Reason Two: The Sound of one Dreamcast Clapping

Of all the things we looked at with the Dreamcast, the sound was the one department that we were all fairly ambivalent about. The quality was fine playing off of CD or using the on-board instruments, but lacked the ear-rending bass we were used to in many PC games. Here's the straight dope:

Sluggo: We hooked it up to some PC speakers, and the games didn't really seem like they had much bass to them.

Tungsten: The sound is pretty good. It sounded much better on the set of PC speakers we hooked up, instead of the TV speakers. It seemed to be a little lacking in the bass.

NFL 2K was an awesome game, but it would've been better if our stomach bottomed out from the booming bass sound of a mean tackle.

Mix: The sound chip is a Yamaha ... Sega has always had good sound, except for the Genesis. I'll have to hear a few more games before I can really tell if the on-board instruments are very good. For playing regular sound files, like .PCMs and such, the sound quality is 44Kilohertz, 16 bit. That's as good as CD -- so there's no problem there.

We also took the system to the home of a friend of ours, a real audiophile. We hooked it up to his wide-screen TV and giant home theatre 5.1 speaker system. Again, not much on the bass, but it was certainly crisp and loud. Keep in mind that we're used to rattling the walls when we fire Quake rocket launchers -- we like our bass heavy and hard. Dreamcast? So-so on sound. No complaints, but no raves.

Next: Sure, the hardware's good, but what about the games?