Altec Lansing ACS 48 2.1 Speakers

I am uncertain if all Altec Lansing Speaker are like this, but the speaker are always on and when I turn my monitor on, it make a slight ?boom? sound. The subwoofer is excellent but heavy ( then again its not like I move it anywhere). The mini speakers also emit an annoying static noise whether I am playing music or not. I love the bass from the subwoofer but the two mini speakers are worse than my Yamaha speakers, and the two mini speakers cannot be replaced, so it is proprietary. The volume control is also less controllable, since my Yamaha speakers has a dial, while this has buttons. Very important to gamers: these speakers aren?t as good for 3D sound compared to my Yamaha ones, but this may be because I don?t have an aureal sound card or something.