Altec Lansing ADA995 Speaker System

Pros: Excellent sound quality, sleek design, THX Certified, easy set-up.
Cons: A lot of cords – but this can be worked around.

I purchased a Dell 8300 Series desktop in May. This being my first purchase of a home computer, I decided to splurge on a few upgrades, including a digital flat panel display and the Altec Lansing ADA995 Multimedia Speaker System. The Altec ...

Pros: Sound quality, build quality. Price. THX certified.
Cons: Bass has it's limits.

Apparently these Altec Lansing speakers were meant for Dell computers only, which is sad because they are really built well. They consist of 5 sats,(1 center, 2 fronts, and 2 rears) and one sub with 2 x 6.5 subs in a professional, heavy enclosure. The ...

Pros: Rich clear sound, easy to setup
Cons: weight, size, lowest volume setting is too loud, sometimes-hard-to-understand manual

Now these are the BEST speakers I have ever heard. I had some wimpy Monsoon Planar 7 2.1 35W speakers, now I have the ADA995 5.1 200W speakers. Coupled with the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Sound Card, when I listen to radio through it, it puts the sound on f ...

Pros: Great sound, very powerful, relatively compact.
Cons: Potential fire hazard, 200 Watt constant peak output and no volume control.

These are great sounding speakers, and very powerful.

HOWEVER

In all their genius, Altec Lansing decided to design this set with NO MANUAL VOLUME CONTROL WHATSOEVER. The output level is entirely dependent on your computer's volume setting. Meaning, this system's 200 Watts of power are constantly, silently cranked to max for 100% peak output, waiting to pounce. Potentially very very very VERY loud. So plugging in an ungrounded portable CD player (turned off even) with the amp turned on (and making NO sound whatsoever) could result in a floor shaking head-smacking ( ((!!BOOM!!)) ) from the subwoofer.

ALSO, a simple feedback loop from a faulty tiny little soundcard could start a fire. Already been there.

The 200 Watt Amp is ALWAYS AT FULL POWER. NO MANUAL VOLUME CONTROL!! Can't stress this enough.