We’ve seen stage monitor speakers for Rock Band and Guitar Hero before, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one made by a company with the pedigree that Polk Audio has. Until today, that is. Unveiled at CES this week is the HitMaster Gaming Stage Monitor, yet another way that music gamers can spend lots of money on additional accessories.
The HitMaster seems pretty cool. Built into the same kind of enclosure used in normal stage monitor speakers, it looks the part and should be pretty damn durable. A 6.5″ woofer to pump out the bass, coupled with a pair of 3″ x 5″ tweeters and an MSRP of $99.99 make it not entirely unreasonable. Hell, you could even daisy-chain multiple units to make a still more realistic stage experience.
That said, it’s not really that expensive to build a passable 5.1 surround system that’s going to sound way better than anything this can produce, so I can’t quite figure out who will buy this. It’s not as though it would sound right, as you’d still have the ambient crowd noise coming through the same channels as the music. The point of monitors is to be able to hear yourself playing in an environment where the speakers are largely pointing away from you. Seems unnecessary if you’re not playing an actual instrument on an actual stage.
But, hell, the volume knob does max out at eleven. That has to count for something.
