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

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

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