Altec Lansing PT8051

I'm interested as well, but I believe they are going to be out in August (so soon, but not yet).

Looks great, has anyone seen or heard it though?

They do look great, being wireless and surround. But only 125W total, is that enough? I can't find a review anywhere. http://www.alteclansing.com/product_...asp?pID=PT8051

TigerDirect is saying they have them in stock, for less than MSRP too.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...572&CatId=2895


I find it kind of odd that no other retailer has them at all (that I can find). I do plan on buying these speakers sooner or later - just don't have the money for it at the moment and I would like to either see them live at a B&M store or read some professional or even user reviews first.

As far as 125watts, it certainly is not going to compare to the sound from a real home theater setup, with a 800watt+ reciever, 7+ large speakers, thick wires, etc in a large room. But it will blow away any setup with just TV's speakers (most flat panels have less than 30watts from 2 speakers) and the surround sound these provide should (it's hard to know without actually testing them) create a great simulation of theater experience, with what appears to be a slick look.

I have a feeling that for some real "oomph" it might be necessary to plug in an external subwoofer - and these speakers do provide a hook up for that (indeed too bad AL, apparently, has not designed one specifically for these speakers).

Can't wait for some feedback from actual owners.

first review i found: http://www.i4u.com/full-review-325.html

I definitely want one along with a subwoofer. A matter of money now.

Just got myself one, and set it up fully today.

Starting with the caveat that I do not consider myself an audiophile...that said, I'm really liking this solution. One of my constraints is WAF. My wife wants everything in our entertainment center and able to close it up so we're not always looking at the TV. I was running with a JVC 5.1 receiver, with a handful of small satellites, the rears sitting on top of the cabinet and angled to bounce off the ceiling, so as to avoid running wires under the carpet. Suffice it to say, this didn't make for a great surround experience.

By ditching the JVC and replacing with the PT8051, I was able to eliminate most of my rat's nest of wiring, including 5 speakers and wires, AM/FM antenna (which I never used since we use a mini shelf system for radio), a number of input wires (switched to optical and coax digital for my DVD player, FiOS HD DVR, and XBOX 360), etc. Much cleaner setup overall.

I've watched a couple of college football games on ESPN HD, and the sound there was good but not great. Then I popped in the HD DVD version of Serenity, and wow. I was very impressed. Channel separation, while not what you'd probably get from a 7.1 setup in a dedicated home theatre, was really quite good, and the surround effect was impressive, particularly since this is in a relatively small room, and the rear wireless speaker is basically right behind me.

Because of the size of our cabinet, I was unable to put the main speaker bar below the TV, so I put it up top. I was concerned that that would leave the dialog sounding like it wasn't coming from the TV, but that hasn't been an issue at all.

As far as volume is concerned, I haven't cranked it, but it seems to have plenty of power to fill the room.

I got a pretty good deal on this, but is it worth the full retail, compared to similar systems? That I can't say, since this is the first system of this type that I've used. But it's a neat solution for losing a lot of wires, and so far the quality meets my needs, and is far superior to what I was living with, so that's good enough for me.

One big gripe I have, which isn't really a gripe against the product specifically. I use a Harmony 890 to control my rig, and up til now, every component I've owned was in the Logitech database. The PT8051 isn't, and it took me some trial and error to get the device set up the way I wanted, which included learning commands from the included remote, adding non-standard commands (like volume up/down for the front, center, and rear channels), etc. Overall, I'd say I spent an hour or two getting the PT8051 set up on the Harmony 890. Now that it's set up, it's a thing of beauty.

So I finally got a PT8051.

I must say that I had jitters considering that after of almost a year being on the market I could only find 3 reviews Total on the net. The price was right though (less than 1/2 of msrp) - 1/2 msrp after I've picked up a 90$ Yamaha subwoofer.

I've had it now for over a week and it's working out perfectly for me so far. The only "complaint" I have is that the left/right separation is not very defined and can't match separate speakers, but it is there. Then again, both of my couches are on either side of the TV and I'm still satisfied with the sound - sitting directly in front of the TV, between the two speakers creates an even more believable surround I am sure. Also, I do not really have walls near on either side of the TV - I think having something to bounce off might make channel separation and surround effect (which is already there with a separate speaker) even greater.

The construction of these speakers is very solid. They feel solid and do not scratch easily. There are little feet on the bottom of each of the units so they can be securely placed on a flat surface. The color of the cabinets is actually a darker grey (which I like better - it matches my Westinghouse TX47 perfectly) under normal lighting conditions than they appear in most pictures I saw on the internet.

The sound itself is very clean (channels are distinct and highs/mids and lows from the subwoofer are distinct and clear) when paired with a good source (e.g. my BD player outputting in bitstream over optical for the PT8051 to decode) and cable box over optical sounds good as well.

I've read that 1600$ Yamaha 4000 sound bar can create pretty good surround from 1 speaker, but considering this unit is 1/4 the price now (which is what it probably should have been from the start if Altec Lansing wanted any sales/market share - although this price is only from 1 online retailer Electronics-Expo.com , so I don't know if it will last) it has its place under the sun and unless it is now too obscure and Altec Lansing gave up on it.

Bottom line: If you don't expect miracles from this unit (as a side note, I don't think any sound bar can boast having channel separation that matches any 5+ speaker system), you will be very pleased. If price is not an issue at all for you, then perhaps the Yamaha 4000 might be worth a shot for you.

Feel free to PM me a question or just ask it in this thread (although I don't check it too often - it is kind of dead :P).

These are now fairly cheap at costco.com.
thinking of putting one in my office for my Xbox and sports by myself TV. :-)