I used these speakers not only on a PC and a notebook but also connecting a couple of MP3 players and I was not disappointed.

The black wooden sub woofer box is 30x18.5x20cm with leads inserted, there are no controls on the front, in fact the rear has two built in leads for the remote control and the mains lead, also a single twist knob for the bass and a jack socket to take the leads from the speakers. Total weight of the sub woofer and speakers is just over 4kilos.

The mains lead is 1.8metres long and the remote lead is 1.9metres as is the lead to the sound card or MP3 player. Finally the speakers leads are 1.85metres long. As stated these go into the jack plug in the rear of the sub woofer. Hopefully the measurements given will allow you to calculate if the leads allow you to place the speakers and sub woofer where you wish.

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The speakers themselves are modern in design. They are silver grey and black the overall dimensions are 18x8.5x8cm but this includes the base the attached speakers are 14x7x7cm again a maximum dimension as they are only 5cm wide at the back.

Now I did get my GCE in maths but the figures claimed by Philips have me stumped, as stated above the box says 50watts. The blurb inside also says Music Power 50watts however the output power of the sub woofer is 25watts and the two speakers are 5watts each so my maths makes that 35watts. 

The blurb states that the unique sub woofer design produces a much deeper richer bass and you also have the possibility to set the bass level to your choice. In practice I found I needed the bass set fairly high when the sub woofer was on carpet, on wooden floors the resonance would be better and therefore the ability to annoy others for those of you who live in flats is greater.

A corded remote seems strange today as almost everything seems to have infra red remotes. I did once have a video recorder with a corded remote but that was a long time ago. The remote has only two controls a push button on/off switch that has a blue LED when on and a large circular volume control.

It would have been nice to have the bass control also on the remote as most people tend to place the sub woofer on the floor and often in a fairly inaccessible place.

When using this 2.1 set with a PC or notebook then there was plenty of volume even when using a built in sound chip rather than a sound card. However while the volume for a MP3 player was adequate you would hardly power a party from it. Most MP3 players have only a earbud jack socket and the level is normally kept low to avoid possible law suits for ear damage from those who are stupid enough to play output really loud through earbuds. This does mean that with no boost the volume on the remote needs to be high as does the output level from the MP3 device.

Doing my Internet searches could not currently find this very new 2.1 speaker set but the likely price will be just under £40.

http://www.consumer.philips.com/consumer/catalog/product.jsp?productId=SPA3300_05_GB_CONSUMER