The Bottom Line: Get it only if you need something that looks postmodern and unique. If you're looking for great sound quality, get a pair of Klipsh's.

My parents bought me a pair of computer speakers for no apparent reason the other day. When I looked at the box, I thought, "Wow! These speakers look cool!" And to tell you the truth, that's all the speakers have going for them.

Setup
It was relatively easy to set up this pair of speakers. Match color plug with same color socket. There was no big deal to that.

Features
Aside from being the most sexy pair of speakers that I've ever seen, the Altec Lansing 2100 comes with this wired desktop remote thing that makes it easy to turn off and adjust the volume of the speakers without moving your hand too far from your mouse.

However, the device itself is lacking: for full functionality, I would have preferred bass and treble controls as well as a separate mute button.

Sound Quality
Ah, the speakers' looks can't make up for its bad sound quality. First off, bass is too over-powered for my tastes. I'm sorry, but I don't need my entire room vibrating while listening to some Kenny G.

Secondly, the treble sounds terrible. I can't put my finger on it, but compared to other speakers such as my old Boston Acoustics BA735, it sounds off and kinda tinny-- I guess it's a factor of the really small speakers in the sattelite units.

Also, music tends to become distorted and downright ugly when the speakers are turned up all the way. However, it's easy to overcome this (and with any pair of speakers as well): bringing down the volume level in Windows itself and using the speaker controls solely will improve the sound quality a bit.

Bottom Line
At $50, I didn't spend as much as others, but I'm really going to go get my old speakers back.