2. Well-built Satellite Speakers

We were concerned at first by the very light weight of the satellite speakers, because weight and sound quality often go together. Our worries soon evaporated when we conducted a thorough examination of the workings. Altec uses a very smart structure; the fixing points of the small speaker are positioned so that they strengthen the housing, and the screws that hold it in place are attached to the back of the box. With eight screws supporting it, this small satellite speaker has little chance of vibrating. The medium-range speaker is standard design, the suspension consisting of a half-cylinder of plastic foam. The rear load is a bass-reflex, with a vent at the bottom of the front fascia. There is a small glass wool pad inside the internal volume to deaden the rear wave. The tweeter is a little dome or cone with a metal membrane with a central diffuser, mounted inside a sort of housing that seems to be mainly for decoration. It contains a neodyme magnet and is filtered by a mass-produced condenser, which is the standard solution.

On the back of the underside, the satellites have a sort of adjustable pedestal, which means that they can be made to point downward if you want to place them on top of the monitor or at least much higher than your ears in the listening position.

The subwoofer has a 165 mm standard loudspeaker on the front with a thick, half-cylinder wad of plastic foam for suspension. The load is of course bass-reflex, with a vent at the bottom of the rear surface. Additionally, the airflow is used to cool the power amplification heat sink just behind it, which is still contained inside the box to avoid those ugly bulges that can interfere with things placed next to them.