The GigaWorks T40 has no provision for attaching a subwoofer, but if you want the extra bass (and the resulting extra cables), there are plenty of 2.1 solutions on the market. On the other hand, if you like the look and feel of the T40s but find them too tall for your tastes, opt for Creative's smaller GigaWorks T20. That stereo speaker set is almost identical to the T40, but has one midrange driver instead of two and is quite a bit less expensive than the T40.
We put the GigaWorks T40 through its paces with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' Raising Sand CD and liked what we heard, especially the singers' voices. More than anything, it was the system's clarity that came through. Bass was good, but not that much weightier than what we heard from the tiny Bose Computer MusicMonitor speakers (which cost more than twice as much). Ah, but when we turned up the heat with The Rolling Stones, the GigaWorks T40 system pulled ahead of the smaller Bose speakers.
The differences in clarity were even more telling with DVDs. The Creative bettered the Bose when we played the Seabiscuit DVD. Dialogue sounded pretty good and the horse-racing scenes were more exciting over the GigaWorks T40. Listening from about 3 feet away, the stereo imaging was quite good, but the sound was dynamically constrained compared with what we would get from a budget home theater in a box. Whenever the onscreen action heated up, the GigaWorks T40 speakers struggled to get the sound out.
High-impact sounds from games such as Unreal Tournament 3 faired a bit better than DVDs, as long as we kept the volume under control--upping the volume made the speakers work too hard. You'll find the GigaWorks T40 system works best with music--we'd recommend it ideally for a small room or dorm.
