if you have 19$ - need speakers, will travel
Written: Jan 02 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: cleanly reproduced sound, extremely deft subwoofer for price/size, low noise
Cons: notable distortion on anything past 3/4 vol, lacking midrange (as you might expect)
The Bottom Line: Seriously for 19$ these speakers cannot be beat and that is what matters; the imaging on this set is superb when positioned close to your ears on a desktop
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| darkhorse1's Full Review: Labtec Pulse™ 420 2 Speakers |
When saw these speakers as a demo setup in a electronics store i was really impressed. The first thing to catch my eye was a 19$ price tag for a setup with a bassmodule. Then I listened a little closer and noticed that it gave a good rich sound to the demo track that was playing. I know that you can't normally audition a 19$ of speakers in a store unless the sound is respectable and the usual sub20$ speaker sets (think cyber acoustics, midiland) usually have grainy drivers and not enough amplification. There of course were noticable holes in the upper mid-range area however the bassmodule had good extention into the mid-bass range to help.
Satellites:
These were of course quite light with small drivers but I believe they are fully rubber (as the set that this replaced containing the same model sub had slighter smaller full rubber satellites). It was interesting how little the mesh (plastic?) covering on the satellites obstructed the sound, it was relatively hard to peer at the drivers behind from different angles. The most able frequencies that you'd expect these speakers to cover are reproduced quite vividly and I was kind of surprised by the amount of nuances I could hear inside my mp3 collection. This means that the mp3's that might have some defects or artifacts from the encoding will be more pronounced but as well that you will be able to pick out different parts of music better. The stereo pair had excellent off-axis imaging and the soundstage didn't seem to fall out of phase when I moved around too much. The headphone port on the right speaker wasn't actually sealed from the rest of the cabinet and so acted as another kind of 'port' letting air escape out the back but that's just a minor complaint - for 19$ bucks I would just be picking nits. The limitation of 25 watts does become apparent quickly however if you push this set to anything past a "comfortably loud" level. The small satellites crackle quite a lot and are not able to work fast enough to reproduce harder middle range freq. on top of everything else at louder volumes.
"Bass Module":
Mind you, this does reproduce the lower freq. but cannot accurately be called a "sub-woofer" because it doesn't quite produce sub-audible frequencies. The module, however, was another pleasant surprise as I expected the about 3&2/5" (listed as 4") driver to be weak and shallow. The fact that it has wood construction (the molded plastic piece on top is simply a cover over the top of the wood box, keeping wires and such) a down firing driver, and extremely low noise (helped also by downfiring and downported design)was nice and made up some of those "advanced features". The actual sound? Testing some rap music proved it had some punch that I could even somewhat feel in my seat when I pushed the volume. I'll note the response was extremely tight and concise (probably from the smaller driver and just right sized port) and it did a good job at reaching the upper bass ranges and blending with the satellites without being very colored.
Overall:
It is really about as much detail as you can hope to hear in music and the appropriate power for such a price. The cords are ridiculously messy in setup though and get caught on everything. Replace those old JLB platinums and pick these up. I got 2 for myself.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
darkhorse1
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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