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IMG has posted a review by Jason Sims of the Altec Lansing 621 speaker system:

The 621 is the top-of-the-line speaker set in Altec Lansing's "Music" series of computer products, and not without good reason. They look great and they sound even better. The set includes two speakers (each with a full-range driver and a tweeter), a sub and a wired remote.

There's a lot of hype these days about multichannel audio systems (with four or five speakers and a sub) and various surround sound technologies in home theaters (Dolby Digital and DTS) and in PC gaming (EAX and OpenAL). As a Mac user, it seems kind of pointless to invest in a multichannel audio system, at least for the moment. Mac OS X supports multichannel audio natively, but the little 1/8" (headphone-style) jack on your computer itself will only put out 2 channel stereo. And in Mac OS 9, most audio is handled by the Sound Manager, which only supports 2 channel stereo. In either case, you need special hardware to be able to enjoy multichannel audio on a Mac, and the only option available right now (Creative Labs' Sound Blaster Live!) can hardly be recommended, due to its bug-ridden OS 9 software and complete lack of support for OS X. My point is that unless you are doing professional audio work on your Mac and have a multichannel audio interface, there is really no sense in buying a multichannel audio system....

IMG Review: 621

621

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