Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Individuals looking for a small desktop speaker (for laptops or workstations) will find these speakers to suit their needs. The audio is fairly rich for such a compact form factor; bass does not drown out the mids or highs, and the highs do not pierce your eardrums. However, in my opinion, these speakers have a lot of issues which should have been thought of before being released on the market. 1) External AC power adapter -- the size of a large baseball, although square (not rectangular) in shape. It's huge, weighs a lot, and gets quite hot. It's one of those "inline" power bricks, where it sits between the AC outlet and the speakers themselves. Anyone familiar with these power bricks knows how irritating they can be when it comes to finding a place to put them. I prefer the AC adapter be put inside the speaker enclosure. 2) Speaker hiss -- this is a well-known problem with most Klipsch speakers released sometime after the 2nd revision of the ProMedia 2.1 series. The speakers, when turned on at lowest volume (and without anything plugged into them as an input device), emit a very loud hissing noise. This haunts the GMX series as well. The problem is caused by Klipsch increasing the internal gain (amplification) of the speakers (thus making them louder). Since there's no way to adjust the gain, you end up with speakers requiring you to turn them completely off when not in use. Otherwise, white noise constantly bombards your ears. 3) Faulty adjustment dials -- another well-known problem with Klipsch multimedia speakers since (and including) the ProMedia 2.1 days. Klipsch has once again decided to use a very cheap brand of potentiometre for their bass and volume adjustment knobs. The problem with these pots is that over time/use, dust manages to get inside of the pot. When this happens, you'll hear static coming out of the speakers every time you adjust the volume or adjust the bass. As stated, the ProMedia 2.1 control pod suffers from this problem too. Why Klipsch keeps using the same crummy pots for their products is anyone's guess. If you think my complaints are limited to just one person (me), I urge you to visit the Klipsch Forums and see for yourself. Look at the ProMedia 2.1 forum as well, because they use the same pots as these speakers. Because of these three (what I consider to be major) flaws, I can't give this product more than 2 stars. I will admit that the audio quality is quite good for small form-factor speakers (compared to the Creative Itrigue series, for example), but the negatives easily outweigh the positives. If you want a good set of semi-small speakers, but require the use of a humongous heat-emitting subwoofer, and insist that they must be Klipsch, get the ProMedia 2.1 set (which do not suffer from the hiss problem). Otherwise, consider a different manufacturer.