Firewire Speakers
By: LaCie Average Rating: 4.5 Total Reviews: 9
More Information
 On: 2008-05-16
I have used these speakers for nine months. I am an English teacher in China and am constantly schlepping my trusting 12" iBook G4 to class to play audio snippets for my listening class and to play movies connected to a projector. I used to bring heavy book end speakers back and forth to class. These are wonderfully portable--small and light. They are firewire bus powered so I dont have to drag an AC brick around or use another plug on an outlet strip. And the sound is clear and plenty loud (a big improvement over some of the tinny small speakers I have used and even the cassette players I used a couple years ago). Now I can easily move back and forth on mp3 files and my students can hear the audio clearly. They also have excellent sound for listening to podcasts, streaming media, movies, and music in my apartment. I can hear them clearly throughout the apartment as I go about my business. A wonderful buy. Im thinking of buying a second backup pair to keep on hand.
The only reason for one less star is for a problem that may or may not be LaCies fault. When maxing out the volume with my laptop connected to a MacAlly AC adapter I had a strange situation where the iBooks screen would go black when the sound spiked (looked like a shutdown). I dont have this problem when I use the original Apple AC adapter, so I am assuming this is a MacAlly problem, not an Apple or LaCie problem.
On: 2008-03-19
Pros: Cool looking, minimal clutter, looks like it was made for Apple.
Cons: Pricey, just so so sound quality, somewhat noisy, stays on even when computer is off, no included AC adapter for ipods or other external devices.
Lets be clear about these speakers, its all about design. Thats what youre paying for. I dont think there are any other 2.0 stereo speakers that look this cool. The sound quality is decent, but they are somewhat noisy with very little room for adjustment. Even with no sound playing, you can still hear a "hiss" coming from the speakers. What makes things worse is that these speakers stay on even when the computer is off, so you will always hear this hiss. I wish they had included a manual sound level knob and auto on/off feature to correct this. I also wish they included an AC adapter ($20 extra) so I can hook this up to my ipod dock and have a cool looking mini audio system. You can certainly get better sounding speakers for much less from JBL, Creative, or Logitech. But none of them look any cooler.
 On: 2008-01-14
Seem to be good value, and easy to use. They are good little speakers for my office.
On: 2008-01-04
The first thing you notice about these little speakers is their beautiful design. They look as though they were designed to sit by my Apple laptop. (Sorry, Im a fan-boy.) They get their signal from the Firewire port and not the headphone jack. My one criticism is with the cable itself. Its permanently attached and thick and ropey. Its an ugly contrast to the beautiful design of the speakers themselves.
When you first listen to these little LaCie speakers, they sound harsh. I suspect they have digital amps that need a break-in period. Give them a couple of hours play time and they end up sounding smooth and very detailed. These little speakers seem impossibly fast, responding to rapid transitions effortlessly. Percussion instruments pop. I noticed sandpaper blocks in one of my favorite song that I hadnt noticed before. Imaging is outstanding. When was the last time you heard about computer speakers having good imaging?
These little speakers lack the deep bass of some computer speakers. Id say they have barely enough bass to be described as "rich." These speakers can produce surprisingly high volumes and never sound strained. Still, if youre a gamer and you want to hear those explosions rumble, these probably wont have enough bass for you. These speakers are meant for music listening.
These speakers have no volume control. In fact, therere no controls at all. You adjust the volume and EQ using your computers controls. Thats good in my opinion. I always disliked having duplicate controls.
Also missing is a power brick. Since these little guys draw power from the Firewire port, theyre ideal for portable use and for use during power outages.
Good looks and sound that appeals to my audiophile sensibilities make these ideal for me.
On: 2008-01-03
The first thing you notice about these little speakers is their beautiful design. They look as though they were designed to sit by my Apple laptop. (Sorry, Im a fan-boy.) They get their signal from the Firewire port and not the headphone jack. My one criticism is with the cable itself. Its permanently attached and thick and ropey. Its an ugly contrast to the beautiful design of the speakers themselves.
When you first listen to these little LaCie speakers, they sound harsh. I suspect they have digital amps that need a break-in period. Give them a couple of hours play time and they end up sounding smooth and very detailed. These little speakers seem impossibly fast, responding to rapid transitions effortlessly. Percussion instruments pop. I noticed sandpaper blocks in one of my favorite song that I hadnt noticed before. Imaging is outstanding. When was the last time you heard about computer speakers having good imaging?
These little speakers lack the deep bass of some computer speakers. Id say they have barely enough bass to be described as "rich." These speakers can produce surprisingly high volumes and never sound strained. Still, if youre a gamer and you want to hear those explosions rumble, these probably wont have enough bass for you. These speakers are meant for music listening.
These speakers have no volume control. In fact, therere no controls at all. You adjust the volume and EQ using your computers controls. Thats good in my opinion. I always disliked having duplicate controls.
Also missing is a power brick. Since these little guys draw power from the Firewire port, theyre ideal for portable use and for use during power outages.
Good looks and sound that appeals to my audiophile sensibilities make these ideal for me.
On: 2007-12-25
The LaCie FireWire Speakers deserve all of the hype that they have received. Just visit www.lacie.com and you will see the over 10 awards that these first-ever bus-powered FireWire Speakers have received. Personally, I think they are amazing! I received them as a Christmas gift and cant wait to use them every chance I get. They have such great quality and it makes you feel like you are sitting next to the artist of the music you are actually listening to. Bottom line: they are simply amazing! Ive had no better and heard no better. The only comparison is that if higher-priced Bose speakers, but I wouldnt trade these high-quality design speakers for even higher-priced Bose speakers! You simply have to HEAR it to BELIEVE it! Trust me - you cant go wrong with giving these as gift!
PS- They go great with an iBook G4! ;-D
On: 2007-09-19
Ok, I was intrigued by this unique idea, speakers that do NOT connect to the audio output jack on your computer, and did not use the already overcrowded USB, but rather are bus powered, getting power from your computer, connected to the FireWire port instead. But why do I need this? Every computer I have ever owned had an audio output port, and so far, I have not had reason to dislike the audio coming from it. I wanted to know why I needed these over other USB or direct audio speakers.
So I started iTunes, kicked off The Beatles LOVE soundtrack, and was ready to find out why. Music came pouring from my rather good Sony desktop speakers, which I immediately unplugged. I knew what they sounded like. Audio switched to the rather poor speakers inside my iMac G5, and it was time to put a stop to that lousy sound by hooking up these cute little things from LaCie.
Packaged well, much like a MacBook computer from Apple, in a small black box, these (5.3" high by 3.9" wide by 3.5" deep) white and black speakers were easy to hook up. Well, sort of. I simply plugged the already attached FireWire cable on the "Main Speaker" into my Mac. Then, from the secondary speaker I took the audio cable and connect it to the main speaker. That is all there is to connect. There is no power brick and no batteries are needed because these will get their power and audio from FireWire. Listed as the worlds first bus-powered speaker, the small, 8-watt amp (4-watts per channel) is powered directly from your computer via FireWire. For me, one less AC power brick is an immediate plus right off.
Unfortunately, if you start with the wrong speaker, the audio wire on the secondary speaker looks EXACTLY like a standard audio plug, just like the one you might expect to connect to the Macs audio output jack (except that it is a mono plug.) And, if you do plug this into your Macs audio jack, you will get audio, albeit very soft and only form one speaker, which should be a clue that something is wrong. (Perhaps this wires plug should have used a different type of connector?)
So, why was sound still coming from the Macs speakers if these were all attached correctly? What did I forget? Turning to the included Quick Install Guide, I saw that they were indeed installed correctly. But reading a "Note" lower on the page also said that if you do not hear any sound, you need to select the speakers manually. The Mac has a manual speaker selection? This was new to me.
Yes, this is done in System Preferences>Sound>Output. This was a place on my Mac that I had never been to before, and sure enough, I can now select either "Internal Speakers" (or Audio Out if you have other speakers plugged into the Macs speaker jack) or "LaCie FireWire speakers (2491)". So I switched it to the FireWire selection and immediately music poured loudly from these little gems. But now which speaker was right and which left, as LaCie labels them Main and Secondary instead? I opened an audio clip that has audio only on the right channel and it seems that the one with the FireWire connector goes on the right. Of course, I got them backwards. Hey LaCie, a small L and R on the speakers would be nice.
Despite their small size, the sound was rather good. These will not compete with higher end audio speakers costing hundreds of dollars, but compared to many sub $100 speakers for computers, including direct audio and the USB versions, these stand up quite well. Input signal is digital at 24bit / 96kHz, a fact of which most will not care. But, if you use an older PowerPC Mac, these connect via the Midi FireWire Control Panel, and that must be set correctly. With a frequency response of 90Hz-20kHz, midrange and highs were clean and clear, and typically lacked that "tinny" sound many small speakers of this size suffer. Although, some of that tinny sound did manage to come through on a few songs with strong treble passages. Bass response was weak at the low end, no surprise given the small 2" "high excursion neodymium driver" speakers inside. But the lower end of the midrange was strong and it typically made up for that missing bass. Overall volume was on the high side and these speakers played considerably louder then other USB and audio speakers at the same computer volume setting. You may have to turn down both the computers master volume setting as well as the apps volume (like in iTunes) to get a level low enough for a environment like an office cubicle or at home at night. The speakers themselves have no volume control. Distortion was low, unless you turn them up very loud, at which point the small amp started to clip and the small speakers could no longer handle that much drive. That said, these will put out a good amount of volume before that happens, especially considering their size. In general, I was surprised that such a small package could sound this good.
There is a CD included, and for Mac users, it is not needed as it simply contains documentation, products, and accessories folders where you can register your product, or buy the optional power supply, cables, and even a FireWire card should you need one (why did you buy these speakers?) These will also run on Windows machines, and the CD contains a setup program to install the necessary software on that machine before they can be used. They worked fine on my Windows XP computer, but LaCie says they are not Vista compatible, and I did not try.
On the bottom of the main speaker is an "audio input" plug where you can connect an external audio device like an iPod, or a computer without FireWire. A small interconnect cable is included in the box. To use such a device, the speakers need to be powered. That means you can leave them connected to a powered computer (so the FireWire power is active), or, to use them stand alone, you will need an optional external power supply. There is a connector for that on the bottom as well. Still connected to my Mac, I connected my iPod to the audio in line, and pressed play. Yes, if you turn on both audio sources, they will both play through the speakers together. Pressing stop on iTunes allowed me to listen to my iPod through the speakers, and again, they sounded equally as good from the iPod. I am bothered however that the external power supply is an option. Given their $100 price tag, LaCie should have included it for iPod users or laptops that do not have FireWire. Of course, if you do not have FireWire, why would you buy these? But still, you might want to carry them with you for portable use.
The look may not be for everyone. LaCie likes to do outlandishly designed products (have you seen that USB hub?), and these are a little strange for speakers. To me, they look like miniature air vents as seen on a boat or ship. And while I liked them, others who saw them thought they were a bit odd. The outside is a glossy white with a black "circle" where the speaker sits on the front, twisting the cylinder shape forward to face the speaker to the front. I was reminded of a slinky for some reason. On the bottom is a rubber ring that keeps them from slipping and sliding on the desktop. Cables come out the bottom as well, through a small slot to allow the speaker to sit flat on the desk. I was disappointed at the length of the included cables. If you computer is not close to where you screen is, or is on the wrong side of your desk (since the FireWire cable is on the right speaker), you may need an extension cable. The wire between the speakers could stand to be longer as well.
I also wanted to know if using the speakers effected my FireWire connection. Since I have drives connected to the other FireWire port, I wanted to find out if these caused problems with the audio. I copied a 284 Mb folder from a FireWire drive to the internal drive with music playing, and again while not playing, and repeated this several times. Given the relatively small amount of bandwidth needed for audio, I did not expect a difference in time, but would I hear the music cut out as the disk drive needed more bandwidth? With music playing, the average transfer time was 28 to 29 seconds, and no audio cut out or distortion was noticed at all. Again with music not playing the average was about the same, so it appears that this does not impact drive use at all, and hard drive use does not affect the audio.
So back to my original question, why these over other speakers in this price range? The small above issues aside, compared to other small speakers, these performed as well or better than most others in their size and price range. And the lack of yet another a power brick is a strong plus. If you are like me, there are no free plugs available anywhere near your computer, and yet another wire missing from the desktop is a good thing too. And my USB is already overtaxed, so I do not want speakers sucking up that bandwidth or power either. Their small size is also a plus, as is the ability to connect a secondary audio input. But what about that FireWire connection, does it really make a difference? The obvious argument that this is an all-digital connection to the speaker so it sounds better must be taken with a grain of salt. These speakers are nowhere near the quality and fidelity one would need to ever detect any difference between the supposed noisy analog output for speakers and an all-digital connection. And besides, the connection to the secondary speaker IS an analog connection anyway. Hello? But if your need is for small, good sounding set of powered speakers that do not require AC power, are easy to install, and your USB is already busy enough, these are a good choice for you.
MyMac rating: 4 out of 5 stars
On: 2007-09-18
Ok, I was intrigued by this unique idea, speakers that do NOT connect to the audio output jack on your computer, and did not use the already overcrowded USB, but rather are bus powered, getting power from your computer, connected to the FireWire port instead. But why do I need this? Every computer I have ever owned had an audio output port, and so far, I have not had reason to dislike the audio coming from it. I wanted to know why I needed these over other USB or direct audio speakers.
So I started iTunes, kicked off The Beatles LOVE soundtrack, and was ready to find out why. Music came pouring from my rather good Sony desktop speakers, which I immediately unplugged. I knew what they sounded like. Audio switched to the rather poor speakers inside my iMac G5, and it was time to put a stop to that lousy sound by hooking up these cute little things from LaCie.
Packaged well, much like a MacBook computer from Apple, in a small black box, these (5.3" high by 3.9" wide by 3.5" deep) white and black speakers were easy to hook up. Well, sort of. I simply plugged the already attached FireWire cable on the "Main Speaker" into my Mac. Then, from the secondary speaker I took the audio cable and connect it to the main speaker. That is all there is to connect. There is no power brick and no batteries are needed because these will get their power and audio from FireWire. Listed as the worlds first bus-powered speaker, the small, 8-watt amp (4-watts per channel) is powered directly from your computer via FireWire. For me, one less AC power brick is an immediate plus right off.
Unfortunately, if you start with the wrong speaker, the audio wire on the secondary speaker looks EXACTLY like a standard audio plug, just like the one you might expect to connect to the Macs audio output jack (except that it is a mono plug.) And, if you do plug this into your Macs audio jack, you will get audio, albeit very soft and only form one speaker, which should be a clue that something is wrong. (Perhaps this wires plug should have used a different type of connector?)
So, why was sound still coming from the Macs speakers if these were all attached correctly? What did I forget? Turning to the included Quick Install Guide, I saw that they were indeed installed correctly. But reading a "Note" lower on the page also said that if you do not hear any sound, you need to select the speakers manually. The Mac has a manual speaker selection? This was new to me.
Yes, this is done in System Preferences>Sound>Output. This was a place on my Mac that I had never been to before, and sure enough, I can now select either "Internal Speakers" (or Audio Out if you have other speakers plugged into the Macs speaker jack) or "LaCie FireWire speakers (2491)". So I switched it to the FireWire selection and immediately music poured loudly from these little gems. But now which speaker was right and which left, as LaCie labels them Main and Secondary instead? I opened an audio clip that has audio only on the right channel and it seems that the one with the FireWire connector goes on the right. Of course, I got them backwards. Hey LaCie, a small L and R on the speakers would be nice.
Despite their small size, the sound was rather good. These will not compete with higher end audio speakers costing hundreds of dollars, but compared to many sub $100 speakers for computers, including direct audio and the USB versions, these stand up quite well. Input signal is digital at 24bit / 96kHz, a fact of which most will not care. But, if you use an older PowerPC Mac, these connect via the Midi FireWire Control Panel, and that must be set correctly. With a frequency response of 90Hz-20kHz, midrange and highs were clean and clear, and typically lacked that "tinny" sound many small speakers of this size suffer. Although, some of that tinny sound did manage to come through on a few songs with strong treble passages. Bass response was weak at the low end, no surprise given the small 2" "high excursion neodymium driver" speakers inside. But the lower end of the midrange was strong and it typically made up for that missing bass. Overall volume was on the high side and these speakers played considerably louder then other USB and audio speakers at the same computer volume setting. You may have to turn down both the computers master volume setting as well as the apps volume (like in iTunes) to get a level low enough for a environment like an office cubicle or at home at night. The speakers themselves have no volume control. Distortion was low, unless you turn them up very loud, at which point the small amp started to clip and the small speakers could no longer handle that much drive. That said, these will put out a good amount of volume before that happens, especially considering their size. In general, I was surprised that such a small package could sound this good.
There is a CD included, and for Mac users, it is not needed as it simply contains documentation, products, and accessories folders where you can register your product, or buy the optional power supply, cables, and even a FireWire card should you need one (why did you buy these speakers?) These will also run on Windows machines, and the CD contains a setup program to install the necessary software on that machine before they can be used. They worked fine on my Windows XP computer, but LaCie says they are not Vista compatible, and I did not try.
On the bottom of the main speaker is an "audio input" plug where you can connect an external audio device like an iPod, or a computer without FireWire. A small interconnect cable is included in the box. To use such a device, the speakers need to be powered. That means you can leave them connected to a powered computer (so the FireWire power is active), or, to use them stand alone, you will need an optional external power supply. There is a connector for that on the bottom as well. Still connected to my Mac, I connected my iPod to the audio in line, and pressed play. Yes, if you turn on both audio sources, they will both play through the speakers together. Pressing stop on iTunes allowed me to listen to my iPod through the speakers, and again, they sounded equally as good from the iPod. I am bothered however that the external power supply is an option. Given their $100 price tag, LaCie should have included it for iPod users or laptops that do not have FireWire. Of course, if you do not have FireWire, why would you buy these? But still, you might want to carry them with you for portable use.
The look may not be for everyone. LaCie likes to do outlandishly designed products (have you seen that USB hub?), and these are a little strange for speakers. To me, they look like miniature air vents as seen on a boat or ship. And while I liked them, others who saw them thought they were a bit odd. The outside is a glossy white with a black "circle" where the speaker sits on the front, twisting the cylinder shape forward to face the speaker to the front. I was reminded of a slinky for some reason. On the bottom is a rubber ring that keeps them from slipping and sliding on the desktop. Cables come out the bottom as well, through a small slot to allow the speaker to sit flat on the desk. I was disappointed at the length of the included cables. If you computer is not close to where you screen is, or is on the wrong side of your desk (since the FireWire cable is on the right speaker), you may need an extension cable. The wire between the speakers could stand to be longer as well.
I also wanted to know if using the speakers effected my FireWire connection. Since I have drives connected to the other FireWire port, I wanted to find out if these caused problems with the audio. I copied a 284 Mb folder from a FireWire drive to the internal drive with music playing, and again while not playing, and repeated this several times. Given the relatively small amount of bandwidth needed for audio, I did not expect a difference in time, but would I hear the music cut out as the disk drive needed more bandwidth? With music playing, the average transfer time was 28 to 29 seconds, and no audio cut out or distortion was noticed at all. Again with music not playing the average was about the same, so it appears that this does not impact drive use at all, and hard drive use does not affect the audio.
So back to my original question, why these over other speakers in this price range? The small above issues aside, compared to other small speakers, these performed as well or better than most others in their size and price range. And the lack of yet another a power brick is a strong plus. If you are like me, there are no free plugs available anywhere near your computer, and yet another wire missing from the desktop is a good thing too. And my USB is already overtaxed, so I do not want speakers sucking up that bandwidth or power either. Their small size is also a plus, as is the ability to connect a secondary audio input. But what about that FireWire connection, does it really make a difference? The obvious argument that this is an all-digital connection to the speaker so it sounds better must be taken with a grain of salt. These speakers are nowhere near the quality and fidelity one would need to ever detect any difference between the supposed noisy analog output for speakers and an all-digital connection. And besides, the connection to the secondary speaker IS an analog connection anyway. Hello? But if your need is for small, good sounding set of powered speakers that do not require AC power, are easy to install, and your USB is already busy enough, these are a good choice for you.
MyMac rating: 4 out of 5 stars
On: 2007-07-24
As advertised, they look great were easy to set up with my mac mini. The sound is pretty damm good to. Bass and treble sound was pretty impressive for the size. If you dont want to deal with a power source which I didnt these are the ones for you.
On: 2007-07-20
I just got these a few days ago and I like them. The sound is clear and loud without distortion. I like that I could use my Macbook remote to control the volume, too. I tried to use the adapter and plug them into my ipod, but I got a lot of distortion/feedback. It cleared when I closed my laptop- dont know what thats about. Will have to experiment more.
On: 2007-07-19
I just got these a few days ago and I like them. The sound is clear and loud without distortion. I like that I could use my Macbook remote to control the volume, too. I tried to use the adapter and plug them into my ipod, but I got a lot of distortion/feedback. It cleared when I closed my laptop- dont know what thats about. Will have to experiment more.
On: 2007-03-03
I just received these speakers from Lacie after seeing them at Macworld in SF. They sound every bit as good as they appear. Clear, good imaging, actual low midtones and simple set up.
Some wishes for future versions-
1) A carrying case would be nice- they are marketed as being portable.
2) Volume control linked with the main controls. Currently I have to use the menu bar slider-the hardware keys and the apple remote cant control the volume.
On: 2007-03-02
I just received these speakers from Lacie after seeing them at Macworld in SF. They sound every bit as good as they appear. Clear, good imaging, actual low midtones and simple set up.
Some wishes for future versions-
1) A carrying case would be nice- they are marketed as being portable.
2) Volume control linked with the main controls. Currently I have to use the menu bar slider-the hardware keys and the apple remote cant control the volume.
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