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Introduction

Altec Lansing is always a company at work, new product lines appear on the shelves almost overnight and often they are designed with a specific user base in mind. During the past year Altec Lansing has started to fall out of the high end market, driving many users to abandon ship and move onto the Klipsch and Logitech bandwagons. As time passed new products arrived but still they failed to provide competition to the top contenders. After the VS4121 it became apparent that Altec was onto something but it was not right at the moment. Months passed and soon the new breed from the company came forth, the MX5021 came up as the gaming/multimedia target system. New features include dual midrange drivers and a redesigned subwoofer. One of the new barriers to entry into the computer speaker market is THX certification and the THX certification logo is proudly emblazened on the front putting away a long enduring complaint. The MX5021 is a new chapter for Altec Lansing. Will it open up a welcome door and beckon to the enthusiasts once again? Let's find out!

Contents and Features

The MX5021 system comes packing with key items to suit the audio enthusiasts, one of these key items is the ability for home users to swap cable and use their own wires to the satelites instead of having something hardwired for them which can't be swapped without voiding the warranty. Anyway with that said lets look at the box contents:

1x Infra-red remote
1x Battery for remote
2x Cables for Satelites
2x Wall Mount Brackets
1x Y-Adapter for RCA input
2x MX5021 satelite speakers
1x Remote pod station w/volume, bass and treble control
1x MX5021 Subwoofer
1x User manual
1x Altec Lansing black dust cloth

The product spec sheet rests below.

Satellites:
1x 1" Loaded Horn Tweeter
2x 3" Full Midrange Drivers
20 Watts/ Channel @ 6 ohms
Frequency Response: 150 - 18000 Hz

Subwoofer:
1x 6.5" long throw woofer
50 Watts @ 4 Ohms
Frequency Response: 40 - 150 Hz

From the specs it looks like Altec has gotten more conservative with their ratings, lets get to work though and see how all of this matches up to real world performance, We're breaking out games, movies and music against the MX5021 to see how well the system is able to stand up.