Altec Lansing MX5021 or VS3251?

[sathish]

Hi,

what sound card are you using. Multimedia speakers depend greatly on sound cards to give a satisfactory output.
Can you give us the cost you paid for the speakers?

cheers,
sri

I use the onboard sound card.. my motherboard is asus k8v mx.

A year ago, I had the same soundcard outputting to a Sony Stereo system and it was fantastic. MX5021's quite bland.

I bought it for 6650, btw.

First things first - do give them at least a day's worth of playing for some break in. Also as Srikarkav asked what soundcard are you using?

Been a day and I'm wishing I hadn't bought these.

 

[thevortex]

I use the onboard sound card.. my motherboard is asus k8v mx.

A year ago, I had the same soundcard outputting to a Sony Stereo system and it was fantastic. MX5021's quite bland.

I bought it for 6650, btw.


Been a day and I'm wishing I hadn't bought these.

Onboard sound, I am afraid can be mighty underwhelming. However when you say your earlier system sounded better, I dont know what to say.

The MX5021s are excellent speakers. Can you return this piece and get another one to see if it is a quality control issue?

 

[moserw]

I use the onboard sound card.. my motherboard is asus k8v mx.

A year ago, I had the same soundcard outputting to a Sony Stereo system and it was fantastic. MX5021's quite bland.

I bought it for 6650, btw.

Been a day and I'm wishing I hadn't bought these.

What kind of Sony system did you use previously. From my personal experience anything but very high end Sony kind of sucks.

Give the Altecs some time and space. Did you try spreading them out?

 

[sathish]

It was a high-end Sony stereo system, I don't remember the model name. It was pretty old, though, but did a good job.

The good news is that after tweaking a bit with the Altec Lansing, I'm finding them a lot more enjoyable. They perform better with songs with very high bitrates(320Kbps). I've not found any of the Winamp presets I've tried so far to my liking.. best performance is with the old VLC media player(v 0.8.5) with the equalizer set to 'Party'.

I'm starting to like them, they're doing a good job.

Thank you for the replies.

 

[moserw]

It was a high-end Sony stereo system, I don't remember the model name. It was pretty old, though, but did a good job.

The good news is that after tweaking a bit with the Altec Lansing, I'm finding them a lot more enjoyable. They perform better with songs with very high bitrates(320Kbps). I've not found any of the Winamp presets I've tried so far to my liking.. best performance is with the old VLC media player(v 0.8.5) with the equalizer set to 'Party'.

I'm starting to like them, they're doing a good job.

Thank you for the replies.

Try XMPlay at Un4seen Developments - 2MIDI / BASS / MID2XM / MO3 / XM-EXE / XMPlay and ASIO4ALL at ASIO4ALL - Universal ASIO Driver. The sound is leagues ahead of anything Winamp or VLC can dish out and yes even for MP3s.

 

[thevortex]

Sathish - I am actually concerned that you feel the need to use an equalizer even for high quality files (320 kbps is essentially pretty close to a lossless file). It does indicate that something is missing in the chain there - in the computer or in the speaker.

With a good soundcard, your Altec Lansings should be very enjoyable without the use of any equalizers.

 

[srikarkav]

hi sathish,

Even a low end and cheap creative soundblaster sound card will make the output more enjoyable.IMHO If you want to listen to some serious music thro PC a sound card is a must.

cheers,
sri

 

[fran_elite]

I have been hearing such complaints about recent shipments of the MX5021. I can attest that the original MX5021 is certainly not lacking in midrange or in bass! It is a bargain of the highest order. And it can be modded to boot.

I feel the standard of the new shipments is not upto the mark! It was very dissapointing.

My friend had purchased the same model 2 years back and the sound quality was much better than the New MX 5021 which I purchased.

The Mids were not good.Infact the bass from the Sub was very annoying just boom boom no real bass kick!

 

[thevortex]

I feel the standard of the new shipments is not upto the mark! It was very dissapointing.

My friend had purchased the same model 2 years back and the sound quality was much better than the New MX 5021 which I purchased.

The Mids were not good.Infact the bass from the Sub was very annoying just boom boom no real bass kick!

True. Even with the old MX5021, the bass was not its strong point though. The midrange was where this speaker shone.