Alesis M1A320USBXUS Active 320 USB | Full-Range Studio Monitor Desktop Speakers with Bass Boost (Pair)

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 had never 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 USB connection with no problems. I have not attempted to use the USB interface for recording. ALesis makes much better interfaces for that purpose for about $65 (US). The inputs on the speaker are additive and produce a single combined output 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 separate USB 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 cost studio 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 the supplied software is a good deal.

Call me easily impressed, but I just got these babies tonight and plugged 'em right in to my HP notebook, switched over to them as primary sound device, two seconds install, and they are phenomenal as 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 as a 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 monitors should have. They are compact, reasonably light although the right speaker the primary controller one, has a bit of weight to it, but they fit in just fine on my smaller PC desk no problem. I'll come back later on here in a month and see if the sound has burnished in or not. But so far, I'm super impressed with these Alesis monitors and would recommend them with no reservation to anybody trying to build a small home studio, or hobbyists, or just anybody that wants some solid and pro.-level home audio system for 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/documentation are 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 reasonably recent 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 not have 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 than these, that's for sure. They also have PLENTY of power...for a small room it's doubtful you'll ever turn the main knob up past say, 12 or 1 o'clock, the power is 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 to spend $500-2000 go ahead. Not necessary unless you are doing absolute pro. work and 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 needs a massive subwoofer! And, the bass extension switch really does add a nice extra bass punch, and it's not muddy at all to my ears thus far. So they deliver what Alesis promises, a rare thing in pro. audio these days. A lot of new headphones for example do not deliver what they promise performance-wise, but these monitors do for sure. If you want to hear your music with total punch and clarity and transparency, these should be at the top of your home recording/listening shopping list!

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.

The title pretty much says it. The sound on these is fine. I'm not an audiophile or pretentious enough to try to 'impress' by throwing out terms I've heard others use. I have these hooked up to a digital piano and I like the sound they produce. The problem is volume. I have seen other speakers used for this purpose and assumed they would have the volume needed to at least fill up a small room (living room) with sound. With the volume at 10 on both keyboard and speakers, these are loud enough for me to hear but if there were any conversation going, these would not have enough power to overcome the background noise. I have tried both direct via 1/4" mono cables and using the headphone out into the 1/4" inputs. I will keep these since they do the bare minimum I was looking for--providing sound for monitoring my practice times. But, if I were looking for something that I could use in a small/intimate performance situation, these would be returned for something with some more power.

Realmente se adaptan para la producción musical y masterización básica, son buenos y muy accesibles por el precio. Se adaptan a cualquier equipo y tanto la función usb como conectarlo a un interface, da la misma resonancia clara y audible.

very happy

Pour compléter mon interface Audio Yamaha AG03 et respecter un rapport Qualité/Prix équivalent. Absolument conforme aux promesses décrites. Je recommande vivement.

these are exactly what I needed for myself thanks a lot

The speakers are awesome, the build quality is good. But all these go for a toss when you with have a Logitech Mouse connected or (any) Wireless Mouse or if you happen to have an AMD system. For weeks the speakers outperformed every minute I played it, but all hell broke loose when the WIndows 10 upgrade happened from WIndows 8.1Pro. The USB port started acting up and slowly any port I attached it to started saying USN not recognised. I am still trying to resolve this with the help of the Alesis Support Community (Active Thread - http://gsfn.us/t/4s5yc). If you have an Intel system and no Logitech or Wireless Mouse go for apparently there is conflicts and since this is a USB based speakers there is no easy fix, no drivers, no work around. You have to endlessly keep testing this and create a perfect scenario for the speakers to work. I feel a bit cheated by Alesis product page, if they had an issue with AMD and Logitech systems, they should have warned before hand. This is classic case of mis-selling right here. But the speakers are good whenever they come on. I am looking at selling these as I see no hope of this getting resolved any time soon.