Altec Lansing ADA 890 4.1 Speakers

Well these speakers were great while they lasted!

They were very easy to set up although the cables for the rear speakers could have been just a few feet longer.

Getting to grips with the various modes took a bit of thinking about. As I have the SB Live Player 5.1 this will do Dolby Digital decoding as well so figuring out which product did the best job was purely subjective - as it happens I think the Altecs did a much nicer of job of decoding the Dolby Digital (AC3) than the Sound Blaster did. I expect the THX approval didn't come for nothing.

You'll need to understand what sources supply Dolby Digital in order to get the best sound at all times. Basically it's just DVS's at the moment although a few games are starting to provide support for it at last it seems - but I've not found one yet that does, and I have a fairly extensive collection of up-to-the-minute games.

You'll find that when you change your sound input source (CD audio/Game/MP3/TV Card etc) you'll probably need to switch to a different mode (manually) in order to get the best sound. Although the speakers can determine if a Dolby digital source is present or not, they don't make the best sonic decision when the source isn't in Dolby digital.

Sonically, Altec Lansing speakers as a general rule are superior to just about any other make, in subjective terms that is. In other words they sound nice, they sound beefy, and they don't shriek or honk at you. By comparison to a friends Cambridge Soundworks they are like the difference between chalk and cheese. My friend went out and bought a set of Altecs himself as result. They are (or were) very nice to listen to.

The integration between the satellites is very good, such that you don't have to muck about too much to get a good sound and the 'sweetest sound' area is very large. Altec recommend that you set up the front satellites as far apart as possible, and while I don't agree with this if you are an extremist, they do need to be quite definitely separated, just don't go mad!

I would say that with subwoofer under the desk, as recommended by Altec, the bass frequencies are not quite as non-directional as some would have you believe. I could definitely hear the general direction the bass was coming from when watching movies.

Size-wise the speakers are nice and compact and pretty easy to locate so you won't have any problems there, but you'd be mad to use them with the rear satellites on top of the front as it is possible to do, it just doesn't cut the mustard, you simply won't get the proper surround sound, even if they are in anti-phase* (which although I didn't check, I doubt very strongly). (* deliberately wired the wrong way round from the front speakers)

When playing music with a very heavy bass content I found that the subwoofer couldn't cope at realistic music levels. It started to strain a bit so I knocked the volume down a bit. By comparison on my hi-fi I have a separate pre-amp and two monoblock poweramps (all from Musical Fidelity) driving TDL Studio series transmission-line speakers which don't bat an eyelid at even the heftiest bass load, so the Altecs fell over big-time here. It really wasn't that loud either, I don't like loud music these days (I'm getting older I guess), they simply couldn't cope at all. With normal bass content such as in movies and games, they should be okay though - provided the movie isn't one of those creepy horror films with the sort of throbbing basslines that sneak up on you, otherwise you'll probably hear the Altec Subwoofer bursting at the seams a bit again.

All in all I was pleased but not utterly delighted with the performance, but then my main hi-fi cost more than ten times the price - I am an audiophile and I like damned good sound.

I've thrown movies and music at the Altecs to check them out, music varying from baroque chamber and choral, classical guitar, Bach Organ music, Eminem, Tool, Linkin Park, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beethoven symphonies, and quite a bit of other music. They are not true hi-fi, but they are very good and generally pleasant to listen, especially for the bedroom where they live. They just don't like too much bass. Period. You'll need to move the bass down below the centre position on your 'Bass' slider and switch any 'Loudness' equivalent off if you're playing bass-rich content or they WILL distort.

Now on the down side, the sub-woofer amplifier exploded after just over a month. Incidentally my entire PC set-up runs through a Micromark RFI and surge protected mains extension

As they were bought from Dell (well mine are the ADA 885 actually - they're absolutely identical expect that they're white), I contacted Dell, and I contacted Dell again after double-checking that there really wasn't a single sticker anywhere on the back of the PC system with which they were supplied to supply them with a System Tag. Got nowhere fast, so I sent Dell an email via the Dell website. No reply with the stated 24 hours.

A week later I sent Dell another email because they still hadn't replied, this time a bit irritated as I'd learned from Altec Lansing that they don't supply any parts, ever, it seems. The guy at Altec Lansing figured it might be possible to purchase a reconditioned sub-woofer, but if the first one blows up within a month, then what hope is there for a replacement?

Do Altec Lansing have some sort of sneaky supply deal going on with Dell to supply reconditioned subwoofers after they blow up after a month and Dell just refuse to respond, at all, even to a threat of involving UK Department of Trading Standards?

I'm amazed and appalled that such big name companies can just turn round and either just blank you and refuse to acknowledge you even exist (i.e. Dell) or don't provide any form of support for the future in the event that a product they've made fails (i.e. Altec Lansing). Altec Lansing don't provide any support at all themselves, although they do have a freefone telephone number if you should feel like talking to them anyway, so they can tell you they don't supply parts but they'll sell you a new one.

Would you buy from a product from Altec Lansing if you knew that in the event of a fault, you'd just have to throw it away and buy a new one? After all Altec Lansing don't deal with the warranty themselves, so if you do get an Altec Lansing product, make damned sure that the company you buy from is EXCELLENT when it comes to dealing with warranty claims. I would not recommend Dell Computer Corp unless you feel like wasting your time and money.

Maybe I just got a duff one from a duff supplier. Doesn't make it work though.

I'd recommend these speakers provided you don't need persistent bass content, and you don't mind throwing them away a month after you buy them (or a year, or three years, or five years - there is NO backup from the manufacturer) if they should decide to blow up or develop any sort of fault.

A mixed view really, they were about as good as it is possible to get by way of multimedia speakers for a computer, but don't expect any support backup from Altec Lansing. Don't get me wrong, they were very polite and friendly, they just won't help.