I love the Altec Lansing XT1 speakers. They’re two speakers about the height of my hands which come in a really nice carrying case. You take them out, plug in a cable between the two, and plug in a USB cable to your laptop. That’s all you need to do and you have these portable speakers up and running (they use USB for power)—and they sound great. It’s no comparison to all-out desktop speakers, of course, but these are really very portable. I’m still constantly impressed by the amount of bass these tiny things can put out.
On my Mac, the volume buttons on the speakers control the Mac’s volume, so my keyboard volume buttons and the speaker volume buttons control the exact same thing. Pressing the power button on the speakers causes the Mac to mute, as if I pressed the mute button on my keyboard. Very nice. I suspect this is because the speakers are standard USB Audio devices and control the computer as such, so it should work similarly under Windows and Linux. There’s an auxiliary audio input (and a cable in the carrying case for it), allowing me to power the speakers from my laptop while plugging my Nintendo DS into the auxiliary input to get more bass.
I use them when I’m sitting outside on the porch working, and I brought them with me out to California since I couldn’t bring my regular speakers. The design is great and they sound great (I still can’t believe the bass!), and the price isn’t too bad (I got mine for about $100 almost six months ago). If you’re looking for portable speakers to carry around with your laptop for when you want more sound quality than your built-in speakers, I highly recommend the XT1 speakers. These speakers are simple, elegant, beautiful, and do everything I would want them to do. They have the Julian stamp of approval!
These speakers were featured along with an Aluminum PowerBook in the latest Nine Inch Nails music video, “Only”.