Dogg Digital speakers.....a review by yours truly

[Kamakiri]

Please wait for the wiseass comments until I'm done posting my review.....this is gonna take several posts.

Well, as some of you may know, I actually took the plunge and invested about $130 into a Dogg Digital home theater setup on eBay.....

The way I see it, if they are as bad as they are made out to be, now THAT's something that would make interesting reading in the form of a review. Follow along!

Here's the initial shot of the speakers as they were unpacked and set on my living room floor

 

[Kamakiri]

Always look for the label

 

[Kamakiri]

Now even though the speakers include a center channel, the center channel is indistunguishable from the other speakers. I disassembled them to make sure, but we'll get to that shortly.

 

[Kamakiri]

We're going to start with the "subwoofer" first. It's not a powered sub, which came as kind of a shock after how much the thing weighs. The box is made of 1/2" MDF, and is very heavy. The finish on the case is identical to Polk bookshelfs I've seen, a black faux woodgrain. Not bad at all. In fact I was impressed by the "feel" quality of it, I was expecting by reputation to be something akin to a PC tower with a speaker inside. It's not without its quality issues, however, such as this poor glue job on the inside of the speaker cover.

 

[Kamakiri]

Underneath that cover, you find two of the expected chrome-covered mylar coned speakers with butyl surrounds, and a single bass port.

 

[Kamakiri]

Here's a shot of the binding posts on the back of the speaker. The confusing thing is that it's a 5 channel system, but only has the ability to use the built-in crossover for the sub in conjunction with two channels of audio. Then again, maybe it's supposed to be that way, who knows. The clips look like twist type banana connectors, but are in fact push pins in which you just insert the wire.

You can also see the specs of the speakers on the sticker.

 

[Kamakiri]

So let's see what's inside!

The woofers inside are pretty darn heavy, and have a woven cloth spider and a mylar cone with butyl surrounds, as I noted.

 

[Kamakiri]

Shot of the back of the speaker

 

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Here's what the insides of the cabinet look like.

 

[Kamakiri]

Here's the crossover. It's just two copper coils, and four caps, two Yemingzhu 100 uF@100V, and two Hongyuan 75 uF@100v.

 

[Kamakiri]

So let's tear apart the satellites. Took me a while to figure it out, but the grilles just pop off with the help of a Snap On pick. The cabinets are made of a really heavy grade of grained plastic, and again like the sub, a heavy piece.

 

[Kamakiri]

What's inside......

 

[Kamakiri]

Now what's in there for a crossover....

WHAT????!!!! That's IT??!!!!

 

[Kamakiri]

Now, with a full teardown behind us, my son and I decide to hook up a pair of the satellite speakers to the living room G-901 to take them for a spin......his opinion is less than favorable.....

 

[Kamakiri]

The sound from the satellite speakers is so shrill and tinny that it's unlistenable.....so we decide to hook up the subwoofer and go the full monte.

The bass, while definitely there, sounds rubber-ball like. Every hard bass hit has a "boing, boing, boing" sound to it, which wasn't bothersome most of the time, but like nails on a damn chalkboard if anything hit hard in the lower bass region.

He did like the way the chrome woofer covers moved, though......

 

[Kamakiri]

But, then again, when a 5 year old fan of rockin' out sees cool chrome woofer cones, he falls in love. Had to pry the damn thing away from him!

Dogg Digital speakers......a 5 year old's dream come true!

Next post is my final assessment and opinion

 

[Kamakiri]

So what's it all come down to:

Highs: Heavy build quality, decent damping

Lows: No more than 13 cents spent on crossover components and electronics. Speakers are questionable, but may improve with some better crossover networks.

Bottom line: Well worth the $130 I spent, but not well worth any more. Sure would be interesting as hell to see what CAN be done with these speakers. Other than the name which is a bad stigma just like X Bass boomboxes, they're a whole lot better than the KLH bottom of the barrel stuff at Best Buy. I didn't try them in a true HT setup as they were intended for, but in that circumstance, they may not be half bad.

Okay guys, fire away

 

[Army]

Cute Kiddo :thmbsp:

Doubt you can make a silk purse out of a sows ear.... :thumbsdn:

 

[Tripqzon]

I think I'll pass on 'em.

 

[Dan ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

Nice write up and pics Tim! Given the price, you can't expect much.