When I bought my computer, the first upgrade I made was to replace the speakers. The puny 2.0 speakers just did terrible at playing music and video games. I picked up the Altec Lansing Series 100 2.1 Speakers as an improvement over the old ones, and they were a large improvement, though I thought they could be better. Now, I’ve bought higher quality speakers and looking back, the Series 100 speakers weren’t much better than the speakers my computer came with.

The speakers don’t look bad. They look like your everyday computer speakers to me. The speaker volume and subwoofer is controlled by knob as there is no remote control. I found that I keep the subwoofer turned to max all time, as it’s just not that powerful.

The sound quality is terrible. Music sounds like it’s taking place in the background and sounds muffled. There’s no comparison to more “average” speakers like the Logitech Z3 or even my headphones or earbuds which were equal in price to these speakers. I’ve tried improving the sound with a computer equalizer, which works to some extent. Eventually I just end up getting used to the speakers if I listen to them long enough, but this happens with anything.

The Series 100 speakers are a good improvement over default PC speakers, and an enormous improvement over laptop speakers, but I found them to fall short when compared to even average speakers in the market. I think it’s worth it to pay a little more than be stuck with these.

Rating: 7