An excellent PC sound system.
Written: Jun 16 '02 (Updated Jun 16 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good power output, and above average sound for a purpose built PC sound system.
Cons: Cheap speaker wire. No Infrared remote.
The Bottom Line: This system will give you as much volume as can reasonably be expected from a P.C. sound system. It elevates the PC gaming experience to a new level.
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| gmeades's Full Review: Altec Lansing 641 4 Speakers |
When I bought my Dell Dimension 8200, it came with an HK-395 speaker system. At first, the sound was fine, but after an enthusiastic session playing Filter on the CD drive, the satellite speakers developed the familiar ‘death-rattle’. .. and that's all she wrote.
Of course, these days, many electronic systems have built in safeguards to prevent you mixing and matching different components from other systems and this little speaker setup is no different. The subwoofer is hard wired to one of the speakers to make things just that little bit harder for you to perform a self-help fix. (There is probably a very good technical reason for this, but I prefer my cynical explanation) So, to keep things simple, I decided to go and buy another setup. After checking out the Epinions site and searching on line, I thought that the best thing to so would be to take a trip to good ol’ Comp USA to see what was cooking.
They had several systems on the shelf and alongside the speaker display; they were demonstrating a sound-system which had been hooked up to a TV DVD player consisting of four speakers and a subwoofer, controlled by a small hard-wired remote unit. The sales assistants already had the sound cranked up pretty loud and so, as you do, I decided to tweak the volume knob just a little more to see if there was any distortion. At an uncomfortably high output, there was no discernable distortion which indicated that the speakers were up to the task in hand. Before I could return the volume to a more acceptable level, an irate female shopper walked up to the nearby sales assistant and started to give him a severe tongue-lashing about the noise, demanding that he turn the sound down before she reported him to the Manager and then promptly turned round and walked out! I looked sympathetically at the red-faced assistant and felt somewhat obligated to buy the system from him. I feel that in her anger, the woman had completely missed the opportunity to hear Densel Washington perform a pivotal scene from Return Of The Titans at an ear-shattering 120 decibels, completely distortion free!
The system turned out to be the Altec Lansing 641. So after a little more browsing, I decided that the performance would be more than adequate for a PC sound system and made the purchase. I paid $199 which was about $50 more than I could have bought it for on-line. But I guess we all need to bear in mind that if everyone acquired their electronics through the internet, there would be nowhere to go and try things out before purchasing. However, I now feel that I have fulfilled my moral obligation to CompUSA and, therefore, in the future, I shall have no qualms about buying online!
The system is rated at 400 Watts total, 200 Watts RMS. The front firing wood subwoofer which forms the heart of the system has two 6.5 inch drivers for excellent low frequency response, which coupled with Altec Lansing’s patented circuitry gives a degree of low volume sound realism often missing from many sound systems. The satellite speakers are set inside cast metal support frames which allows you to tilt the speakers backwards to bounce the sound off the ceiling. However, if you prefer the speakers to project horizontally, there is a small recessed tab which you can fold out from underneath the case to set them level. The satellites contain two drivers, a one inch tweeter and a three inch full range driver which combine to give a mellow mid-bass and sharp high range sound. To give you a little more flexibility, the package includes two shaped brackets which are contoured to fit the case of each of the two rear satellites thus allowing you a wall mounting option. Although the speakers themselves are well shielded for video color distortion, the cables supplied are not, which in my case, causes them to pick up the local country music station. This can be rather disconcerting at two in the morning when you wake up to the sound of a distant Steve Earle/Sheryl Crow rendition, wondering why you set the radio alarm for a Sunday morning. The obvious solution is to replace the cables, but as they are soldered inside the speaker case, this is not an easy fix. I will try cutting the cable close to the case and butt-splicing better cable from there.
The system is controlled by a nifty hard wired hand unit which has several well laid-out function buttons on it. There are three mode settings, stereo which activates the two front satellites with the subwoofer; stereo x2, which enables all speakers, and gaming. In this mode, an additional rear output chord (supplied) is utilized. There are separate bass and treble adjustment select buttons, and the rotary analog volume control is employed for their actual adjustment. In my opinion, this is an improvement on the more usual digital push button adjustment method, as a rotary knob makes fine tuning easier. The adjustment range is good and the controller also has a standby power switch.
A nice touch is the heavy cast metal stand which retains the hand set when you are not using it. If the unit was converted to an infra-red remote, it would be better still.
All of the wire hookups are color coded and connecting everything is pretty straight forward. Spring clip speaker wire connectors are utilized on the rear of the subwoofer/amp unit while jacks or multi pin connectors are used for everything else.
There is an auxiliary input jack socket on the top front of the unit to enable you to add an additional device (such as a karaoke microphone if that’s what floats your boat) They also give you a useful gaming pigtail if you want to connect your Play Station directly to the system.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
gmeades
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Location: California
Reviews written: 9
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Born in England, now a U.S. citizen working in construction management.
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