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Altec Lansing VS3151 6-Piece System | List Price: $99.99
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Brand: Altec Lansing
Binding: Electronics
Features: - Impressive power thrusts you into the gaming and movie experience!
- Use the 6-Channel Surround Mode with a 6-channel sound card to thrill your senses with the vivid, panoramic experience of true surround sound
- Use the 2/4 Channel Mode to enjoy immersive six-speaker sound from any source ¿ CD players, MP3 players, or your standard 2 or 4-channel sound card
- Built-in RCA inputs for your TV or video gaming system
- 50 Watts total system power
Beautiful [Posted on 2004-07-20]
I purchased these speakers a couple months ago from Amazon.com and have been very pleased so far. For under three digits, this 5.1 setup is a very good purchase. Aesthetically these speakers are top notch. They match perfectly with my silver and black Gateway. The center speaker has an ingenius mount that will let you place it right on top of a monitor. It practically blends right in with my LCD screen. The control unit is very funcitonal, giving you volume control for center, surround, subwoofer and master. There's also a convenient headphone jack. The volume unit looks and feels a bit on the cheap side but seems to work very well.
While I've only played a few DVDs with it, I was pretty impressed. Using my computer's software decoding, the Altecs were able to give me very convincing Dolby and DTS. The surround effect was very convincing. Each satellite speaker is given 5 watts which seems to be sufficient. The center channel has 10 watts which really helps give extra power and clarity to movie dialogue. The subwoofer takes home 20 watts and gives enough power to add a good low end dimension while not overpowering things. That brings the total to 50 system watts (RMS) which may seem on the low end for a 5.1 system but for most people it should be more than enough.
Games are another very strong area for these speakers. The rather tiny subwoofer (compared to some of the bloated offerings by Logitech and Klipsch) is able to create convincing explosions and the speakers do a great job at creating the surround effect. There's no feeling quite like using your speakers to track an enemy aircraft out of your view or hearing enemy soldiers firing from behind you, allowing you to duck behind cover. Plenty of volume is pumped out for a bedroom, dorm room or small home office.
Music, while not quite as strong as the other areas, is still fairly impressive. It definitely took some EQ tweaking to get a good sound out of the speakers but finally I've managed to get something I'm pleased with. This is the area where a lack of wattage finally catches up with the system. I enjoy my movies and games at a moderate sound level but music I like to really pump. In order to get enough rock-ready volume I have my computer system volume set at 75% and the speakers at least three fourths turned up. There's no audible distortion with this setup so I believe Altec Lansings 103 decidal claim. Early on I had my computer set at full system volume and was hearing crackling on certain frequencies, though it didn't seem to matter how loud my speakers were turned up. An IT friend of mine informed me that if you have system volume it full it can introduce distortion from the sound card. Pulling the volume down, even to 80% or 90%, seemed to solve that. While I have yet to crave more than the system has to give, these speakers don't have much more volume they can put out.
The VS3151s work especially well with softer, cleaner music (not always my thing but I can defintely appreciate it). One of the first songs I listened to on them was Jeff Buckley covering Hallelujah and it made me remember how moving a song that really is. Rock and rap are convincing, though the subwoofers size and lack of wattage is definitely holding things back. I have the subwoofer knob set at half and my system bass set at %25 and this seems to about all the speakers will take before they become boomy. At high volumes the bass is about right, but at lower volumes it seems to disappear more than one would expect. This just encourages me to turn up my volume, which I have no problem with!
Having picked these speakers up as a downgrade from Creative Labs 5700 (the ones that have hardware Dolby and DTS decoding) I'm able to say that the difference in quality was very minimal. Also, the Creative Labs speakers would take a few seconds to pick the signal up and convert it. Minor complaint but annoying none the less. Oh, and they were also three times the price and definitely not three times as loud. Maybe 1.5 at most.
I would recommend these speakers for their great looks alone but they also work very well. Especially if you play more movies and games than music. No major complaints, especially for the money. If price is more important than wattage, pick these up. Otherwise I hear the Logitech Z-5300 is very powerful and not even twice cost. Though not nearly as good looking...
Altec Lansing VS3151 6-Piece System for music [Posted on 2004-10-02]
I could not be more pleased with this surround powered speaker system. I bought it for a casual home music system.
The manual is straight forward, only 3 pages in English and
dozens of other languages.
After I checked it out, I installed it in the music room already wired for 5 speaker surround set up. It took a few hours work to mount the speakers to the ceiling and make the hookups.
I hooked up a simple stereo CD player since the "Panasonic DVD-F85S 5-Disc Progressive Scan DVD 5 disk player" has not yet arrived,
While I found that the volume on the control pod gave a little base noise when set full on, at about 80% the system is perfectly
quiet.
I first loaded the AudioSource LLC3 utility disk to check out the wiring and stereo and surround decoding. It passed beautifuly including the Dolby Pro-logic surround decoding from the stereo
source. Channel tests showed total separation left to right, front to back.
The music selections on the disk designed to test the transient response, frequency response and separation were beautiful.
The digital silence track was totallly quiet.
I then tried a number of CDs and liked the response of all of them.
There was plenty of power to fill an 18x18 ft room with a 10 ft ceiling. I could get enough volume to drive me out of the room without any distortions or buzzes.
I wanted a home music system to provide both serious listening
levels and quality as well as background music for all times.
I got speaker quality that far exceeds the modest cost of the system.
I cannot wait to get the Panasonic changer, but I cannot see how the music playback could be any better.
Not for obsessive compulsives [Posted on 2005-01-20]
Bought these speakers to work with my cyberhome 500 dvd player which has a dolby digitial decoder and 5.1 channel analog outputs but no amp so I needed powered speakers.
I had to purchase some adaptors and rca cables to connect the speakers to my dvd player but it works very well. Lord of the Rings DVDs sound terrific.
Switch on back of speaker creates simulated surround sound when you are not getting true 5.1 channel output from cd or dvd. (in other words when switched for 5.1 channel sound, cd sound only comes from left and right front speaker, hit switch and you get sound from all speakers.)
The major drawback is that the sub woofer has a barely audible low hum when plugged in to the wall (even when the power switch for the speakers is off.) I can see how for certain people this one feature would drive them insane. Especially if you used these as computer speakers and you were trying to work or something and not using speakers.
Being slightly obsessive compulsive, I need to unplug the sub woofer sometimes in order to deal with this irritation. Altec Lansing calls this normal in their manual. I think a lot of people would think that is a bunch of crap.
But the bright side is you get fairly attractive speakers that perform well at a very low price.
Decent value system. [Posted on 2005-05-24]
Output is decent. This isn't a DTS/etc receiver- it won't take 5.1 output and convert it on its own. It handles stereo sound just fine from various analog devices hooked into the RCA input, and piping sound from my SB Live 5.1 card through them sounded decent. There's a slight hum from the subwoofer (though hardly noticable), and noticable white noise at any volume when the speakers are powered on.
The rear speaker cables are long enough for a PC or small gaming room experience (4'-6' behind). The 4 left/right channel speakers are wall mountable, but the bases are non-removable, which leaves an odd look. The center channel speaker is also mountable, and sits on a pivot mount (designed to sit over the lip of a CRT monitor or shelf). The volume box is about the size of a clock radio, and though designed to look like the rest of the system, the knobs & trim make it look junky & obsolete. Unfortunately, the headphone jack and power button require it to be at least semi-visible.
It's not a stellar system, but it's a good starter at a great price to get by with 5.1 sound on a PC.
Alright [Posted on 2008-02-09]
More clarity than my old Altec Lansing ACS54, and the additional headphone jack is very useful. However, the sub does not have much power. Also, I don't need surround sound for my PC.
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