News

• The Good: Powered by USB connection or wall socket; look fabulous; durable design; very portable; clean sound; subwoofer-out port; built-in USB microphone.
• The Bad: Not much audio punch, even on wall-socket power; volume drops substantially on USB power; big price tag; subwoofer should have come standard with the package rather than selling as an add-on.
• The Verdict: They look great, they sound good, but they'll have a much bigger impact on your wallet than your ears.
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REVIEW:

I've long been a fan of Altec Lansing's computer speakers, and the XT2 is the first set of portable speakers I've tried from the company.

These speakers look and sound great, but the whopping $149.95 (U.S.) suggested retail price frankly threw me (the cheapest I could find them for on-line was about $110 at press time). Is a portable set of speakers worth that kind of coin?

My initial reaction was 'no way.' But after trying them out for a few weeks I realized that while this is definitely a set of speakers for the well-heeled crowd, there are features that help justify the premium for some people.

First of all, as I said, they look great. They're done in stainless steel, which is both durable and eye-catching. The legs are sturdy brackets on spring-loaded, flip-out hinges that should take a lot of abuse on the road. In short, these speakers are the perfect complement to a high-end notebook.

Besides being durable, they're also portable. Each speaker is about the size of a cordless phone handset, and they come in a padded carrying case. The case is a little on the large size, but should still fit into a good-sized carry-on bag or laptop case.

The XT2's power adapter has fittings to match just about any wall socket configuration on the planet. And to reduce bulk, the cable that links the left and right speakers spools out of the left-hand satellite on a retractable auto-winder. It makes for easy setup/takedown, and cuts down the number of cables you have to worry about. Strangely, though, the cable that connects to external audio sources is a plain old patch cable rather than being built into a winder inside the right-hand speaker - room for improvement here.

The patch cables are only for the times when you want to hook up the XT2s to things like CD- and MP3-players, though. The main audio connector for PCs and notebooks is a USB cable, which is part of the reason for the price premium. The cable can provide power, and also acts as the audio feed from the computer. With most modern operating systems, you should be able to just plug in the speakers and the computer will detect them and configure the setup automatically. No fuss, no muss, and no brick-like power adapter to cart around with you on the road.

The USB connector also has one other purpose. The XT2's right-hand satellite has a built-in microphone, which connects to the computer over USB. Again, it's configured automatically when the speakers are plugged into a computer's USB port. The internal microphone is not as effective at noise cancellation as a headset mic, but does a good job picking up a spoken voice when the speakers are set up on either side of a computer monitor or laptop screen. It also has feedback cancellation to reduce echo when doing VoIP chats, which is a must considering that there's a speaker right next to the mic.

The USB connection is handy, but there's a caveat. If you're using USB alone to power the speakers, the maximum volume is, well, pretty wimpy. You can crank the speakers to 10, and still carry on a conversation near them without any problem. Using the wall adapter will save your laptop batteries and boost the volume by about 20 per cent, but these speakers still aren't ear-shattering by any stretch of the imagination.

The flip-side is that the audio produced by the XT2s is nice and clear. The twin 28 millimeter, 80-ohm neodymium Micro Drivers in each satellite are tiny and push only 2 watts of power, but they have a decent signal-to-noise ratio of 65 decibels at an input level of 1 kHz. They're not quite full-range, though, peaking at 20 kHz but bottoming out at only 100 Hz. They're great for VoIP calls and videoconferencing, and good for music and gaming as long as you don't need lots of volume.

The speakers are magnetically shielded, and they have one other nice trick up their sleeve. If you press both volume buttons at the same time, it allows you to boost or lower the bass. If you don't push either volume button for five seconds, they revert to volume controls. This means you can tweak the output easily without having to keep opening the Windows volume controls.

The problem is that at medium volume levels, the midrange and treble are excellent, but even with the bass adjustment cranked there's just not much rumble. As the volume rises, the midrange tends to disappear and the treble gets a bit harsh and hissy. The XT2s have a subwoofer-out port if you want to add some decent bass, but the sub will cost you another $149.95 (ouch...).

They also have a very precise sweet spot. You need to be sitting directly in front of the speakers, basically working at your laptop or PC, to get the best effect. If you stand up or move to one side, the sound level and stereo separation drops noticeably.

In short, don't buy these speakers if you want lots of volume, or to fill a room with music. They're basically very stylish, low-output speakers for people working at their PC or possibly doing a presentation in a small room. If you want to use them for music, you'll really need to shell out for the subwoofer to get well-rounded sound. That said, they look extremely sharp and will blow away the volume and quality of the speakers on any laptop I've listened to - just don't expect them to perform like full-on desktop PC speakers.