I use vintage stereo receiver/amps that require occasional maintenance, so got these little speakers for test purposes so I wouldn't have to drag speakers from the house into the workshop when I'm working on a receiver.
Pros:
They seem well made for $38 bucks
Brackets were easy to attach with knobs (don't even need a screwdriver
Nice, springy RCA terminals in rear
Sound:
Decent considering cost and intended applications
I suspect some of the reviews saying the speakers sounded terrible were from people who used the included extremely thin speaker wire. To get bass and mid-range – the fullest range of frequency the little speakers are capable of – they will need heavier gauge wire such as 16 AWG… I don't think the terminals will take anything heavier (e.g. 14g), but that would be lost on them anyway. Even 18g would likely be ok (thinner than 16g but these little speakers can only produce so much fidelity anyway, so might not be a difference in sound between 16 and 18g wire).
The included speaker wire is too thin to be useful but it's impractical for them to include quality speaker wire. Everyone needs different lengths, some people prefer particular gauges, and it would hike the price of the speakers without satisfying most people anyhow. The included wire might be better considered a way to be able to test the speakers when they arrive to make sure they're not DOA without having to break out your own wire for that task.
However, it was too thin to make a proper connection in my case; the terminals of my equipment were not made for such thin wire, so I ended up making a tail from my own speaker wire anyway (16 AWG). Both speakers indeed worked and sounded like I expected they would. Went back out of curiosity and did finally manage to get the included speaker wire to make a connection just to see the difference in sound, knowing the thin wire would make the speakers sound terrible. And they did. Like an old tinny radio.
The sound [using 16g wire] is fine for my purposes, and probably fine for augmenting a multi-channel setup… or for listening to a phone on a 'personal speaker system.' They are not suited to use as 'the main speakers in the house' so when people say 'they sound great' bear in mind their purpose and price. For cheap external speakers where cost has to go into housing/hardware/brackets and the rest goes into reproducing sound, they aren't bad.
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