Altec Lansing ADA 890 > Reviews > Crystal clear and packs a punch

Author's product rating:   

Sound quality	Excellent
Design	Good
Value For Money	Good

Advantages:	Clear sound, loud
Disadvantages:	Subwoofer control somewhat lacking

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Out of the box these speakers, although not the stylish in the world, are nice enough and certainly better than the plain beige speakers you can get.

Setting up the speakers is simple and although the instructions make sense they're not the best in the world but its really self explanatory. There are two normal PC audio connectors for your front and rear speakers. There is also another optional coaxial connector if your sound card is capable of utilising it. All the sockets are colour coded and there's no need to worry about plugging the speakers into the wrong plug as they're designed to only plug into the right one. There should be plenty of cable length for positioning the 4 speakers around your pc or alternatively you can remove the rear speakers from their base and plug them into the top of the two front speakers so that both speakers appear to be as 1 unit (like in the picture). One thing to take note of is that the subwoofer is not magnetically shielded so you can't place it next to any electronic devices. The sub is a floor standing unit so its best to just shove it under or next to your pc desk.

Operating the speakers is simple and there's a wireless infrared remote to use it too! The amplifier is built into the rather large subwoofer and control over it is operated by the buttons on the front right speaker.
You have control over 5 different modes: -
Stereo - 2 speakers operational
Stereo 2x - rear speakers mirror the output from the front
Quad - 4 channel surround sound
Pro Logic - 2 channel input but provides surround sound
Dolby Digital - for digital sound such as DVD's
These can be changed by simple pressing a single button until you've found the desired mode. You can also adjust the bass, treble, surround and center volume and obviously the on/off switch.

Now time to use these beauties! The sound that comes out of them are crystal clear and if you can't use a hi-fi you'll find these speakers are plenty enough to play music from your pc and don't sound tinny like a lot of PC speaker systems do. Altec have really managed to pack power and quality out of these little units as they really can get loud and you won't hear any distortion at all. The one thing I dislike about it is that the subwoofer is a bit weak in Quad mode and whatever mode you're in you either get too much bass or not enough. It would have been nice if Altec had included control over the frequency at which the sub would kick in as I think this is quite needed. It may have also been nice to include a center speaker emulation that could have been integrated with the front 2 speakers so that you can listen to 5.1 sound but this is a minor point.

Overall the whole speaker system is just short of brilliant. I thoroughly recommend them.