January 2001 || Volume 01, Issue 06
by David Schultz

Putting the Pieces Together

I am frustrated. I haven't reached the end of my wits or anything, but I am frustrated nonetheless. I just have a hard time seeing the point sometimes. I mean things are so disconnected on the 'Net that sometimes it not only adversely affects my attention span (to match the short attention span of the 'Net), but I find myself thinking less and less in holistic terms, of seeing any interconnection and implicateness of what the Mac Web, in particular, is all about.

We see news items pop up and then disappear forever; issues come and go with little follow up. Various things happen in several places but sites fail to see their connection. And worst of all, a single product is reviewed with little connection to other products. I guess the reader is left to figure that out himself. But wouldn't it be nice to have a topical review? I mean wouldn't it be nice to have a review article which looks at a set of products which share a family resemblance in function.

The reason this would be an improvement is because I often hear people say things like "I didn't know you could do that with a Mac." Of course they didn't. Now this is due as much to simple Mac ignorance out there than anything else. But another aspect of this is that if one gets his information about the Mac off the Mac Web (and where else will he get it?), then he might see the parts but fail to see the whole. Take a handful of reviews that are in some way dealing with related products and all you have is parts, not wholes. But if one could write a topical review then maybe readers will see the whole as well as the parts and then they say "I knew the Mac could do that!".

Holism: It makes the Mac so much more than just another computer. (This is something people need to realize and we need to evangelize with more. For example, my wonderful PowerBook 200 is not just a laptop, it is a DVD player, stereo, voice phone, FAX, presentation assistant, and so much more.) In fact, with a little investment you can save money because you won't have to buy a CD player for your stereo, or a DVD player for your entertainment center -- the Mac, especially the PowerBook, can handle these just fine thank you very much.

So that is what I will attempt to do here: Provide some holism. I have chosen several products which share a family resemblance and once we put them all together we get something that is, well, pretty darn cool. We have seen reviews on the 'Net about all of these products. But let us put them together and see what we get.

Stick 'Em Up! The Harmon Kardon Sound Sticks.

The first part of the system I will build uses the Harmon Kardon SoundSticks. I received the review units of the SoundSticks many months ago. You have read other reviews of them, but what follows is my own experience.

I couldn't open them fast enough. You must realize that I had no external speakers on my G4 and never have. I mostly wanted to look at them! I'd seen the pictures but I wanted to hold them in my hands and see them in my work area. Suffering that horrible sound of plastic against styrofoam while taking them out of the box, I carefully lifted them out of the box. Most of you have seen the woofer in its iSub configuration. The subwoofer is the iSub with a few changes for the SoundSticks themselves. The subwoofer itself has a small, light blue light that glows within the woofer itself: Very cool in the dark. As for installation: Plug 'em in and go. That's it. Very Mac.

The iSub is digital. But the sticks are analog. But they still sound great. The Sticks are about eight inches high with four small transducers in each. They are attached to round bases which allow you to adjust the angle of the sticks. You can set them to point right at you no matter where they are on the desk. I wouldn't suggest putting them a foot in front of you if you want to preserve your ears, but maybe off at 40 degree angles from you and about as high as your head is to the desk, or maybe below. The woofer goes below the desk but we listened to it both above and below the desk. (The only hardware volume control is on the subwoofer by the way. But see below.)

Now the good and the bad. First the good . . .

These things sound fantastic. In terms of Hz, they range from 44 Hz on the low end and 20 Khz on the top end. I compared to several others at a local store (as a Demo Day guy I was able to bring them to the store and compare). I know this is subjective, but the sound is great. In fact, these are real speakers, not flimsy little beige box ones -- the louder you crank them the better they sound. (We live in a row of townhouses and I have tried to respect my neighbors!) You will have to play with them yourself to find a volume and bass which suits your needs for the kind of music you play. But you'll find a range that will be more than sufficient. But beware of where you place them. You can create interference waves if you improperly mount the sticks and you'll lose some sound. But this is so subjective you'll just have to come up with a way that works for you.

I listened to the SoundSticks while playing games, playing CDs and playing MP3s. The game sound is nice and always seems to keep up. A music CD (not a burned one), sounds especially good. But MP3s? Let me put it like this: Getting great speakers is not necessarily a guarantee that your MP3s will sound better. In fact, the better the speakers the more obvious are the imperfections in MP3s. Since the HK Sticks are such good speakers, if your MP3s have flaws you'll hear them loud and clear. I didn't realize how, well, crappy most MP3s sound until I hooked up the Sticks, even with MP3's which have a high bitrate and frequency.

So on the aesthetic and subjective listening level these speakers are tops. And because they have a resemblance to almost any Mac (and to the new Pro Keyboard and Mouse which are also clear), these speakers don't seem out of place sitting next to your beautiful machine. For myself, I just couldn't bring myself to buy a set of speakers that looked like a small Gateway computer, or were black plastic or small iMac-looking objects. No, when you set up the sticks you'll go back to the box to look for an Apple logo, thinking to yourself, "These things HAD to be made by Apple -- they look perfect with my Mac."

Now the bad: USB. I will talk more about USB below, but in relation to the Sticks it has its flaws. To use the Sticks Apple recommends that you make sure that you have all current USB and Firmware up to date. HK says the same thing. Yes, we know that. Also, delete the Sound Preferences file too.

One very minor gripe. Now this may seem picky, but I love the Mac's chime at start up. I want to hear that chime through the Sticks. I can't because the USB drivers are not loaded at that point. It's a crying shame! Okay, like I said, I am being picky.

But on to more substantial concerns. You hook the speakers into the back of your machine or even into a USB hub. I have successfully used the great Keyspan four port Hub and the MacAlly seven port Hub with the Sticks. If you are looking for some nice USB hubs, I suggest them. But make sure you use a powered hub for the SoundSticks, since they run at 65W when playing, though only 4W when idle. Here is my gripe: If you connect up headphones to the Sound Out on your machine, the speakers continue to play out loud. You have to unplug them if you want to listen to just the phones. Annoying.

There have also been oddities which I can only guess (and it's a guess) are related to USB implementation. Not everyone has had this problem but here was my experience. I have had problems with the Sound Control on the Control Strip. My Mac has a habit of having the Finder quit when I adjust the volume when the Sticks are playing. The same thing happens when I adjust the volume with the Pro Keyboard. I have a Sawtooth G4 (single processor) and thought this might be the problem. I hooked up the Sticks to a dual processor G4 and did not have the same problems with the Pro Keyboard. In fact, I could not even adjust the volume via the keyboard until I installed the Sound Control Panel from a DP G4. I was unable to determine if this was an extension conflict or something about the Pro Keyboard, or USB, and the Sawtooth. Even with a minimal set of extensions I would get these random Finder crashes adjusting the volume with the Sticks playing. Of course, I have also found that the fewer USB devices you have plugged into a machine reduces the little odd behaviors one can get with USB. Obvious I know, but USB is touted as a way to connect all kinds of things to a machine. (I had a Palm PDA USB adapter, Zip Drive, Keyspan Remote, and several other things hooked up.) USB just wierds out sometimes.

Believe me, the Sticks are a great deal at $200 believe it or not. And you can get them for less at Outpost and other places. If you want stylish, great sounding speakers that match the look of your Mac, and perform just as well, even with the USB oddities, the Sticks are the way to go. Find out more at Harmon Kardon. If this was a full-fledged review, they would get 4 out of 5 smileys.

Go to the Harmon Kardon site and take a look at their Flash presentation.

Spooky Action at a Distance

Okay, so you have your SoundSticks hooked up. Now what? Well, you could listen to them while playing games. But for crying out loud, sometimes a person needs to get some work done! Now while I have complaints about USB, as I just said, USB is great for some other items. It's a nice solution for keyboards, mouses (yes, mouses), and game controllers. For high powered peripherals like hard drives USB is not my first choice anyway -- FireWire is the wave of the future in my opinion for heavy duty tasks. (This makes some PC maker's commitment to USB over Firewire strange in my mind.)

One of the knocks on the SoundSticks is that there is no volume control other than on the iSub. Have people forgotten that the Mac has sound controls and the Pro Keyboard has volume keys? Okay, so these can get wacky on my Sawtooth. But there is a USb peripheral that when you add it to the sticks you have some pretty neato. I am talking about the Keyspan Digital Media Remote.

When I first heard about the Keyspan Digital Media Remote I thought, "Well, that's pretty neat." Then I saw one when I was in Cupertino. I wanted one. But the problem was that while cool it was not practical. It's a toy add-on. But then I got and saw all I could with it and my attitude changed.

Reading some reviews when DMR first came out, the remote rarely got a perfect review. Why? Price was the issue: $79 for a nonessential item. Well, Keyspan listened and reduced the price to $49. Still a bit much for something "nonessential," $39 would seem more appropriate. But it depends on what you mean by "nonessential." Not essential for what?

Again, I received a review unit and hooked it right away. Make sure you get the latest driver software. You can get it here. The latest driver is 2.0. It will make your life much easier.

The Keyspan DMR comes with the remote itself and a USB IR receiver which you connect into your Mac. It is ice plastic. The IR port will receive from 35 feet away, though obviously because it's IR make sure there are no obstructions between the remote and the receiver. The remote itself is a 17-key remote that fits in the Palm of your hand, being about 2.5x1x.24 inches large. It is a real head-turner.

You "map" functions of your program onto the remote through the DMR Control Panel. It comes with maps for PowerPoint, RealPlayer, Netscape, and SoundJam MP. Customization is easy. You can cycle through applications and the Finder with it as well. You can scroll log web pages, cycle through tracks on MP3 players and give PowerPoint (or QuickTime) presentations.

So what can you do with this thing? A lot. Let me mention a few before I get back to the SoundSticks. For example, I hook my PowerBook 2000 to my stereo and play MP3s on SoundJam MP on my stereo. I hook up the remote and control the sound, play selection and other factors with it. Cool. I made a slide-show of pictures from our trip to Cupertino last summer. Again, I hook the PowerBook up to the TV through S-Video Out, and using the QuickTime Player and the remote I can give a slide-show from the comfort of my couch. Cooler. I play DVDs through the stereo and TV. Hook up the remote and I can control the sound or even go to certain "chapters" of a movie -- all without having to leave my chair. Coolest.

Now for the Sticks. I have solved weird Pro Keyboard USB problems and the Sticks by using the Digital Media Remote. I open SoundJam MP Plus and start playing. With remote hooked up I can control the volume of the sticks easier than if the Sticks did have volume controls on the towers. It works flawlessly and has made my mighty G4, with SoundSticks attached, a high end stereo with a remote control. Again, all with moving only one finger. True, the remote will not help your exercise routine. It is, I have always thought, a lazy man's peripheral. Okay, so I am lazy. But my Mac is now a stereo monster with great sound and a remote control to boot!! Now this is a good use of USB.

All you need, if you don't want to use the QuickTime Player, is an MP3 player. Without doubt the best one out there is SoundJam MP Plus from Casady & Greene. You can encode MP3s with it, make playlists, edit tags and do all kinds of things. I have gone on much too long to talk much more about about, but go check it out at the link I just gave.

So put these things together -- the SoundSticks and the Keyspan Digital Media Remote -- and you have a great set up which takes very little effort to set up and use, yet gives hours of pleasurable playing. And just think, you don't have to even get out of a chair or exert yourself in any serious way. But my remote control controlling finger is getting a work out!!

Harmon Kardon SoundSticks: A great pair of speakers at a good price.

Keyspan Digital Remote: A nice little add-on which you will find all kinds of uses for.

SoundJam MP Plus: One of the most used pieces of software on my system.

David Schultz - dschultz@macosjournal.com
David's Site