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Reviews For: Cyber Acoustics CA-2014

Category: Speakers for communications

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Review Summary For : Cyber Acoustics CA-2014
Reviews: 1MSRP: 24.00
Description:
2 Piece Amplified Computer Speaker System. This two piece system is designed for those who are price conscious, have limited desktop space, want good fidelity and demand elegance. It is a work horse speaker that offers solid audio performance, built-in headphone jack for privacy (when needed), cloth grills and finger tip controls.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.cyberacoustics.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Home.ProductDetail&content_id=331
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0014
K6HOM Rating: 2009-11-12
Very Good Inexpensive Speakers Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have been surprised to learn how expensive some communications-grade speakers are. To me, $50-$200 is too much for a speaker optimized for such a narrow range of frequencies. I have been trying out a number of low-cost alternatives and the CA-2014 is my current favorite.

I have a scanner, GC receiver and transceiver that I wanted to connect to a single dedicated speaker system. I built a switch-box to connect all 3 receivers to a single speaker system. Using this box, I have auditioned a number of popular amplified speaker systems in the <$50 range. These are stereo speaker systems that people usually hook to their PCs or iPods.

In my opinion, several of these inexpensive systems sound as good as some of the well-rated and expensive communications speakers that I had access to and which have been reviewed on eHam.net. These amplified audio systems were designed for casual music use and their speakers appear to easily cover the human voice range that communications speakers are optimized for.

The CA-2014 is very inexpensive, I paid $14 for a new pair at Frys Electronics a month ago. While these speakers lack a subwoofer for bass in audio applications, this is not a factor for most communications uses. They work well as communications speakers. I have listened extensively to SSB ragchew sessions, AM phone, SWL broadcasts and other typical ham communications using them. The CA-2014 audio is crisp, weighted toward treble (no subwoofer), which is perfect for communications use. They certainly out-perform the built in speakers in my rigs by a wide margin. They also sound as good as the companion external speakers for these rigs (to me).

I also found that having two speakers, one on each side of my listening area mounted at ear-level, very significantly improves the listening experience over a single speaker setup, even when the pair are broadcasting dual monaural sound. Intelligibility of weak signals is greatly improved, becoming very similar to the gains achieved using good headphones.

Several of the other inexpensive amplified speaker systems that I listened to also do as good a job as dedicated communications speakers, I chose to report about the CA-2014 because it was the least expensive product and the one that I ultimately chose for my rig.

A last bonus. There is a front-mounted 3.5mm (1/8") stereo headphone jack mounted on the front of the CA-2014 control panel. Using this jack allows me to listen to the receiver of my choice using my switch-box, a great convenience.

Not saying that $14 can outperform all of the communications speakers reviewed on this site. What I am saying is that it might be worth investigating whether $14 can provide you with improved performance over the built-in speakers in most rigs and that this performance may really surprise you relative to the much more expensive alternatives.

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