Altec Lansing Expressionist ULTRA Speaker System - Features Cont'd

Category: Audio

Created on Friday, 08 January 2010 01:04

Written by Steve

As mentioned before, the subwoofer takes on much the same design as the speakers and the 6.5" woofer has a matching bezel with the mid-range drivers. The only difference is there is a port above the woofer instead of a tweeter like on the speakers. This sub is 40cm high, by 35.5cm deep, and is sure to push some serious bass with 68 watts of power behind it. The rear of the sub is where you'll find three proprietary plugs, one for each speaker and one for the control pod, and a standard 1/8" input jack.

(Click above to see enlarged)

The control pod itself is also rather unique looking. Sitting on my desk, it slopes upwards, much like a cone with the point cut off. The entire outter edge turns, left for volume up and right for volume down. This is also rubber coated, to prevent your fingers from simply sliding around the edge. The top of the cone has the power button in the middle and bass/trebel buttons on either side of it. To individually adjust bass or trebel, simply press the appropriate button until it lights up and then move the dial to the position of your liking. Around the front edge of the dial is an LED bar to show you where your level is at. The one thing I didn't like about this control pod is that everything felt backwards. The directions you turn it would make sense if it were mounted on the front of a stereo, but it should really be reversed when on a desk to maintain a natural feeling. It was also wasn't touchy enough, I have to move it pretty far before it would actually register what I was doing, and at that point the volume would either shoot up or down much quicker than I wanted.

The right side of the control pod has an aux. input connector and a headphone jack. Both use a standard 1/8" connector size.

One thing missing from the Expressionist ULTRA is a wireless remote. Altec Lansing does a great job of advertising how you may want to use this on your MP3 player, TV, etc., but with no viable means to control them from afar, it does cut back on the number of people who will actually buy them for that purpose.