The Altec Lansing FX5051 system gives you genuine 5.1 surround sound with no hassles and no 6-channel sound card required! You simply plug a USB cable from the subwoofer into your PC and get six discrete channels of powerhouse sound. The FX5051 features dual drivers in every satellite, plus a “two-barreled” isobaric subwoofer that gives you awesome bass in half the space. The satellites feature removable bases for easy wall mounting, the perfect complement to your flat-panel displays.

The Altec Lansing FX5051 six channel speaker system is a great multipurpose audio system. The sound quality is amazing for the $250 price tag. After spending a few weeks with this system, I couldn’t imagine going back. Being able to hear an enemy creep up on you, or just rocking out to your favorite songs is drastically different in full 5.1 surround sound. This speaker system has actually made me re-encode all of my audio CD’s to a higher bit rate to bask in the full audio quality of my music. My only pet peeve is the hiss you hear in the system when no audio is coming through, which may bother some people.

The “control pod” featured with the FX5051’s is a wonderful addition to great speakers. With easy control of the Volume, Bass, Trebel, Rear, and Center speakers, control is at your fingertips, with no need to go into the control panel. The control pod also contains an IR receiver for the remote and allows you to adjust different sound levels of the system. Besides adjusting levels the control pod also has two connectors: an AUX port for connecting an MP3 player or similar device, and headphone connector for private listening. The AUX port allows for multiple inputs to be mixed and outputted at the same time. For example, I have my Xbox 360 and my PC connected at the same time, outputting the volume from both.

Although Altec doesn’t officially support Macs, this system does work pretty decent with Macs, with instructions readily available on the internet on how to get this working using a built in control panel in OS X. The Altec Lansing FX5051 5.1 speaker system is available now for $249.99.

Pros

• High quality sound (different adjective maybe)
• Well designed speakers and sub
• On the fly AUX input mixing
• No 6 channel sound card required

Cons

• Subwoofer is extremely heavy
• Hissing when no audio is being outputted

Final Verdict
4 out of 5 stars.

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