Studio Quality 2.0 Speakers with 5 Inch Subwoofer, 1 Inch Tweeter, and Trapezoid Wooden Cabinets - AC Powered 80W RMS (AR604)

These replace some low-power Roland studio monitors that outlived their service life. Turning them on, even without an input, revealed a hissing sound. They were 15 years old. They are in the dumpster now: they served long and well but their time has passed.These Arions are better than the Rolands were on their best day. The 40 watts/channel is PLENTY for normal listening. I connected mine to my Grace Internet radio, which uses my home Wifi signal to find my favorite internet radio stations. They sound GREAT with such a digital source. The test of a good stereo system is when it adds nor subtracts anything from the sound. I have tested these against some music files on my computer, which have some very old but golden Fisher speakers with 15" woofers. Of course the Fishers out perform them on the low end since they have 220 watts to play with. But at my normal listening volumes I could not tell much difference with the same source material. So these are GREAT speakers.Now take notice that the cable that runs between the speakers is only 6 feet long. It is a 4 pin coaxial microphone cord. This reduces induced noises, so I am all in favor of it. However, I need to put each speaker on opposite sides of the room, so I will be ordering a 15-20 foot extension for this cord. They are really designed for use with a computer, to be put on either side of your desk.Since these are rear-ported, its a good idea NOT to put them close to a wall. Half of their volume comes out the back, but it is out of phase with the signal coming from the front. This muddies thesound. I've got them in the corner of the room, which gives the rear signal 2 surfaces to bounce off of, this improves it more than a little bit.

Like many of the other reviews my speakers came with some issues. Purely cosmetic; the black vinyl covering at the bottom of the speaker is pealing off on one of the speakers (right out of the box) and the other has some residual glue on the vinyl. I could fix this on my own but it is clearly a sign of a lax QA process as both speakers had the "passed" sticker on the back of them. Other than that they look nice and work quite well for the price. They are loud and clear but the sound is a bit on the tinny side. Although for the price they sound is pretty darn good. The treble and bass adjustments both seem to have an EQ effect on multiple band-widths other than just treble and bass. for example, when I roll the treble back it seems to increase bass as well as decrease treble response. When I roll the bass back it increases treble and decreases bass. You'll have to hear it to know what I'm talking about. It's not a bad thing, just different. I'm pretty impressed with the bass response but fee that the tweeters could be of a better quality. (not sure if it's the cross over or the tweeters, but this is where the tinnieness comes in. I'll be comparing them to the Cerwin Vega 3" speakers tonight to see how they fare.

As I was looking for computer speakers I ran across these. One of the best "finds" I have ever gotten on speakers. Let me frame this for you. I am 60, built my first speakers from scratch when I was 12 and have had a love affair with audio my whole life. When our housekeeper said she needed real computer speakers but only wanted to spend $120 or less, I knew the challenge was on. Find something that was cost effective, sounded realistic and was not made of plastic. Good luck. I have three 5.1 surround sound systems in my house and am used to "better sound" so I knew this was not going to be easy. My computer setup is a Klipsch 2.1 sat/sub system that sold for $250 6 years ago. I was scanning Amazon and seeing the usual plastic junk when I ran across these. Silk dome tweeters, butyl rubber surrounds on the woofers, trapazoidal cabinet construction to reduce standing waves, real XLR speaker hookups instead of zip cord and FOUR independent class A/B amps. Weighing in at 28 lbs for the pair. Are you kidding me? For $108 delivered ($273 at Newegg)? Nope! Just got them and they are the real deal. The volume, bass and treble controls "push in" after you adjust them to get out of the way. There is a nice soft blue bulb above the volume control that tells you the system is on. The Cherry vinyl is very well done. There is heat sinking on the back that is as big as on one of my 12" powered subwoofers. The controls don't feel "cheesy". My only complaint is the bass is a tad bit weak, although I am auditioning them on an open counter in my kitchen. If you put them near a rear wall or in a corner, problem solved. They play extremely loud without breakup, so I am guessing the manufacturer is not lying about the R.M.S. power. Note that there is not a headphone jack on the unit. Not a deal buster. Just unplug the unit (it has a 3.5 mm male) and plug your headphones in where the 3.5 mm went in. The only way I could see you do as good or better than this is with a small pair of active pro studio monitors and they would be made of plastic and not have close to the R.M.S. power (but would probably have a headphone jack). Now if these suckers don't fail prematurely they will be a grand slam home run.UPDATE: Product broke after 6 months and I had to fight with Eagle Tech, the manufacturer. They finally offered to replace them, but at $50 to ship them back, I bagged it and took the loss. The design is solid, but the quality control looks as if it is lacking. Look at my last sentence above, I jinxed myself. Try the powered Miccas here on Amazon. A much better bet.