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5 Responses to “Altec Lansing BXR1221 2.1 Speaker System”

1. D. Johnson Says: February 8th, 2010 at 10:48 pm

   I was looking forward to trying these speakers, particularly with my MP3 players.

   What a waste of time that was. These speakers are powered, so I was expecting to actually be able to hear output from my MP3 players. Well I am still waiting to hear them.

   I tried it with two different Sandisk MP3 players, an E280 and a C140.
   
   I could hear louder sounds when hooking up my JVC headphones and leaving them hanging from the floorlamp 3-4 feet from my head than from this set of Altec speakers at the same distance.

   While the Altec speakers are externally powered, the JVC headset is driven by the electric from the Sandisk MP3 batteries (I should mention that my JVC headphones do have one AAA battery, but that is only used when I turn it on to do external noise suppression. It has nothing to do with driving the speakers in the headset and I rarely ever turn it on and it was off when comparing the headset volume to the speakers and their volume) yet the JVC headphones put out louder sound than the Altec does.
   
   So what does the Altec do with the power it is getting from the wall? It should be 10 to 20 times louder than the power from two AAA batteries driving a MP3 player and the headphones. But it doesn’t. I got more sound out of my first portable radio almost 50 years ago that was driven by a nine volt battery than from these speakers.

   This speaker set may put out enough sound from a computer but that isn’t what I wanted it for. I wanted it so I could listen to my MP3 player without wearing headphones.

   Yet with the volume turned all the way to the maximum on both my MP3 and the Altec speakers, you can’t hear the sound from 5 feet away!

   So either these speakers are defective or they are pretty much useless.
   Rating: 2 / 5

2. GW Says: February 9th, 2010 at 12:07 am

   I would sum up the sound quality as:
   
   Bass: almost nothing
   
   Midrange: unimpressive
   
   Highs: fairly poor

   If you need a speaker system on a computer to listen to the windows startup or shutdown noises, watch youtube here or there and maybe some talk radio this will suffice. Not recommended for music or movies.

   The volume control doesn’t really go up high enough, but that is probably because the speakers are under powered. The LED light is particularly and unnecessarily bright. I would also prefer if they stuck the power adapter in the subwoofer rather than making it a powerblock which requires extra space around the outlet.
   Rating: 2 / 5

3. A. Richards Says: February 9th, 2010 at 1:49 am

   I just bought these from walmart and they may sound worse than my monitor speakers. The sub makes almost no sound, I’m pretty sure its just there for show.
   Rating: 2 / 5

4. VZ Says: February 9th, 2010 at 3:23 am

   I’ve been using a pretty awesome headset for the last few months instead of speakers. I’d probably never have switched away from the headphones, but, well, after long enough, your ears begin to ache, and it messes up your hair. So, it was time for some speakers–considering how long I spend at my PC.

   Just to clarify, these speakers are going on my spare PC–not my main one. My main PC has some very nice ~$120 Creative speakers. The Creative ones obviously blow these out of the water, but there’s also the price difference of $90, so that’s to be expected.

   For the price you pay, though, these aren’t bad. They give you crisp, clean sound. While it’s not booming, and not nearly powerful enough to headline your entertainment center–they’ll do the job of basic PC speakers. I use mine to play audio, and to simply allow me to hear incoming messages from IMs, etc.

   My only complaint is a lack of a headphone/mic plug-in. I use ventrilo a lot, so having to plug/unplug the speakers/headset is a bit off-putting since I don’t want any feedback/loops. So, 4 stars for this.

   They were easy to setup and get running, don’t take up a lot of space, and were cheap. Can’t ask for much more–except that headphone/mic plug-in….
   Rating: 4 / 5

5. S. Lionel Says: February 9th, 2010 at 4:39 am

   I admit I’m spoiled. For my desktop PC, I’ve been using a three-box (small speakers plus subwoofer) set from Cambridge Soundworks (RIP) that I purchased more than ten years ago. The small speakers are about the same weight as those in the Altec Lansing set, but are short cubes rather than long tubes, and the subwoofer weighs at least 10 pounds. The sound quality is excellent. The set also cost far more than the Altec Lansings!

   So what did I expect? Not room-filling bass and crystal-clear highs, to be sure. But what I did get from the Altec Lansings was disappointing in the extreme. I connected these to my iPhone and played a variety of music from my collection. The midrange was pretty good, but the upper end was weak and the bass was non-existent.

   The “subwoofer” contains a cheap-looking paper cone driver that faces down from the bottom of the box. The box looks impressive, but when you pick it up you find that it weighs almost nothing. It DOES contribute to the “low end” in that if you disconnect the subwoofer the sound becomes even more anemic, but I would never consider this “bass”.

   I do like the “space saving design” – too many current models have tall desktop speakers, and that may not work for everyone. The volume control is handy on the top front of one of the satellites but the on-off switch, a rotary knob, is inconveniently placed on the back. There is a bright amber power LED on the front that I find distracting. The “wall-wart” power adapter is the old, inefficient transformer style, not the newer “switching supply” type.

   The Altec Lansing set is attractive, but the sound is too thin for me to recommend it in general. Given its modest price, however, it makes a reasonable speaker set for a PC if you’re not too fussy about sound quality. I could not imagine listening to music through these.
   Rating: 2 / 5

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