The two speakers are actually hard-wired to each other. That's unusual, but, arguably a good thing because you don't have to worry about the cord falling out or connecting properly. The cord that joins them is about 6 feet long, so you do have some degree of flexibility in terms of placement and separation (most people will probably space them about 3 feet apart, on either side of a PC monitor). Around the back of the right speaker, there's a port for connecting the speaker to your computer with the included 3.5mm minijack cable. You also get an auxiliary input for connecting any device that has an audio output or headphone jack (a second 3.5mm cable isn't provided, however).
In terms of sound, the first thing you notice about the Expressionist Bass FX3022s is that they indeed deliver a good amount of bass. The treble, however, is another matter. It's pretty brash and at higher volumes comes across as being very aggressive, which will irritate some people. With music, the sound just isn't as tight and clear as we'd have liked it to be. When it came to gaming and movies, however, we felt the speakers hit their stride. The big bass was a big plus for action sequences, and explosions in first-person shooters were delivered with gusto. These guys performed better than your typical multimedia speakers in this price range.
So, the long and short of it is these are impressive-looking speakers that play loud and perform well when it comes to gaming and movies, though they just aren't all that great for music. In other words, they're a solid B.
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Altec Lansing Expressionist Bass FX3022:
