Out of the box

In the box

Midiland includes everything you need to get the S4-8200s up and running. Fat 16-gauge speaker wire, a stereo mini-jack to RCA jack, and a single RCA jack cable for the digital coaxial are all included. The only thing missing is an optical cable. Most sound cards have coaxial digital outputs as opposed to optical outputs, so this isn't an issue, but we should note that the PlayStation 2 uses an optical out.

The included speaker wires are nice and long to facilitate placement of the satellites. 16-gauge wire isn't cheap; this little detail shows that MidiLand sells the S4-8200 as a complete package where compromises in quality are avoided.

Nice, fat wires

All the satellites are identical, which makes installation easier and improves multi-channel sound. How does having identical satellites improve sound, you ask? Every speaker has a unique voice or quality of sound, and when different speakers are mixed in a multi-channel system, the sound may change as the sound pans around the room. Having identical speakers will reduce the differences. The satellites are painted in a light purple metallic color on the top and bottom. This gives the satellites a 1980s look because of the metallic paint, but make no mistake, the technology is modern.

Satellite front

Satellite rear, with mounting hole

The subwoofer is sized just right to facilitate placement anywhere in your room. MidiLand opted to put a removable grill on the subwoofer, this was a smart move as the sub has a very attractive looking driver. The large heatsink on the back of the sub and replaceable fuse just dares the listener to crank it up.

Stealth mode

Nice looking driver

My heatsink is bigger than yours.

Installation

If you have ever installed any set of speakers before, you should have no problem with the S4-8200s. If you haven't installed speakers before, the MidiLand manual walks you right through everything with clear diagrams. The S4-8200s are designed to work with the ADS 2000 digital decoder and can't be used without it. There are no standard inputs on the subwoofer.

For those using a digital output, only one cable needs to be connected from your system to the subwoofer. Installation with a PlayStation 2 is just as simple. This makes placement of the subwoofer much easier, since it is only tethered to your system by one cable.

Theoretically, the modular design of the S4-8200, with a separate decoder, makes it possible to upgrade to other decoders, ones that may support DTS for example. We also like the standard power cable used for the subwoofer; this means one less power brick taking up two slots on your surge protector. Unfortunately, the decoder module uses one of those space-hogging transformer bricks. After connecting the necessary wires from your computer to the ADS 2000 module, you then connect a multi-din cable from the decoder to the sub. From the sub, you connect the satellite speakers using standard speaker wire.