Home > Consumer Reviews > Altec Lansing 251 5.1 Speakers (6-Speaker, Black & Silver)

When coupled with a six-channel soundcard, these speakers sound good for games and movies. The imaging is decent, and the small 5.25" long-throw subwoofer puts out a good amount of bass for its size. For games and movies, I'd give these 4 stars for its performance at its price.

On the other hand, music does not fare as well with this system. The quality of audio reproduction is often the telling tale of a speaker's capabilities. This system's midrange is average at best, and does not provide good separation of instruments. The lack of a separate tweeter certainly doesn't help the higher frequencies come through, as evidenced by the manner in which the cymbals decay. Music doesn't really come to life, in my opinion. Only 2.5 stars for music.

This is an average system, but the surround sound at a low price is very appealing. Overall, it's a good deal if you can get them with no tax and free shipping.

For those of you saying that music doesn't sound that great on these, check out the official website. These speakers are clearly classified under PC Gaming. If you want a good, inexpensive pair of Altec Lansing music speakers, I recommend the ATP3, which you can find here on Amazon. They've got a subwoofer and two satellites. I've also seen them with 4 satellites.

These were the first PC speakers I ever bought and I was kinda nervous since I've numerous speakers at work and they always sound pretty pathetic. I was so ecstatic over my purchase. For half the price of a stereo system, I got better, louder, clearer sound and could play my MP3's without the hassle of burning them first. Altec Lansing is a great company.

these are the best speakers that i have ever gotten! they sound great and i can use them for virtually all devices. it's like i have a great home stereo system that i can actually afford. i would definitely buy from altec lansing again. i also would recommend it to anyone who is looking for great quality speakers at an affordable price.

I purchased these speakers about 5 months ago off of ebay, and I love them. I really don't understand the negative reviews here about them. In response to them sounding different with different kinds of music, I would guess that the reviewer was listening to mp3's, and they are going to sound different depending on the quality of the download. I'm continually amazed how much bass this thing can put out. It's only a 5 1/4" woofer rated at 20 watts rms, but it sounds much better then that. It has great frequency response and sounds great. I will agree that the speakers could use separate tweeters and midranges, but hey, you can get them for under one hundred bucks. I mainly use these speakers for music and I'm very happy with their music reproduction, but where they really come alive is with movies. The sound reproduction for movies is near theatre quality! Another added bonus is the speakers have a setting for 2 channel sound cards as well as 5.1 sound cards. This means you can get sound out of all the speakers even without a 5.1 card. You can even hook these up to your portable CD player and all the speakers will work. Do these speakers sound as good as top of the line Logitech or Klipsch speakers, of course not, but they also are 3 or 4 times less then those speakers. For the money, these are the best you can buy. I would highly recommend them.

First, I have to say that I do not own these speakers -- not yet. However, I've spent hours auditioning computer speakers in various stores, and I am just amazed at how good these sound compared to almost all of the others, especially those that cost over 4 times more! Also, I spent all of my time auditioning with *music* and not with games, and the music on these was just leaps and bounds above the rest. It is my view that you should buy speakers based on the way various types of music sound, and the games/home theater will be good as well. The kicker for me is in the bass -- no bass is supposed to sound boomy, and these have a nice, tight/accurate bass on music. Almost all of the others -- Logitech, Creative Labs, and even Klipsch -- sounded too boomy, even after several adjustments/placement/etc. And I personally like very crisp highs/mids, and the satellites did a nice job there as well. So, bottom line:

Good = overall sound (especially the tight bass), reasonable size

Bad = styling, low power

Unfortunately, since I haven't owned these, I cannot comment on the build quality or how easy it is to blow them. But for the money, I was just shocked at how good they sounded. Only other speaker that came close IMHO is the Bose (and generally I am not a Bose fan), but it's only a 2.1-channel system. Lastly, the only reason I haven't bought these yet is because I still have an old pair of Advent 2-channel computer speakers that still rivals most of the sub/sat systems I've listened to. But if I must have multi-channel in the near future, this one will be at the top of my list.