Customer Reviews

Altec Lansing Orbit MP3 Portable Speaker System

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It was all what I expected, but the on off switch is a little hard to use.

It is like opening a sweets can, rotating with both hand the top border and the base in oposite directions. Once you have it in your hands you will see what I mean.

I'll start with the pros.

1) It's very useful for getting the music to the people at a gathering.
2) It's compact, so you could carry it in your pocket as you play your music (like theme music).
3) It has quite good sound for something as inexpensive as this (if you wait a moment or two, you'll find Woot or buy.com with special deals on these--$10 is quite a bit for just one).

The cons

1) It's a monsta trying to turn these off and on. My man before me is accurate in his description. I feel as if I'm fixin' to break it every time I go to flip the switch (pun intended).

2) Be careful with opening the battery compartment. The little plastic helpful in turning "door" is quite tiny-fingered-capable--grown men will have issues. So, if possible, use the little sticky circle things on the bottom to turn.

3. Always carry an extra set of batteries (or tape some to the side of this thing), because when it gets low, the static can be quite annoying.

Overall, I gave it a three-star rating; mind you, I think I got 2 for $14, so for what it's worth, I got a pretty sweet deal. But definitely not $10 per (and I don't even believe taxes/shipping has been included in that.

This is a great little speaker in every way once you free-up the switch. Gently, using a dull table knife, pry the silver ring (that separates the grill from the black body of the speaker)off, and remove the speaker grill. Lubricate the inside of the silver ring and the outside top of the black plastic body with a piece of bar soap. That's right, just rub the soap inside the ring and outside the body, put it all back together, and you're done. It takes about 3 minutes, if you're slow, to completely fix the switch problem! Also these speakers can be used 2-at-a-time for stereo. All you need is a stereo splitter that plugs into your music source (MP3 player, etc.). The splitter looks like a "Y" and is available at Radio Shack or almost any electronics store. I have been back-packing for over 40 years, and these rugged, little speakers are the finest thing for back-country music that I have ever seen.

I bought 2 of these speakers, one for my wife, and one for me to use at work. The speakers were delivered on schedule, in fact they came a little early! BUT, my wife's speaker went bad within 15 minutes of use, without using it at it's max setting. We were casually listening to music and the sound went fuzzy, then stopped working completely. The speaker I bought for myself, however, I used off and on for about 3 months before it finally did the same thing. The sound quality was not bad at all. For the price I paid, this was not all that bad of a product. Don't buy it expecting it to last a while!

works great for its size, though the on-off still works too hard - you have to pry the chrome ring off and sand the little nubs down and lube them with soap, then it turns on/off like it should.

this speaker kicks booty! cheap, no let me rephrase- inexpensive, compact enough to fit in a jacket pocket or large pants pocket, and the most important factor: the sound... AWESOME. for a lil guy it PUMPS out clear and vibrant tunes from my ipod touch. I listen to a lot of rap music and that usually means muddy fart noises from crappy speakers. This thing handles the low end very well and the highs are clear without being piercing or out of balance with the rest of the EQ. Cannot imagine anyone feeling they got a bad deal on this. It is hard to turn on/off that is true. I read reviews beforehand and yea it's a pain for a whole two or three seconds sometimes. Then it starts making your environment better with its musical goodness and you stop caring about a small drawback... unless you are a grumpy freakin whiner with no clue that life is short and you gotta just roll with it now and then. Enjoy life, enjoy your new speaker, enjoy the ability to change any boring, mundane environment into one of life affirming vibrations!

I gave this product to my mother-in-law. She loves it. She can listen to her ipod when she is folding clothes or doing housework. She doesn't have to worry about her earphone wires catching on to something & being ripped out her ears.

I have one also which I use at work. I hear only my music. I take it everywhere I go.

I purchased this speaker as a portable speaker system for my ipod and books on tape to us in my delivery job. To turn this on you have to rotate the top bezel until the line points to on. I thought it was taped shut when I first tried. I called tech support and they said that I was doing it correctly, just use more force. I gave it all I had and it finally slowly turned. I figured that it would loosen up, it didn't. During the trials of turning this on, the bottom of the speaker which is the battery compartment cover, would pop off. This happened so frequently that I now have no battery cover. I have contacted Altec Lansing and I am waiting to see if they will honor a warranty request for this product. Do not buy this speaker. The newer model is supposed to have fixed the problems, I can't say since I have not had one in my hand.

The redesign of this speaker was needed. Outside that it is an awesome speaker. I have several throughout my house.

I was surprised by the quality of sound that it gives, BUT the downside is the on and off twisting switch, that was a big mistake! It is so difficult to deal with, I bought 10 of these and gave out 9 of it as a gift last Christmas, So for those people who received one from me, I just advised them to leave this switch on and just remove the batteries instead. It's easier that way.