10 out of 10 people found this review helpful.
A surprise indeed - nice sound in a small package
Date of Review: Jan 9, 2009
The Bottom Line: A good looking, good sounding, name-brand set of 2.1 speakers.
As I was wandering around my local discount store, I saw a nice looking set of speakers that seemed like they'd work nice with my iMac. I have a set of Logitech 5.1 speakers, but to be honest, the 'surround' features clutters my office and doesn't really sound that fantastic. The sub-woofer with that set is also quite large.
The Logitech LS21 looked interesting... the subwoofer is fairly small, about 6 inches wide, 8 inches high, and 7 inches deep. The small 4 inch woofer fires down, with a small port on the front. The 2 speakers are a glossy piano black with nice aluminum stands and mirror silver cones.
I got them home, and was having some post-purchase regrets, thinking how could such a wee speaker, especially the sub, make any kind of racket worth listening to?
Imagine my surprise when I hooked them up and started pushing some iTunes through them - they sound very respectable! Very crisp highs, which are likely due to the polished drivers, a nice flat mid range, and a full and unobtrusive bottom end. These are no room shakers, but will put out well past a comfortable volume level without distorting.
There are a couple of handy features I will mention. The subwoofer contains the power source and is the unit to be plugged in to the wall and PC via the standard mini jack. The line-in has a remote volume control that can be placed in a handy spot and has a power switch and headphone jack - very handy. The speakers themselves have some built-in cord management that allows you to coil the excess speaker wire to have a nice tidy desk. The subwoofer contains a separate level control to adjust the bass, but no cross-over adjustment. All of the connectors are ample length for any typical desktop or laptop setup.
I would not normally take the time to review something like this, except that they were only $29! Are you kidding! I was prepared for $29 of disappointment, but am now listening to Aerosmith and hearing all kinds of clean sound I normally only get from my $500 Sennhieser headphones.
Certainly, these are not studio monitor quality, but for an inexpensive set of speakers that look great and don't take up 1/2 your desk they are a great value.
They particularly look nice next to an aluminum iMac or MacBook, but the style would fit well with any desktop really.
