 Today I'm going to be unboxing something that is of interest to me and absolutely nobody else. This is the legendary Sphere X Xbox 5.1 surround sound system. It is no longer available, but as you can see by the very old and very beat up box, I managed to find one in our warehouse and I bought it because I happened to need some speakers. I'm planning to move my cat speakers that are on my computer over to my TV. And so I needed something for my computer and since it has a digital input, I can make use of this. So in terms of the overall specs and features, why don't we go over what's on the front here. So we have five omni-polar satellite speakers. So these use a pretty cool technology that actually only sends some of the sound directly to your ears. The rest of it bounces, so you actually hear it indirectly off the walls and off the obstacles in the room. And the theory, and from what I've heard it works really well, is that it sounds much more natural that way. Alright, we have a powered 8-inch subwoofer which uses some kind of other technology to produce sounds that are, as far as your perception goes, much lower frequency than what an 8-inch subwoofer can normally do. We have a 300 watt RMS digital 6-channel amplifier, so like I said, digital, which means optical input. And I don't believe it accepts any analog input at all. No, it does, it does. It accepts RCA cables or something, so nothing from a computer. And certainly nothing 5.1. It has a headphone output, which is handy, USB connectivity, feature expansion capability. Yeah, I don't think that's going to be happening based on how out of production all of this stuff is. Remote control and IR receiver included, all speaker wiring included. Yeah, check this out, the warranty is also penned out on the box. Awesome. So I don't think I'll be getting any kind of warranty support on this whatsoever. And actually, here's something else that's on the outside of the box. A little bit more detail about these speakers, so it creates a much larger sweet spot, rather than having a very, very narrow place where the listening position is optimal. So, inside we find a bilingual setup guide. The paper's still white, so it's not that old. I guess you guys should have seen how dusty this was when I first opened it up. Alright, we've got speaker cables, which I will need. So one end is terminated in...oh, both ends are terminated in RCA cables. So we have...how many of those? Five of those. So there's the five cables. They're kind of thin gauge, but reasonably flexible, so should be not too bad. It looks like there's two longer ones, and then three shorter ones, so that would be for the front channels and the rear channels. Okay, next we've got a packing foam, and then we find the speakers. So like I said, these are really old. Like, I think this is several years old, this inventory. It was so dusty when I found it. But they are in brand new condition, so I will show you guys one of the satellites. I'm not going to bother unboxing them all, because they are identical to each other. And I just want to show you guys the speaker design. Now, I'm no, you know, speaker engineer, but I can try and explain the basic principles and show you guys sort of what I meant before. So, if I could get it out of the bag, I mean... Okay, here we go. So that's the front of the speaker. So you can see there's a...here, I hope you can see. I think this comes off. Yeah, there we go. Okay. So that's the front of the speaker. So the way it's designed, it actually reflects the sound off of this kind of cone-shaped, dome-shaped thing, and it reflects the right amount of sound directly at you and the rest of it out to the walls, so that proportionally, you hear, I think it's something like 70% directly and 30% reflected at you by your surroundings. And you can see there's another dome right there for the tweeter, so that's also reflecting that sound towards you and also at the walls. So actually here, the speaker itself has a nice, like, if you don't mind the Xbox branding, I've heard they're just great speakers, although I haven't had a chance to listen yet. So we've got a removable grill there, then just the speakers themselves. Okay. On the bottom, we've got screw-in for a stand, as well as...I wonder what that could be used for. Hard to say. But there's our connection for the audio cable. All right. So there's one speaker. Let's see what else we've got in here in terms of accessories. So I actually haven't quite decided if these ones are going to end up downstairs or if these ones will end up upstairs and I move the receiver and the Kevspeakers downstairs. I guess it depends on how everything sounds, what looks better. Not sure. I bought these on a recommendation, so I'll have to kind of play around with them myself and see what I think before I make any decisions. So this looks like some more accessories and whatnots. Here we find an optical audio cable. Noodles certified gaming gear. Okay. Cool. Next we find...ah, yes. The front control pod. Oh, okay. Doesn't seem to have any controls on it. Just is a display...oh, okay. It's a display and an infrared receiver. So you actually have to control these with the remote. They don't have any buttons right on the front. So, ah, there you go. You can see all the stuff it says on there. There's a bunch of certifications. Dolby Digital Pro Logic 2, DTS surround, Texas Instruments, of all things, on the top here. All right. You know what? I'm going to turn these lights around so hopefully you guys can actually see what I'm doing a little better down here. There we go. Maybe that'll help. All right. Next we've got, ah, kind of what looks like kind of an S-Video cable, but it's probably some proprietary thing for the control pod. Yep. So that plugs into the control pod and then presumably the sub and amp. Next we've got, ah...oh, okay. So that's just a coaxial digital cable, which is just like any other coaxial cable. And then we have, ah, this is for using with your computer if you only want to use two channel sound. I'm guessing it'll up mix to 5.1 if you want to go that route. And then finally we have the Xbox remote. You know, it's too bad that products like this are kind of dying out. Like, ah, stuff that's designed for gamers but actually delivers excellent sound quality. Like, we used to have so many options, you know, Creative, Clipch, Monsoon, if you want to go back a little bit further than that. Ah, you know, you've got companies like this doing stuff. And now we just have, ah, here's a couple AA batteries. These are probably, like, expired. Let me see if there's an expiry date on them. But, ah, they...the cold hard reality that I've come to face is that gamers don't know the difference between good audio and loud audio. And they aren't willing to pay for it. So that's why we see products like this just go EOL. Razer Mako is another great example of just a phenomenal set of speakers that was marketed at gamers but actually was just a really neat audio set. But wasn't successful because people weren't willing to pay the premium for something that's truly well made and sounds really good in everything. Not just, you know, boom games. So I'm trying to get this sub open. Alright. The Xbox branding, I have to admit, is a bit of a turn-off because it's kind of like, ah, it's a weird looking style. And, ah, it's actually designed to match the old, original Xbox, not the Xbox 360. Okay, so here we go. Trying to clear some room here. So there's the sub. Kind of got your standard audio equipment finish on it. Okay, comes with these little silver legs that are going to lift it up off the ground a little bit. So that, as you can see if I tip it a little bit further, the 8-inch subwoofer down here will have a little bit of room between itself and the ground. Alright, I'm going to turn it around, show you guys the back. Okay, here we go. So we've got our power switch. Got a fuse here. Okay. Cool. Then we've also got the infrared receiver in. USB in. I don't think this does anything. I think it was one of those for future expansion things. But this product disappeared, so clearly there was no future for it. Then we've got speakers only. So this plugs into all of our speakers. Front, left, right, surround, left, right, and center. Then we've got optical in, up to two sources. Coaxial in, as well as left and right analog in. Then we've got a power plug, and that's about it. So thank you for checking out my unboxing that is, ah, of interest to nobody but me. 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