A Decent Performer at an Affordable Price: Altec Lansing Dual Motion Speaker Review

Altec Lansing – an American audio electronics company which specializes in consumer loudspeakers, headphones, and multimedia products has returned to India with a new range of audio products. Established in 1927 in the USA, Altec Lansing was the first brand to enter the audio industry and commands a rich legacy of more than 8 decades. It was Altec Lansing that created the computer speaker market in 1990. From developing the first high-fidelity audio system for the general public in 1948 to the first speaker (XT1) with full USB technology in 2005, Altec Lansing has come a long way since then.

We reviewed Altec Lansing Dual Motion speaker which targets the budget speaker market.

Design and specifications

The design of Altec Lansing Dual Motion speaker is bland and looks like just an ordinary Bluetooth speaker with no standout features.

The speaker is made of plastic with physical buttons at the top for play/ pause, volume and call handling.

The speaker is designed with Micro-USB port, AUX input and a physical on-off switch on the back of the system.

Powered by two 1.75-inch drivers with the brand logo at the front, the speaker is portable and easy to carry and has a small strap on the left side.

The company claims that the battery will run for about 5-6 hours on a full charge. The sales package includes a USB cable for charging and a 3.5mm stereo cable for wired connectivity.

Performance

The Bluetooth range of this speaker is a standard around 10m.

I played Oxygène 3, which is the nineteenth studio album by the French electronic musician and composer Jean-Michel Jarre. The focus track was Oxygène Part 14 and we found that the speaker's sound was clear but deep rhythms in the song were too soft. Bass lovers won’t be pleased with the Dual Motion as the thump is missing.

The mid-tones are clear but it becomes terrible at higher volumes. The treble is slightly on the higher side.

However, compared to other portable speakers on the market, Altec Lansing Dual Motion fares better in terms of sound quality.

Thanks to the space between the two drivers, the front-firing speaker produces an appealing sound. However, pushing the speaker to produce louder sounds will lead to a distorted output.

The speaker also has a microphone which can be used for hands-free calls, but the voice quality on the calls is poor. The microphone is ineffective and sound often echoed back to the person on the other end of the call.

The Dual Motion is only good for basic listening and can be used in small rooms for house parties. It can also be an ideal travel companion if you prefer to keep your sound around with you. The battery life of this device is good and in our tests it lasted for 5 hours on full volume.