OK lets get the bad out of the way. Yes these speakers do hum. But you need to put your ears next to them to hear it. So I do not recommend them being set too close (Like either side of your monitor which would be the natural choice for many). I have mine on a shelf on a wall just a little behind the monitor and cannot hear any hum. The power switch should have been on the front also but it's no big deal.
The real meat and potatoes of these speakers is of course in audio reproduction and on all fronts these deliver. The sound clarity is revealing of every minor detail. To the point that some recordings can actually sound bad. But that is because of the recording not the speakers themselves. Many low cost speakers will hide these faults. Also with the amount of recordings that have compression used (Not compression like in MP3 files etc I am talking about pushing the gain when mastering the CD and squashing the sound to flatten it from peaking) it's no wonder so many recordings sound awfull. But when you get a good recording it shines on these speakers. Such rich tonal detail. I played Art of Noise 'Close to the Edge' and heard the distortion behind some of the samples (Which were recorded on sampling equipment that was well below what we are used to in terms of sampling quality these days). I had NEVER heard that before. Again I must stress this is not the speakers distorting. This was in the samples of the recording itself. Amazing! It's like I have a new pair of ears. Oh and if you listen to a lot of low bitrate MP3's or poorly compressed audio files these may not be for you. 192k or above Lame or Ogg or better still lossless compression codecs like FLAC are the order of the day here (Or CD of course. Best of all would 24bit recordings).
As for anyone saying there is not enough bass. You must be joking! For a 'small' 2.0 speaker system the bass is impressive. Very well rounded and full. Yes you won't get huge subwoofer style rumbling bass from movies etc. But these are not made for that anyhow. If you MUST muddy your sound with so much bass then go get your bog standard Logitech 5.1 or 2.1 sound system. But be aware that you lose so much else in definition and realism. All you will end up hearing is lots of bass and top end with nothing to fill the mid ranges.
These are speakers for people who value accuracy in their recordings and is especially usefull for musicians. I by no means proclaim to have golden ears. I have slight hearing loss in the mid to top ranges and chronic tinnitus. Yet even I can clearly hear the difference. P.S. keep the volume down if you don't want to damage your hearing like me (Too many years gigging) ;)
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