Ever since I moved my old desktop to my parent's room, had to give up my Creative Inspire 4400 speakers too. Till now, used my SoundMagic PL-11 IEM's to listen to music, watch movie's and TV shows on my laptop. But after reading some great reviews of the F&D A520, really wanted to buy it. But since F&D was an almost unknown quantity to me, wanted to test out their sound quality with something cheap and then go for the big ones.
So was checking out the reviews of the F&D V520 and also keeping a tab on its price at the various online stores. But the only stumbling block to buying online was that no one will be at home to receive the package.
I visited my local electronics market(Chandni Chowk) today. Most of the shops did not have the V520. Only two shops - Arihant Info-Tech and Vedant. Finally bought it from Arihant since it was a bit cheaper there. Though had to wait for almost 45mins for the speakers to arrive from their supplier.
Price - Rs.520 (including tax)
Rushed home to find out how bad or good these were.
Unboxing
Pics -
My first thought on opening the box was that these speakers are quite small. Hope you guys will get a good idea of the size by seeing the pics where I have compared it to my LG Optimus One and my dad's Nokia 5310XM.
Construction
The satellites are made of good quality plastic. The front panel is glossy. But the rest of it is matte finish. Overall solid construction. No chance of any creaks.
The packaging was good. Warranty card and a 2 page product guide was supplied. This product has a 1 year Manufacturer Warranty.
The speaker takes power input from the USB port. A cord, around 1m in length comes out from one of the satellites and both the USB power port and 3.5mm Audio jack are on the free end of it. The satellites are attached together by a thin wire. There is no reason to get worried though. The wire may be thin, but it not seem that it will break very quickly.
The wires are attached permanently to the back of the satellites. There are no detachable wires like those on Creative speakers.
One thing which this speaker misses is a dedicated volume control button or a power status LED. There is no way to know if the speakers are receiving power or not.
Powering up the satellites
I connected the USB power cord and the 3.5mm jack to my laptop and started playing some of my current favorite tracks. The sound was good for such a small sized speaker. Mostly I don't crank up the volume to too high a level. And the sound was pretty good at the volumes that I usually listen to.
The satellites include woofers inside them. Though they are pretty small sized and hence the bass is not that much. But still, the sound is not totally flat. I can feel a bit of the bass.
Mindstreet by Motherjane sounds pretty great on this. The guitar chords take my heart away yet again
Played quite a few Dream Theater tracks too(Hollow Years, Peruvian Sky, Solitary Shell etc), Viva La Vida by Coldplay.
Listened to the Ahatein and Ahatein(Remix) from Ek Main aur Ekk Tu soundtrack. the remixed track has a drum beat and as I had expected, it did not have the punch which I had felt whenever I listened to it on my PL-11's.
But whatever I played, I liked the sound reproduction. Vocals are clear as are the instruments.
Overall these are paisa vasool speakers in my opinion.
Price - Rs.520(including tax)
Warranty - 1 year
Specification - http://www.fendaindi..._view.asp?id=32
Pro's - Price; Sound quality; Size
Con's - No dedicated volume button; no power LED, not for maniac bassheads
Acknowledgement - #comp@ddict Thanks for your input regarding these babies. Love these.
Next target is saving up enough for the A520
