Accessories
2008-10-12
Altec Lansing MX5021 Speakers
Some time back I bought a pair of new speakers to replace my old Altec Lansing ATP-3's which died. These were really good value spaekrs, their current replacements are the `VS4121. My new replacements are the Altec Lansing MX5021 2.1 speaker set after reading various reviews online and some simple listening tests. Originally I wanted to get a pair of the highly recommended FX6021's but these are discontinued and hard to find. You can still find a few at Carrefour Subang of all places! So for those looking for FX6021's, you know where to find em.
With past effort in making a quiet environment with my server in an Antec P182 case the speaker requirements are:
- To have full range of distortion free sound at low volume (~20%-40%) of the speaker's volume settings and around 70% on alsa)
- To fill my workspace area at this volume.
I read some reviews where people were saying that they're facing little distortion at 100% volume. I doubt they live in KL or they're living in some spacious bungalow houses. I'm unlikely to try it at higher volumes.
I set them up quickly before, but had very little time to enjoy them. One thing I did find out was that the bass was distorted . Turning down the bass controls didn't seem to work much, so I started searching online for speaker placement articles and found several that all recommended that single subwoofers are usually best placed in corners. Now the booming distorted sound is gone, and a bass setting of about 40% via the controls seems to be about right for the music I listen to.
The satellites were easy due to the corner setup of my workspace and large desk in the corner. They're in a crossfire setup, as recommended by the manufacturer and I'm sitting just right in the middle. The stereo setup is just about right this way. It would be best if it was at ear level, but I still can't find any shops selling simple speaker stands. I may just try an audio shop, but they all look like they're going to try sell me speaker stands that are solid gold, with platinum base which has been soaked in the blood of sacrificed virgins for truly spirtually pure sound for the bargain price of RM50K. Aluminium stands with rubber base like my camera tripod should be about right.
The other problem I have with the satellites is that the speaker cables are unshielded and as you can see from the mess of power wires underneath my desk, the wireless phone, mobile phone on my desk that it picks up quiet a few annoying signals, most notably mobile phone signals.. (dud dud buzz dud dud). Unshielded copper wires make great antennas. A good thing is that the satellite speakers use standard clip on speaker cables (open standards are good!) so I can find replacements. Again, I'm likely to face the same situation as the stands, I just need simple shielded copper cables.
If you guys know of a sane place to get these two things, recommendations will be much appreciated.
Finally, the onboard audio on my Thinkpad picks up a lot of noise also. Will probably invest in a better sound card for a my desktop in future such as the Asus Xonar DX or D2X to get even clearer sound.
On to enjoying music
I mostly enjoy listening to R&B music this provides a challenge as most songs have strong bass track, vocals and those with piano/hi-hat instrumentals also have higher notes too. Previously the ATP-3 subwoofer all but drowned out the small speakers, so I had to tone down the bass completely. The MX5021's with two large mid-speakers and tweeter handled this much better so now I can get punchy bass with clear vocals. Ashanti's - The Way That I Love You was a good reference test for this as it had all three.
The speakers handles instrumentals best, such as Mark Isham's - A Really Good Cloak. The requirements for R&B music make it handle movies really well too.
With speakers that can handle this range, it's also quite easy to pick up which tracks are "compressed". This is similar to what happens to high ISO film. For sound it means cutting off lower frequency sounds (bass) and cutting off the higher frequency sounds (treble). It's also what the "Loud" option does in stereos. This is what MP3/Ogg Vorbis encoding also does. The lower the bitrate, the more details get cut out. This is totally fine when listening to cheaper speakers and headphones as the music will be within the range of the speakers. So you won't miss the details. With the MX5021's though, if the encoding (higher bit rates) or source CD has bigger range, then you'll be able to hear hi-hats, and other additional high frequency and low frequency details.
I can now tell very clearly the difference between 128Kb/s and 192Kb/s encoded tracks. For quite a lot of tracks, I can also hear the difference between 192Kb/s and 256Kb/s. Unfortunately, these days even the original CDs are already compressing the range to sound "louder" so you may not get much benefit above 192Kb/s. Even with 192KB/s encoded MP3's though, there is enough detail which makes music even more enjoyable to listen to on the MX5021s.
Recommended?
If you're just listening to pop music encoded at 192Kb/s or lower with the volume turned up, then a cheaper set of speakers such as the VS4121 will be far better value.
If your listening requirements are like mine, where you would like to hear as much of the range of sounds at lower volumes, then these for me at least are good enough as replacements for dedicated hifi speakers for my workspace. Bear in mind also though that you'll also need to invest in a better sound card, possibly shielded cables and some time to position the speakers and audio settings right.
