Very solid performance at a good price

As the successor to the VS4121 package, the VS4221 2.1 system has it's ups and downs, but overall is a very nice sounding package for a good price.

Let's get the negative out of the way first - and really, there's only one. The older VS4121 system came with volume, bass, and treble adjustment knobs on the front of one of the speakers. Analog knobs are tried and true - you can easily see where your volume, treble, and bass adjustments are by just looking at the knobs. This isn't the case with the VS4221 set. The newer version comes with a small remote, much like a car audio remote, that has volume, bass, and treble adjustments on it, as well as the power button for the speakers, a "loud" button, and a "default" button.

The remote itself is easy to use. With one click you can turn the speakers off, adjust volume/bass/treble, return all of the EQ settings to default with the "default" button, or have the bass and treble raised for enhanced low volume listening with the "loud" button. There comes two problems with the remote though.

Number one - if you lose the remote, you have no way of adjusting bass/treble/loud or turning the speakers on and off ever again. There is a hardware volume adjustment on the right speaker, but that's it.

Number two - there's no way of telling where your EQ settings are. You can't really tell if the bass or treble is maxed out, at minimum, or anywhere in between because there's no visual feedback for any of these settings. On the older version (VS4121) there was a knob, but not anymore. The only thing you can do is blindly hit buttons until it sounds good. If you listen to a fairly diverse list of music styles you can find yourself blindly fumbling to reduce/increase bass/treble levels with no visual feedback as to what you're actually doing.

Given respect to both of these points I feel that the previous version (VS4121) was actually a better setup than the current version (VS4221). For this reason you might actually consider picking up the older version before they're completely replaced by the VS4221! Sure you don't get a remote, but you do get a faster way of adjusting bass/treble/volume with visual feedback.

Despite this design flaw, the speakers do sound VERY good for what they are. I paid $129 for my set at a local computer store, but these can be had for much cheaper online. (I'm seeing them as low as $99 some places, which is a killer deal).

Both generations feature a 3" downward firing driver on both of the speakers, as well as two 1" tweeters. The tweeters are bright, but not too overwhelming, and the downward firing 3" driver beings some mid-bass to the desktop. In the older version the driver faces down with the bottom of the speaker being totally open to the surface on which you set it, and on the newer version the base of the speakers are sealed with a mesh in the front that basically forces sound out the front of the speaker and toward you. I'd be curious to see how the two generations sound side-by-side, as the previous generations design seems to make a little more sense (downward facing, reflecting off the desk surface and filling the room with sound) rather than bouncing the sound straight down and back up off the plastic base of the speaker back up toward the driver.

I'm not an acoustic engineer by any means, so I'll trust that Altec Lansing made a good decision in changing designs, but either way the VS4221 sounds good considering price and size of the speakers.

The sub between the two versions is basically identical and is fairly loud. I'm more a fan of hearing music than feeling it, but correct representation of the low end in music is very important - especially since it's designed to make up for the lack of mid-bass that's generally accepted as a given in most computer speaker setups. The sub that's included with this package does a good job. Bass response seems to be tight and accurate.

Installation of the package is a breeze. One stereo mini-din cable connects the sub to your PC, and then both of the speakers simply plug into the sub. The sub then plugs into the wall and you're set to go. These speakers will work on basically anything that takes a stereo headphone plug, including iPods or other MP3 players. Another thing that I was very surprised to see on the back of the sub was a set of RCA inputs. This means you could easily attach a video game system or external CD player to the VS4221 and have amplified stereo sound with a sub. This was a very nice addition on Altec Lansing's part.

Overall the system is very nice and I'm very pleased with the way it sounds. I definitely think that I got my moneys worth. My only real problem with the system is that it actually seems like a step down from the previous generation with the lack of hardware volume/bass/treble knobs, and I still question the design of the downward firing 3" drivers. The open base on the older generation of speakers just seems to make more sense. If I had a choice I think I'd go with the VS4121s, but either system sounds good for the price.