Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Prior to last Friday, I'd never heard of this speaker brand. I'd never seen anything quite like them, either. It was hard to get a sense of what they would look like in practice based on nothing more than the photos provided by Amazon, but I took a chance. They arrived here today, and for the asking price, these speakers more than do the job for which I purchased them. In December I had to be admitted to the hospital for a fairly serious spinal injury, and I had to undergo six hours of complicated surgery. I was unable to go home afterward and have found myself stuck spending 90 days in a certified care facility while I undergo rehab. I decided to pick up a television to keep myself occupied with movies and games between bouts of physical therapy. The TV I picked up is a cheap 24 inch Upstar. The picture on it is passable, but the speakers are utterly atrocious. I don't think I've ever heard such awful speakers on a TV. There are no lows and even weak highs cause the speakers to ring painfully. My Kindle Fire and laptop have superior speakers, and that's kind of sad. I've spent most of my time with headphones hooked into the side of the TV, but I'm not keen on wearing them full-time, so I made the decision to look for some cheap but decent speakers. I was looking at a $30 sound bar here on Amazon that had mostly good reviews, but there were complaints about there being no lows to speak of and, again, the highs didn't sound great. I ended up going for the GPX HT 12B 2.1 speakers instead. So far I think it was money well spent. The volume can be turned up quite high on the sub woofer, and when combined with the TV's own volume you can get some serious sound from such a small screen. The sub woofer itself isn't overly aggressive, it's not going to rumble your neighbors out of their house, but in an environment like the one in which I'm staying, it gives gunshots, punches and kicks just enough umph without disturbing everyone else in the building. In the box you'll find the speakers and a red and white RCA-to-3.5 male headphone jack adapter. This is because the speakers themselves only have the RCA ports on them, so if you want to you can run sound from a VCR, Wii or PS2 directly into the speakers. If you don't want to do it that way and your TV has a headphone jack, you can use this wire to utilize that instead (that's how I've got it hooked up right now). The size of the speakers are just right to sit comfortably in front of the TV without obscuring the picture. A smaller TV might have trouble, but anything 24 inches and up should be alright. There are blue rings around the outside of the speakers that glow in the dark, but it's a very gentle glow. It doesn't cause any kind of viewing issues with the picture on the TV. I've had to sit the base speaker on top of a box to the right of the TV because there's nowhere nearby where I can put the thing, but that's more an issue of space in my hospital room than anything else. In conclusion, while I think these speakers will work out just fine for a small television in a small room, I suspect they would also make very good speakers for a desktop PC or laptop. If that's what you're in the market for and you're on a budget, give these a try. I'm not sure what kind of lasting power they'll have -- if they start to crackle or distort with continued use I'll update the review -- but I've definitely been saddled with worse in the past and they're absolutely miles ahead of the speakers in the TV. UPDATE: As of February 18th 2016, everything I've written in the above review remains valid. When I left the facility in March of 2015, I gave the TV and speakers to my best friend for use in his bedroom. He continues to use them to this day with no trouble. Assuming you don't end up with a defective set, these truly are a solid purchase.