Television and Video
Finally, we set the speakers back to default for playback of Video and TV. As already mentioned, these speakers are analogue only; those with digitally encoded audio will need to put it through some form of decoder first.
Although generally the sound was very good, especially in playback of feature films such as Avatar and Blade Runner, it's interesting to note that the SOLO7C's seemed weakest in this test. It was evident that when watching voice-heavy TV actors with fairly deep intonations, for example a Morgan Freeman esq. voice - caused a slight resonance through the system at default balance levels. To become comfortable we needed to reduce the bass by two levels (from 0 to -2), the largest correction we needed to make thus far and quite unexpected from this relatively simple test.
Lack of directionality will be a concern to some who watch 5.1-surround encoded Bluray video frequently, but for the same money 5.1 speaker systems tend to be of significantly lower quality and power. Whilst you won't get full 5.1 directionality, the sound you will get does neatly fill the room and has none of the associated tinniness you often hear from budget 5.1 set-ups.
Misc. Observations
The overall performance of the SOLO7C's belied their 110W rating; at no point did they feel insufficient to good playback or strong base tones. Furthermore, removing the cloth grill changed the sound dynamics only slightly, to a even sharper, punchier reproduction which if anything was preferable for gaming if not DVD.
Although the inclusion of a remote control with the SOLO7C's, operating them through the remote was not trouble-free. The 7C's would often have trouble picking up the remote when just powered up, and does not default to any output when powered on. This initially makes getting the system to output any sound from any source frustrating, leading to mashing buttons until the speaker picks it up. When operating optimally the remote does work well, but the extra hassle means the end-user will want to avoid turning off the 7C's when not in operation, making the rear off-switch redundant.
With a 4m range and little angular restriction, the remote is good enough for living room use. The buttons of the circular-style control at the top feel a little cheaply constructed, and doesn't really reflect the quality of the whole system. The lack of AAA battery power rather than a button battery - the dimensions of the remote could easily accommodate one - and weaknesses outlined above make this the weak link in the SOLO7C package.
