Does anyone here have any experience with the FX5051's? I'm looking for a decent 5.1 surround setup, and the option of not buying a sound card right now sounds nice. I'll basically use them for TV and Movies, with the occasional soccer gaming. The price is quite affordable now. Any alternatives? I'm not against buying a sound card if it can fall in a similar price range (125 on amazon right now.)
![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
Navigation
Install the app
How to install the app on iOS
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
More options
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
FX5051 Experiences?
- Thread starter motioneso
- Start date
Does anyone here have any experience with the FX5051's? I'm looking for a decent 5.1 surround setup, and the option of not buying a sound card right now sounds nice. I'll basically use them for TV and Movies, with the occasional soccer gaming. The price is quite affordable now. Any alternatives? I'm not against buying a sound card if it can fall in a similar price range (125 on amazon right now.)
I know that I mentioned these to you in a another thread, but I've now had a good amount of experience with them in two different operating system environments that my friend has been using at his house. They work fine in XP, but they seem to have issues over the USB in Vista Ultimate 32-bit. Channels are reversed (sub and center channel in this particular case) or sometimes rearranged and there's nothing we could do about it. After many hours of troubleshooting, Altec Lansing offered an RMA replacement--but my friend decided to send them back to Amazon for a refund instead. He's going to get a set of x-540s and an X-fi USB sound card so he can connect his speakers to a laptop for full surround sound as well as the desktop in his office. These will cost him about $120 from Amazon shipped and he'll still have money left over because he purchased the FX5051 from them in the first place.
I will say that sound quality is excellentfor such a tiny, low power setup when they were working, but they did have a distinct hiss from the onboard amp no matter what volume level you set them at. If you need or like a quiet environment, that might become annoying very quickly...
Good luck to you!
astrallite
Gawd
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2008
- Messages
- 967
Spot on, Altec Lansing's make clever speaker designs but their amps are horrendous (I've owned quite a few of them myself). It's okay when the sound is pumping but with no output the hiss reminds me of old Sony STR-line of receivers.
As far as a set of multimedia speakers for a TV...well make sure you mount them to ear level, little cans like those aren't going to fill the room with sound.
As far as a set of multimedia speakers for a TV...well make sure you mount them to ear level, little cans like those aren't going to fill the room with sound.