Review: Audyssey Lower East Side Speakers

Specifications

• Two .75” silk-dome tweeters
• Two 3.5” woofers
• Two 4” passive bass radiators
• Audyssey Smart Speaker audio technology
• Digital optical audio input
• Analog 3.5 mm line input
• 3.5 mm headphone output
• Easy access volume control
• Automatic standby mode

Speaker Dimensions

• Depth: 15.5 cm ; 6”
• Width: 12.5 cm ; 5”
• Height: 23.5 cm ; 9.3”
• Total Weight: 7 lbs ; 3.2 kg

The speakers themselves are connected by standard speaker wire into each other. While it would feel a little nicer to have them pre-connected or using an RCA connection, it gives you the flexibility of standard speaker wire. So you can also buy some more to increase the distance between the two speakers.

REAL WORLD

Sounds great on paper, right? Well we lived with these for a solid week. Tried them in the kitchen for background music. Directly from an Audigy FX card on our desktop computer for high-intensity gaming and of course, connected an apple tv and tried them out in the living room for the full theatre experience. Here’s our experiences from each.

Light Use – Music: These are great for music, every note is crisp and clear and if you have an optical audio source it’s even better. But even just jacking in an iPod via standard headphone connections yielded amazingly smooth consistent results.

Heavy Use – Gaming: Ran it through a sound gauntlet including RAGE, Dirt 3, and Call of Duty. The deep crystal clear audio is great. There’s obviously no surround sound and positioning on sound alone is limited. Even the cacophony of modern gaming didn’t faze these speakers – they deliver. If you have limited desk space or simply don’t need to blow the neighbors doors off, these are a solid gaming solution.

Home Theater: A perfect and simple companion to the Apple TV we went with optical audio, hooked it up to an HD tv, turned the lights down low and watched a couple of classics, including Lord of the Rings, and Jurassic Park. If there’s any downside to these speakers it’s simply that they have limits. While every personal close up experience with these is top-notch. They don’t exactly fill a big living room. They don’t drown in it either, but it’s a bit in the middle.

Let’s get this straight though, these are NOT a 5.1 system, they’re probably not for a whole family to sit and watch movies. These are for people in apartments, dorms, dens, offices, computer rooms, etc. Who want exact, high quality audio for their computer or TV.

It’s not really fair to say “these aren’t as good as a 5.1 system” because they aren’t… a 5.1 system. If you have any place in your house for speakers that doesn’t need to be a surround sound system. This is it. Provided you can afford it.

DESIGN

I’m sure you have eyes and can see, but these are simple, stylish little boxes. They are clearly well made, feel very solid and wouldn’t look out-of-place in any style-conscious persons house. There’s not much to see, but what’s there, oozes quality and clean lines.

Final Thoughts