Alesis M1 Active 320 USB | Full-Range Studio Monitor Desktop Speakers with Bass Boost (Pair)

Call me easily impressed, but I just got these babies tonightand plugged 'em right in to my HP notebook, switched over to themas primary sound device, two seconds install, and they are phenomenalas far as I'm concerned. I'm sure they'll require some burn-in time,but man, for a budget pair of USB monitors, or even just to use asa pair of primary PC speakers for everyday usage, these obviously rock!Yeah, the bass might not be overpowering but they sound tight as hell, clean,transparent, and have that crystal clarity that a good pair of monitorsshould have. They are compact, reasonably light although the right speakerthe primary controller one, has a bit of weight to it, but they fit injust fine on my smaller PC desk no problem. I'll come back later on herein a month and see if the sound has burnished in or not. But so far, I'msuper impressed with these Alesis monitors and would recommend them withno reservation to anybody trying to build a small home studio, or hobbyists,or just anybody that wants some solid and pro.-level home audio systemfor their PC, or old-school setup, or whatever it might be. They are attractive,compact, well-designed, easy to use, and the packaging and instructions/documentationare well-executed and well-thought out.The USB is what sold me on these particular speakers: so useful, fast setup,and no software hassles to speak of as long you are using a reasonablyrecent PC or MAC or whatever your machine might be. Plug 'em in, plug the USB in,and the interconnect L/R speakers and you are off and running! You do nothave to be an audio engineer to use these and enjoy immediately. Which just rocks,what can I say. Your average home theater system is a lot more complex thanthese, that's for sure. They also have PLENTY of power...for a small room it'sdoubtful you'll ever turn the main knob up past say, 12 or 1 o'clock, the poweris that massive. And mind you we're talking about monitors with what, a 3"woofer and small tweeters, basic 2-way setup? Alesis has hit a home run here,methinks. I'm sure their top of the line would be better, but if you want tospend $500-2000 go ahead. Not necessary unless you are doing absolute pro. workand need the top shelf pro. models. Otherwise these will kick your arse!One thing that strikes me about these is in a small room like I'm using them in,the punch and clarity and sheer impact is so concentrated, who the hell needsa massive subwoofer! And, the bass extension switch really does add a niceextra bass punch, and it's not muddy at all to my ears thus far. So they deliverwhat Alesis promises, a rare thing in pro. audio these days. A lot of new headphonesfor example do not deliver what they promise performance-wise, but these monitorsdo for sure. If you want to hear your music with total punch and clarity andtransparency, these should be at the top of your home recording/listening shopping list!

According to ALesis technical specs they are rated at 10 W/channel RMS, 80 Hz to 20 kHz.Each speaker unit contains a 1" silk dome tweeter and a 3" woofer. The bass response is limited, but very tight.These speakers are well designed for critical listening. The clarity is amazing. The mid range and vocals are clear.There isn't any noticeable hiss at the high end (at normal listening levels).I connected these speakers to a small SONY Mini-disk player and the sound was amazing. I heard things I hadnever heard before. The vocals were much cleaner. The bass was solid and well controlled.I also connected them to a YAMAHA piaggaro NP11 keyboard (via its earphone connection).The keyboard wasn't any louder than with its built in speakers, but the piano voice sounded much more realistic.I tried the USB connection with a Windows 7 PC. The USB connection crashed that PC 3 times (I gave up).There may have been other issues involved, but I couldn't get it working with Win 7 in the USB mode.It did sound very good on that PC when connected as speakers on my existing sound card.I tried the USB connection on an old DELL laptop with Windows XP Pro. The XP based PC recognized the USBconnection with no problems. I have not attempted to use the USB interface for recording. ALesis makes much betterinterfaces for that purpose for about $65 (US). The inputs on the speaker are additive and produce a single combinedoutput to the unit's amplifier. It's a nice touch, but for all but the most basic uses you would be better off with a separateUSB interface unit.All that being said ... I think that these are a super pair of speakers for their size and price.Unless your intention is to produce a throbbing bass heavy musical creation these speakers could serve well as a low coststudio monitor system for a beginning song writer/musician.These monitors paired with a relatively inexpensive USB audio interface and a lite version of a DAW such as Pro Tools,SONAR,Cubase, Ableton etc. could form the basis of a modest, but functional home studio.Note: Licensed copies of the aforementioned lite DAWs are often provided by the USB interface manufacturer.Several DAWs are available free or at a minimal cost on the Internet, however you will need an audio PC interface anyway so thesupplied software is a good deal.

I purchased these monitors and used them a few times to test out - they sounded good enough for their size. But, after not using them for 4 months I finally installed them in a vocal booth and after just 1 day of moderate use the power supply blew out. No power, no blue light, nothing. There is still some spark visible when I plug the cord into socket so there is some power going into the box, but nothing works. This is apparently a known issue with Alesis and I've read other reports of similar problems which is a design flaw in the power supply board.Don't waste your time or money.