music to show off high end formats, this is a great outdoor concert by young singer Peter Cincotti, a mix of lounge singer and big bands. He has a great voice and a great horn section and piano in his band. The concert DVD is in Surround Sound (DTS or Dolby) and stereo. I listened to both, and you get a great feel of the horn players actually being there. The saxaphone sounds natural and realistic from the right, as does the trombone that comes in from the left. Cincotti’s own piano playing style also sounds great in the center channel. Two channel listening also sounded clear, and created a good well defined sound stage. I also listened to On the Moon the latest CD by Cincotti that came with the Monster Music set. The music here also sounded much better with the MC300s.

Queen - A Night at the Opera - DVD audio I listened to a DVD audio, with some of my favorite Queen songs in surround sound. The vocals sounded good, and there was good sound and definition in all the channels. There was much more definition in the rear channels in this system than in the Megatheater 60.

Subwoofer Test - Finding Nemo - Darla Taps the Tank!

The subwoofer here is also the amplifier, and it is the same size as the Cambridge Soundworks 8S subwoofer. A competent subwoofer, but not that great. I performed by favorite subwoofer test, not the depth charges in Wolfgang Peterson’s Das Boot, nor the explosions of any other war movie, but a young tinsel teeth terror who comes to visit her uncle, a dentist in Sydney Australia. It is here that the hero of Pixar’s Finding Nemo is detained in a large fishtank. When Darla taps the tank, a good subwoofer will literally make you feel like you are IN THE FISHTANK! I know, I have a Velodyne subwoofer in my home theater, that has 1000 watts RMS and a 2000 watt peak. You may not realize it watching this great kids movie on a regular TV, but PIXAR uses some SERIOUS BASS in its movies, Bass that you can feel. However, on this system, all you really hear, is a little girl tapping the fish tank. (another great test of subs is Pixar’s the Incredibles, when the family is chased through the jungle by Buddy’s minions). For the subwoofer test, this offers no improvement, because it uses the same sub. HOWEVER, I would note that unlike BOSE, you can use the subwoofer out to add whatever subwoofer you want, and you DON’T need to use the included subwoofer. You do need to keep the unit, because the amplifier is in the subwoofer, but you could separately route the Low Frequency Effects to a better powered subwoofer. Cambridge Soundworks offers a number of higher models. My personal favorite is my Velodyne, that creates bass you can feel, but bottom line, the included sub, although it won’t rock the house, lets you hear those low frequency sounds, and it isn’t muddy. For the tech specs, the sub goes down to 35 hz.

The Remote The remote is basis enough, it is a learning remote, so you can teach it to program your TV, cable box etc. It looks like a DVD remote, and although it wasn’t as simple as the remote for a BOSE sytem, I think it was fairly simple.

Tech Stuff

This paragraph is geared more towards those who understand a lot of audio/video terms. The DVD player in this system is actually a preamplifier/processer with built in DVD player. The amplifier is in the subwoofer, and its 60 watts a channel with a 150 watt subwoofer. However, it does have one really good thing, it has 6 actual PREOUTS that it uses to hook up to the subwoofer/amp. That means that you could hook up this MegaTheater DVD player/pre/pro amp to a real amplifier, say a 60 watt per channel Rotel Surround Sound amp! The MC300s are also not propreitary, so you can hook up any speakers with the included subwoofer amplifier.

Upgradeability You can add a separate amplifier, subwoofer or speakers to this system if you choose to. Digital and analog inputs allow you to add other sources as well.

Looks If you are buying this system for looks rather than sound quality, it is not as sleek or attractive looking as BOSE or Bang %26 Olufson’s all in one home theater systems. It looks like a regular DVD player, it’s thin, and has the standard box shape. It’s bright silver. The speakers, although not cubes, are not that large. The MC 300s that provide the front 3 channels are 13″ x 5″ x 6″ deep. The bass cube/ amplifier is about a foot square and its also charcoal colored. You can hide it under a coffee table or behind something.

Speaking of the Speakers

I believe what sets this Home Theater system apart is the speakers. The MC300s used in the front are much more of a full range speaker than any cubes I have heard, although they aren’t a LOT bigger. Each speaker uses 2 4″ bass drivers and a 1″ tweeter. All the speakers are magnetically shielded so that you can use them near the TV. They are a dull grey, that may be a factor with your interior decorator, but maybe you could spray paint them or something. (just don’t get paint on the speakers themselves!) If you bought these separately, they would be $199 each.

The rear channels are two S300s which are matched to the MC300s. These also use 2 4″ bass drivers and use 2 2.5″ midrange drivers and 1 1″ tweeter. The speaker array allows it to spread out the rear “surround sound”. When you need specific localization of the signal, such as with DVD-Audios, or DVD concerts, the speakers can be set in monopole mode. This allows for precise rear speaker imaging. The other modes are dipole and bipole which are good for movies and surround sound modes. If you bought these separately, they would cost $350 a pair.

Summary If you or someone you know is looking for a simple solution to home theater without giving up quality sound, this just could be the answer. Does it sound as good as my home theater set up with separate amplifiers, separate components and full range floor standing speakers, and powerful subwoofer? Yeah right! But it DID sound very close to my bedroom system which has a Separate Denon amplifier, separate Pioneer DVD player, and M-60s and MC400 center channel, and almost identical Cambridge Sounddworks Basscube 8S, and it is a LOT simpler. It is also only $1500.00! Is that a lot for Home Theater in a Box? Well it is a lot more than all the distortion boxes that sit on the shelves at Best Buy and Circuit City, but it is also a lot cheaper than a Bose LifeStyle system that costs twice as much and sounds half as good! (Using the Lifestyle 48 at $4,000 as a comparison). The real beauty of it is that when you want to upgrade you can! Many Home theater in a boxes, including Bose do NOT let you upgrade, or don’t have the necessary connections for any upgrades.

This is a home theater in a box solution that actually sounds pretty good without going into separates, and can be expanded when and if you are ready. I would highly recommend this for my friends who don’t want to take the time or the trouble to buy separate components.

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