Alesis Elevate 5 MKII | Powered Desktop Studio Speakers for Home Studios/Video-Editing/Gaming and Mobile Devices

For content creators on YouTube like me, you don't need to spend hundreds on a set of monitors when you have a set like this that meets the need well.1. Sound is flat, which is what I want. It's great for me to playback a commentary to see what needs to be tweaked.If you want to enjoy some music, it gives a good balanced sound with punchy but not boomy bass. If you want a bit more bass for general listening, there is a bass boost on back.2. Build quality is great. High density MDF provides a solid enclosure and design is simple and clean.3. I bought my own 1/4 cables and run these off of my audio interface. It provides a great listening experience. I don't know if the included cables would give me the same quality connection and haven't tried it. With my setup there is no audible noise, something that you could get with using inferior cables into a sound card.4. I also use the headphone jack and it is really convenient, a nice little feature.For this price I don't expect a ton of features like frequency controls, so I'm not going to give a con for not having those. The only con is at higher volume levels they do lose a bit of clarity at high volumes, but overall it's quite enjoyable.

I bought my first pair of the Elevate 5 (Mk I) about six years ago, purely for personal use at home.I wasn't expecting a lot for the price, but they impressed me greatly.So I started buying them at work for use in our edit booths, as we have rebuilt the whole post side of the studio building over the past couple of years. I haven't gotten a single complaint about them. I'm an electrical engineer, not a mixing artist. I can best describe the sound as almost completely neutral. They have none of the artificial low-end boominess which seems common in low-cost powered monitors, they just deliver a solid, linear sound across the whole spectrum. With near-zero perceptible distortion even when I drive them up to "this is bordering on uncomfortable" levels.Fast forward a couple of years. I just bought a new house, and it has a huge kitchen. I decided that I wanted a good speaker system in there, as I tend to rock out on Pandora when cooking, and wanted to upgrade from my old kitchen / yardwork headphones, as they deprive me of situational awareness such as the sounds coming from the stove.I demoed a few sets of bluetooth-native powered monitors at a local music shop, and just wasn't impressed by any of them.So I decided that I'm just gonna live with using an external bluetooth-to-RCA adapter which I already had lying around, and ordered my ninth set of these (and second for personal use) yesterday.Figured that with that kind of purchase history, I owed them a review.They're just phenomenally great speakers for the price. Are they Genelec 8030s? No, they are not. But they're 90% of the quality for 20% of the cost.

Review-*Volume: Loud- they fill my workspace/Livingroom with sound*Sound: quality: 8/10 - My headphones (Sennheiser) reproduce sound a lot more clearly and crisply. The sounds on these is good for general entertainment and even some hobby studio stuff but I would not use these for professional audio production . The low frequencies are definitely boosted on these (no need for a woofer unless you want to really thump)Build Quality: For the price the build quality is 10/10 . They are heavy, solid and durable.Inputs/Output: The 3.5mm headphone jack is nice to have, the terminals on the back are solid. The included wire to link the two speakers together is SHORT and flimsy - I replaced it with a better one for $10 . Also you will need a male rca to female 3.5mm cable if you want to pull audio from your PC. The speakers are solid but they really cheaped out on the peripherals. at $140 though these are the BEST you can buy.For those of you considering the entry level presonus , mackie or AKG - THESE ARE BETTER. IF you want better quality then the next best option is the KRK5's for $375.

the only reason i knocked off a star is because you have to use 1/4 inch wire to connect them. other than that, i have them hooked up to a scarlett solo and a presonus eris 8 studio subwoofer.scarlett solo -> presonus 8 inch sub -> thesethats how i have it wired and honestly i cant explain to you how good these are for the price. adjust volume on these and your sub, adjust the low pass filter on your sub till you hit the sweet spot and youre good to go. they are great for music production. i used them by themselves with no sub for a year and i gotta say, having the sub makes all the difference. all frequencies sound better when ran thru the sub's amp. of course the bass is better with a sub, but they pair really well with the presonus in my experience. before you spend $300 on one yamaha or krk, i would say get these. great value. alesis is a reputable brand that has been around a long time. if you dont have money to burn on super high grade monitors, these will do just fine. just remember, more expensive equipment doesnt make you a better producer.