Altec Lansing 221 Amplified Speaker System

I bought these for a friend after owning a pair since they were available brand new, close to three decades ago. He loved them as much as I did! They are the best little inexpensive computer speakers I have ever owned. They are bass heavy and you need to be careful about turning them up too high as the bass speaker will distort badly. The only negative with these is there is no control over high end and low end. (Treble & Bass)Also, the sound quality depends upon the quality of the sound card or the sound chip on your computer. All of my old desk top computers sound was great through these speakers. Not so on the new HP Pavilion laptop I bought last year. The sound chip on this machine is utterly HORRIBLE and no speakers can fix that and so garbage in, garbage out.It's really too bad these are not made any more.

These are inexpensive speakers. I bought them used for about 6 bucks. I didn't expect much from them. The satellites sound pretty good. The subwoofer is completely out of control, can be overbearing and bottoms out pretty easily. It benefits a great deal from shoving something in the front loaded port. But it's fine for a small desktop where you want better sound than you get from laptop speaker.

Didn't work as advertised. Volume control shot.

They work well.

I had these speakers for about five years now, and I didn't like them ever since I bought them. The bass is way too overpowering, and there is no control for the subwofer. For genres of music like rap, techno, dance...this set of speakers are not for you, unless you like to hear your walls vibrate along with your music. For rock, and classical music they will reproduce the sound fine. Even if I manually control an equalizer from a player, there is no way to control the bass.I only bought these for forty bucks, but I could have saved that cash for something better. Mostly they are forty dollar paperweights.

I purchased these speakers over five years ago. These were purchased as speakers for a high-end gaming system, and I selected this particular set because I had previously had great success with an older set of Altec Lansing. I've since upgraded most of my system... but not these speakers. When Amazon popped up to tell me to review them, I couldn't resist. They have been (and continue to be) excellent speakers.Specifically these speakers provide crisp, clear sound for music, movies, and games. The sub is powerful without being overwhelming, and I've had success with placing the subwoofer both on the desk as well as on the floor. They are also gorgeous looking; they look nicer and higher quality than many other, more expensive sets. One nice feature is the headphone port on the right satellite speaker. This allows you to plug in headphones quickly without having to reach around the computer, or swap the speaker cable out.The only knock on these speakers is that the top end volume is not strong enough to blow you away. I think that's to be expected with speakers in this price range. If you're looking to run these with movies in a bigger room (as opposed to sitting at your desk) I'd recommend a different set. For any other use, I think these are excellent.These are a huge steal for $50 speakers, and I'd recommend them over any other set in this price range.

I bought this system last year and returned it after a few days of music listenning. The satellites were clear and crisp but the sub was just plain awfull, it has a hollow, distant bass sound. When listenning to musics, the kick drum should sound tight and punchy but on the 221 it sounded like a timpany. I got a pair of socks and stuffed them in the bass port and that improved the bass abit (people do this sometimes even on high end component speakers). The system also didn't have a bass level control. I give it three stars because it has a headphone jack and the improved sock-in-port sound. I know this is a low price set but you'll get better value at Creative or Logitech.

Like many others have said, the sound is just great. But the default base out of these speakers is just way too much. I'm all for bass don't get me wrong. I won't buy speakers that doesn't have a lot of bass but the problem is there is no control nob for bass or treble. The main problem is that the bass is so powerful, it just totally overpowers the sound quality because you're hearing way too much base where it would be better to have a good balance of bass and treble together. If there were some control over those two here, these speakers would stand through time as being very good even after 5-10 years from now.So I wouldn't recommend it just because of the lack of control of the both powerful bass and treble that these speakers generate.

As soon as I heard this system I knew I had made the right choice. Rich sound, full bass and good looks - who could ask for more. Compact and easy to set up, I am sure it would complement any PC, DVD, Games console or MP3 player.