Better known for its motherboards, Abit is pushing into the digital home sector with its new iDome 500 speakers.

Initially sold as 2.1 systems, but likely to be 5.1 in the future, the speakers are digital, which, says Abit, means that any music or sound is played through them as it is meant to be heard. The company goes as far as claiming they are the first pure digital speakers on the market, because they do not need to convert sound to analogue during the amplification process.

“You are listening to the recording exactly as it was meant to be heard. There’s nothing to interfere with the way it was meant to sound, because there’s no conversion,” said Abit PR manager Peter du Preez at Computex.

They avoid having to convert the signal by using fibre optics, and cost $250 as a 2.1 system, or $200 without the sub woofer.

We got them into the German VNU test lab here at Computex and were pretty impressed with the sound quality. Sadly, they chose to test them playing a German Oompa Lumpa version of Madonna’s Like a Virgin – no wonder those crazy Germans love David Hasselhoff.