Comparative test: 11 2.1 computer speaker systems (page 1: Introduction)

Introduction

"2.1" computer speaker systems are the easiest way to get sound on your computer. They don’t take as much place as 5.1 stereo speakers´ sets, and have enough oomph to bring video games or music to life. And you can save yourself the hassle of a bulky system with a nice stereo set.

We have the opportunity here to test two of the latest Altec Lansing 2.1 stereo sets, the FX6021 and the CS21, and compare them to others existing stereo speakers released this year by Altec Lansing and by Creative Labs and Logitech.

Here is the list of the stereo speakers tested in this article.

- Altec Lansing MX-5021
- Altec Lansing 221
- Altec Lansing VS-4121
- Altec Lansing FX6021
- Altec Lansing CS21
- Creative Labs I-Trigue L3500
- Creative Labs I-Trigue L3450
- Creative Labs MegaWorks 2.1 THX 250D
- Creative Labs Inspire T2900
- Logitech Z3
- Logitech Z2200

Stereo speakers are tested according to their performances and possible uses, listening to music or playing video games on your computer (or perhaps your video console). The priciest set is the FX6021 in our test ($299.99). 2.1 stereo speakers are far from the expensive and top-of-the-range music systems or home theatre surround sound speakers.

The following criteria are used in our tests:

Quality of sound: we give credit to the respect of bandwidth, trebles, medium and bass (high, medium and low frequencies) reproduction. Trebles should be crystal clear and, above all, not saturated, even at the maximum sound limit. Medium frequencies should be present, not muffled, and bass should comes out taut and deep. Weak and vague subwoofer should be avoided at all costs. Last but not least to keep a clear sound, trebles should never dominate basses or the other way around. In order to avoid that problem, settings are often (but not always) possible. The suitability of power balance between the subwoofer and the satellites should always remain equivalent.

Setting, functionalities and plugs-in: regarding the settings, the more the merrier. But you should find at least, volume and bass control. Also the bests systems provide front/surround and/or separated treble settings. Regarding inputs, quality is always welcomed. And an easy reachable headphone socket is always handy.

Power: power is not always everything and figure announced by manufacturers can also be highly misleading. RMS "Root Mean Square" power rating should always be trusted over the PMPO power rating (Peak Music Power Output). Power is an asset if the bandwidth´s size is respected, the noise signal report is accurate and if the THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) remains at a low level.

Instrument separation: when listening to music a clear instrument separation is essential. Each sound must be clearly and distinctively identified. Frequencies crossover between subwoofer and satellites are also essential. If they are too low, a deep sound may comes out simultaneously from the subwoofer and the satellites, or even from the satellites only and might treat the sound quality.

Then there is the question of looks, size, speaker shielding and how easy is the speaker set to install and use.

As we are testing 2.1 speaker sets we´ve decided to focus on musical capacities rather than games or DVD playing.

Configuration and test conditions

- AMD Athlon XP3000+ CPU
- Motherboard nForce 2
- MB 512 DDR PC3200
- Audigy 2 Platinum eX sound card
- Terratec MIC2 sound card

Prices indicated in tables are representative of the market and not manufacturers recommendations. Prices may vary from a reseller to another.