Altec Lansing XT1 Laptop Speaker System

Rating:
Summary: Perfect for the mobile laptop user
Review: I travel a lot, and need music. This means that I feel the need to take a mobile sound system with me. So I was very interested when the Altec Lansing XT1 speakers came on the market, and got them days after they first appeared.

My setup consists of a 15" Apple Powerbook running Mac OS X and iTunes, into which I have imported a large fraction of my CD collection, and the XT1 speakers.

Here are some comments on the XT1 speakers.

1) They plug directly into the USB port of the computer, and draw their power from it. So there's no need for ugly wall-warts and international plug adapters.

2) They come with a very compact carry case, roughly half the top surface area and twice the thickness of my computer. Very light for travel.

3) The sound is superb, given the physical size. Of course, they don't put out a huge amount of power or bass volume, but for that you'd need speakers ten times the size. What they do put out compares very favorably with other speakers of similar size.

4) Setup is easy. Just plug them into the USB port. That's all. I haven't tried them on a PC, so I don't know whether the situation is the same there.

5) The distortion is very low until you turn up the volume to the point where they overload, and then you hear some clipping.

6) Amazon doesn't seem to sell these speakers, even though they have them listed, but go to your nearest Best Buys, where they're on the shelf for about a hundred and thirty dollars.

7) You can also plug other sound sources into the XT1, but you'll need them plugged into your computer anyway because that's the only source from which it is able to take power.

8) I had a curious incident, where the speakers seemed to be panning most of the way to the left, and the stereo pan control disappeared from the audio system preferences. It turned out that this was caused by the speakers somehow going into mono mode; the solution was to get out the Audio Midi Setup tool from Applications/Utilities, and switch from mono to stereo. I think this is the fault of Mac OS X, not of the speakers.