1990s Sound Blaster, er... Labtec computer speakers
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ส.ค. 2024
- Remember those tiny, tinny speakers your first sound card came with? Yes, they really do sound as bad as you recall. CORRECTION: Each speaker has its own amplifier chip running in bridge mode, so the actual output power is 1.35 watts per channel.
- วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
*Correction:* Each speaker has its own amplifier chip running in bridge mode, so the actual output power is 1.35 watts per channel.
I'd bet Mr. Mangus never in his wildest dreams thought that his disco mix will be played and broadcasted to be watched by people all around the world on computers!
That's Mr Magnus, not M. Mangus :(
SNESIvan Mangus or Magnus, I'm sure he've thrown a couple of disco fingers in his time!
It's Mike Mangus, for anybody looking his name up.
Could also be a Ms. Mangus, Mary for example. There's no "Mr." there.
Jax Nean Did anyone contact him? Would be interesting.
Ooof. These are like the speakers your teacher brings to school when they want the class to watch a movie or something and it ends up being impossible to understand.
And then he uses VLC to raise the volume over 100 % and it sounds terrible, and the speakers die.
Skawo because they vibrate around so much lol
Our teachers would use the speaker integrated into the projector and they always said "be quiet and behave if you want to hear it", but even in an otherwise dead silent room you could still barely make anything out.
Now you can get USB powered speakers that actually perform really well.
Don't forget the deafeningly loud ground loop
Ugh, I remember crappy speakers like that, they were a dime a dozen, you couldn't give them away. "Hey man, you want some speakers?"
"Ahhh, no thanks dude, I'm good."
but the teachers would snag them all up and they sounded *HORRIBLE*
When I was in middle school someone gave me a pair of these. I had them duct tapped to my bike so I could listen to them with my AIWA portable cassette player lol
OMG I literally posted almost the same thing. Thought I was the only one! LOL :-D
Eric Brunhammer And the neighbourhood was pissed 😁
@@Livewire91 Why? I doubt they could hear them. XD
Back in the 90's, I figured out that I could hook up my older brother's 1980's Ghetto Blaster boombox to the computer. THE BASS BLEW ME AWAY! I never went back to cheapo, small monitor speakers like these. I've been on a constant search for perfect audio ever since.
Good. Your ears deserve to listen to music with proper bass.
Neighborhood kids (and adults) thought I was a genius when I showed them my soundblaster pro connected to my pioneer stereo going through my 8" Yamaha 100W speakers. I didn't do it very often because of the tendency to disturb other members of the house.
Very few people would identify out of phase cancellation.
They would just conclude the bass sucks (even more than it should with those booming 2½ inch speakers).
Don't think so, most people would notice it sounding weird. Out of phase stereo sounds a bit "spatial", and can actually be pretty annoying with time. However, I'm also willing to bet that some people would think it was a feature :P
I noticed, but figured it was acoustic. You could tell when he turned the volume down on one and it sounded better. :-)
I noticed that they where out of phase immediately. It's not that hard to notice.
I know what out of phase audio sounds like if you're sitting between 2 speakers or you're wearing headphones that are wired up out of phase, I've seen that happen. But I wouldn't have known these speakers were out of phase if VWestlife hadn't said anything about that.
It is a felony to dislike a vwestlife video
Lemme guess: someone bought the new speakers to replace the old, chucked the latter in the former's box & chucked that in a closet, where it lingered for ~20 years before being donated (w/ whatever else was cleaned out) to the Goodwill.
I have these exact speakers that are on the front of the box. They came with a sound blaster 16 card that I bought to upgrade my computer so I actually had a sound card instead of just the PC speaker. I agree about them rebadging the speakers, the only difference about the speakers is the front of them. The back of them with all of the connections and switches are exactly the same. I really liked how you hooked up an old 8-track player to the speakers. So cool to see vintage speakers and tape players. Thanks so much for making this video
"speakers are for people with money" lol
Well it's true cuz you need a house... I can't blast nice speakers in my condo cuz my neighbor is really noise sensitive.. If you can afford a house and land then you can actually enjoy speakers.
Oh the wonderfully hallow plastic reverberation sounds emanating from these old computer speakers that anyone with a vintage PC wanting to truly recreate the experience must have. I am pretty sure though it is much faster to solder the wires around than to cut, strip, twist and wrap. This is pretty much the speaker, along with those creative ones, that typically would come bundled with a Multimedia kit back in the mid 90's
If the sound they make had a color it would be beige. So fit for purpose.
Please upload the disco tape!
Yes please! And we need to find Mr Magnus lol.
Yeah, what are the tracks aside from Meco Monardo's "Star Wars"?
That tape is sick af
10:24 *Samsung* KA2209. That 3 star thingy is the old Samsung logo that time.
If I remember correctly, Samsung literally means three stars.
thought that was the kyrocera logo
DISCO STAR WARS LMAOOOO
Still sounds better than the last Jedi.
video death star disco ball
I actually remember that but I can't erase it from my memory
Disco was the dubstep of the 70s.
I actually have it on vinyl from my late father's collection, and I think it's awesome in it's own weird 70's way.
I got a pair of these with my 486 back in 1993. Came with one of those multimedia kits that included a sound card and CD-ROM drive. Right now they are hooked up to the Apple IIgs and can be seen in that video. I should see if they are wired out of phase....
We had the same kit. These speakers were good for playing canyon.mid and that was about it. I remember our computer was a Leading Edge WinTower 486.
As hard as it seems to believe now, I actually liked those speakers. Everything other than the ridiculous cord arrangement, that is. I suppose a lot of it had to do with the wonder of a multimedia PC back in the day!
The only thing more ridiculous than these, at least by name, would probably have been the Koss "Hard Drivers" computer speakers.
Those Koss speakers appear to be rebadged Labtecs. The connections on the back are identical: www.ebay.com/itm/391692941192
"Hard Drivers" -- so much irony in that name!
Let's hope they're not Trashtors!
Those MLI speakers brought back a memory. For Christmas I got a “sound blaster multi media kit” in the 90’s. It has those some unpowered speakers but branded sound blaster of course. They sounded bad but I was glad to have them. I was styling with a 2x cd rom and a sound card in my 486!
I had those speakers in the nineties. I eventually upgraded to a 2.1 system. Which made me feel like I'd entered Valhalla, after listening to those Labtec jobs for years. But even those Labtec speakers sounded great after years of built-in PC speakers.
I have those exact creative labs speakers. They came with a creative labs sound blaster 16 sound card. Very cool speakers for what they are. I wish I had the box for the speakers like you do, but all I have is the entire sound card box that the whole setup came in. Which is cool too. Thanks for making and posting this video.
If you really wanna test the bass of any speaker... Daft Punk - Da Funk. Bass is so hard... it gives turntables a hard time preventing the needle to skid.
I love that Split Enz song, I Got You. Doesn't sound the best through those speakers right enough! lol
Marty P it’s great for testing speakers. Lots of harmonies. Synth, cymbals, bass, vocals, etc..
Oh wow. Back in the day (or at least 2000, when my earliest memories date back to, as I was born in 1997), my family had much better no-brand speakers for their PC, well, only really better because I remember them having bass vents, and that were much larger that the small little ones you showed, which I'm sure were for people who wanted to listen to the Windows system sounds and nothing much else.
Oh yeah! I can't believe I forgot about the static electricity on the surface of a CRT! I remember waving my hand on the front of a Thomson TV in my parents' bedroom around that time (it was a pretty big room, but I'm sure my memories of that are rather foggy, then there was a projection TV in the living room)
A few months ago I finally got a set of the Labtec LCS-800 speakers from a local thrift store for $5 they are loud and have decent bass response. Back when I was in elementary school, most of the school Compaq's (Presarios and Deskpros) where paired with the LCS-800 speakers.
Definitely had a pair of these as a kid. Kept them and used them with an mp3 player in the garage well into the 2000s.
Dude, the Star Wars disco theme was awesome, I'm not kidding
I'm oddly fond of old speakers like these. I had a pair of similar, Koss-branded ones that I used with an SB 1.5 and SB16. I imagine you could build a pair of sleeper speakers by gutting these guys and subbing superior cones and amps. Better sound on a period appropriate (hooray for plastic...) enclosure.
Your tandy computer looks awesome .
You could say it looks.... fine and tandy ;)
Cheap computer speakers are not true cheap computer speakers without the 50/60Hz hum mixing perfectly with the music :)
Makes for great bass if you're tone-deaf :)
I remember when our teacher brought a similar model of speakers to watch a movie... The only thing I remember about the movie's soundtrack was the 50Hz hum :D
I remember having a Sound Blaster 16 kit back in 1994 with the Creative speakers and a double speed CD-ROM drive. The Creative speakers had identical switches and connectors to the Labtec speakers in your video so they probably are re-badged (and with different casing). As a Kiwi living in the US, I also give bonus points for Split Enz.
I was so happy when motherboards had built in audio, and I could bail on those PITA soundblasters.
Absolutely love the detail you put in these videos.
Always good to see some eight tracks... and the Star Wars disco theme!
Could you please make a video comparison on phased and unphased speakers? Great video as always, I really do enjoy watching them!
Luckily someone else already did: th-cam.com/video/bc1Z1ck9hKQ/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for the link I found It very interesting! I am going to make sure my stereo is wired up correctly, would there be any difference in sound with a single sub-woofer out of phase?
7:06 Man listen to them 1977 lazers! Pew! Pew! Pew!
For the young kids in the crowd.
What you have here is a take on what is an old idea from the early 80s, onward, for walkmans. (Cassette players / pocket AM, FM radios) yep,, these are reused amplified Walkman speakers.
A note about these particular setups.
One speaker plugged into the other for 2 reasons.
1. The battery packs were wired together as a 4 cell 6 volt supply that powered both single amps in each box.
2. The signal line for that other speaker was also carried through that wire.
There have bean many differant versions of these speaker setups, very few were all that great.
It may have been the fact that i'm listening to this on Laptop speakers, (MacBook 5,1 uni) but they didn't sound that bad, as long as the music being played through them isn't overly complex, they would be probably ok for games of the era, or midi sounds. I this this type of Nostalgic 90's tech videos, keep up the good work.
*Buys Creative Speakers, gets Labtec speakers* Meh.. close enough.
13:50 True Colours - Split Enz. I had that album. The song playing is "I Got You"
Some other nice early stuff from Split Enz, "I Hope I Never" , "One Step Ahead"
th-cam.com/video/ABXcIsmyLJk/w-d-xo.html
I love that song. I listen to it quite often. It’s good to test speakers with.
SHAAARK ATTAAACK!!!
The Bob Ross of old tech right here.
I like battery-powered computer speakers, even if they don't sound all that great. :P Do you suppose those really are the speakers that shipped in that box, or that someone just stuck a random pair in the box?
How were you able to initially tell that they were wired out of phase? Just by ear?
If you stand between two speakers that are out of phase, the music will sound like it's coming from inside your head, instead of directly in front of you like it's supposed to.
I had those! I also had some cyber acoustics 2.1 speakers in 1999. The speakers broke but the subwoofer lasted till 2008!
I remember going to computer parts discount expo's organized in gymnasiums mostly. I remember buying some speakers similar to these. Only 5 bucks, wow! But yeah, they were pretty much useless for listening to music. Oh and I also remember buying my first mouse with a scrollwheel at one of those. Still had a ball though, but having the scrollwheel was really a step forward with my P1 133 with Windows '98 SE.
Ahhh, brings me back to the days of gateway computers. Those solid state drives clicking away often drowned out the speakers lmao.
I recently found labtec CS-150 (NOS) in one those kinda of packaging you would find batteries or other cheap electronics. I got them because the we're good deal. I also like that packaging advertises use it as portable speakers for all devices that have a 3.5mm jack.They be cheap but better then ones I'm currently using I think on my main PC now. If I turn the volume control above 50% you hear feedback like one speakers is wired up as a microphone and the sound is as good as nails on chalkboard ( the really don't sound that bad ). I took them apart to clean the volume control and I noticed that the soldering was done very badly the just set the wires on the pads of the circuit board. then soldered them and hopped they would never come off. I was amazed that the still work 20+ years later and the are show light thatyou can't turn volume control or power button without holding the speakers or the move really easily.
Good New Zealand music there. Thumbs up!
God bless i was able to secretely aquire (steal it, so to speak) my brothers big ghetto blaster back in '93 to use it as a PC speaker with amplifier and integrated subwoofer. The sound of Rebel Assault, Doom and TIE Fighter was pure gold on this thing. Too bad they don't make real ghetto blasters anymore. Today i use a pair of the modern ancestors of these Creative speakers. I have to confess they aren't even that bad.
5:32 - HEY, a disco tape from my birthday! (12/31/77) :-D
7:13 - Yes it is, good sir! Reached #1 in October of '77. Much better than the #1 of December '77, "You Light Up My Life."
11:26 - For the viewers, that's not the camera's mic making the audio sound bad... That's exactly how they sounded in real life!
I have fond memories of having an old 386 in my basement with a 2X CD-ROM and a SoundBlaster 16 driving actual home stereo speakers directly, solely for the purpose of having CD music to listen to. Still surprised to this day that the sound card could power 8Ω speakers so loudly with no distortion!
As a kid, I had a pair of Koss SA/30Ms (Creative Labs and Labtec sold rebranded versions IIRC) zip-tied to my bicycle handlebars, with my Aiwa TX-446 Walkman belt-clipped to the rear shifter cable, and thought I was hot $#it because I had the only bicycle with a "stereo system."
And yes, the Bass Boost was laughable, but the Treble Boost was always needed, and the cord arrangement for these was a bit of a nightmare. The volume sliders ALWAYS developed wiper noise. HORRID. Man, did they eat through 4 C-size batteries!
That out-of-phase thing, though... WOW, total noob mistake.
My first computer had Sound Blaster CT-38 speakers! My uncle gave us his old Packard Bell 386 SX25 and it came with Sound Blaster 16 card installed.
I think they have good sound for their size, and I used to blast them with C batteries on high school marching band bus trips while hooked up to my portable CD player or 4th gen iPod classic. I have a lot of nostalgia for the CT-38s pictured on the box.
I was surprised to hear Slaid Cleves on here, a wonderful, practically unknown artist.
I can confirm that the speakers pictured on the box were Labtec speakers. My brother had the same speakers, minus the Sound Blaster brand.
I had the same model at home, i did still use them also for music for atleast 10 years after i bought my next computer.
Actually, as each speaker has its own amplifier DIP chip, chances are they used it in "bridge" mode and not "stereo", so it's an impresive 1.35W at 4 ohms output!!
But as I showed it's using 8 ohm speakers, which are less efficient than 4 ohm speakers, so the output is probably less than 1 watt per channel.
I had the PCI version of the Soundblaster 16, back in 2000. Really loved that thing a lot. The music of "Ken's Labyrinth" sounded awesome with it. A lot different than the OPL2 emulation of DOSBox.
i made a pair of battery operated labtec speakers, my speakers are rechargeable through usb and will last about 6 hours on a full charge, i will make am connectable through bluetooth for the full wireless experience, and they go pretty loud, nice to take outside with some friends
I think my best friend's Compaq Preario PC came with this set of Labtec speakers. When we got a sound card put in our 486 in 1996 we got a pair or cheap KTX brand speakers, they weren't that great as you can imagine, but to add insult to injury, the speakers we had weren't even stereo. Yes. Sound came out of both speakers, but it was monaural, no stereo separation of any kind whatsoever. I tried connecting them to my walkman and other devices, and still there was no stereo separation, all sounds came out of both speakers. Can you believe it? Our speakers ran on 6 C size batteries.
Fake stereo? Wow.
Well, yes if that's what you want to call it, those speakers produced fake stereo. In 1997 when we had a CD-ROM drive added to our PC we bought a new set of Compro brand speakers, and they weren't that expensive either, I think they were maybe $70. By this time I had damaged the KTX speakers, so we couldn't really use them by then.
And of course the new Compro speakers we bought did produce true stereophonic sound, and they sounded very good.
+Lachlant1984 +kbhasikevinYTP Unfortunately, fake stereo speakers still exist to this day. An example is those MCL Samar 360W speakers you can find on Amazon for the French market ("360W" definitely not being a power rating). One of the worst garbage I've ever seen sold as speakers. Extremely fragile (drop them and they're dead), flimsy wires including the AC cable and speakers aren't even wired in stereo. Yes, the amp in those work in mono. Volume slider is a mono one. Sound coming out of them is still an L+R sum however. They're probably rebranded cheap no-name junk sold as entry level computer speakers even for businesses. The equivalent of no-name computer PSUs, but for speakers. Avoid at all cost.
Eww, yuck, those do sound like dreadful speakers. You say the wiring is flimsy and you mention the power cord is flimsy. I hope those speakers use an AC Adaptor and the power cord is supplying low voltage DC. That sounds like an electrocution or fire hazard just waiting to happen.
I have found many Logitech computer speakers at the secondhand store basically the Generation after these showed in this video. Some of them brand-new in the box, the very beginning of basic 2.1's. Even found a couple 5.1 by different companies
Oh shit my oldest brother had those same MLI unamplified speakers. They were so shitty they actually made a better microphone than a set of speakers. I'm not kidding, we used those speakers as microphones.
Sound Blast me daddy
That sounds fun!
That was indeed MECO.
As if it really matters is probably what they said while building them. Cool video.
Great video love the content always very informative
I remember the speakers my first *computer* came with! They were even worse! They only had a mono amplifier in them, even though there were 2 speakers but wired in mono. Those labtec speakers would barely be audible if plugged into a modern music player as the output of those modern devices is so low. As for playing modern music on them, well you wouldn't hear anything since today's music is nothing but bass.
You mean pop music. XD I'm always amazed when people talk about "modern music" and can only talk about pop music that plays on the radio. If you're really into high-quality audio, or high-quality music, then you should already have discovered hundreds of modern, high-quality bands with high dynamic range and a respect for all instruments in the music.
I used to have those speakers on my old 386dx 40.
Somthing about hearing music on a budget will always intrigue me.
below said Cleaves. i love that song
IC-KA2209 is a Samsung 3.5 watt amp chip. This is 2x1W stereo amplifier circuit based on single IC KA2209. IC KA2209 is an equivalent IC to the TDA2822, you can use TDA2822 if you can’t find KA2209. It is ideal for battery powered operation since the supply required for this circuit is 2V to 9VDC. Power output depends critically on speaker resistance & supply voltage. At 3V into 4 ohm speakers the power is 0.1W. At 6V into 4 ohm speakers it is 0.65W. At 9V it is over 1W.
Read more circuitscheme.com/2x1w-stereo-amplifier-with-ic-ka2209.html
My first computer speakers were the Labtec SS-100. I got them to go with my Amiga 500.
Haha i have these Labtec.. but my first Pc speakers are make with two cans of Cocacola and two speakers on the top.. works fine for a kid solution with no money, and Sound Blaster pro gold has internal amp to move the coils very well!
From back when computers were beige🤤
Ah, good ol ISA slotted Sound Blaster 16.
Reminds me of my first PC speakers. Kinda grating to listen to these now.
Had a pair of those labtec speakers at school in the 90s. Hated the separate volume controls. I had a pair of the sound blaster speakers at home and thought they were slightly better than the labtec. Had some of those unpowered mli speakers as well as some skinny tall powered mli speakers that sounded awful. What is the name of that song that was talking about the old dirt road?
Slaid Cleaves - "Below"
I'll always associate these kind of speakers with using library computers in elementary school
Multimedia encyclopaedias on CD-ROM for the win.
I sure am glad I got a pair of Gateway 2000-branded Altec Lansing speakers for 6 bucks instead of these things...
Kinda reminds me of the Polk Audio speakers I think I remembered my cousin using with her HP Pavilion (Windows 98 SE) back in the day, but at this point, I can't really remember, but what I could remember was her sending the PC off to one of those door-to-door junk collectors instead of selling it off.
Audio geek that I am, I got the Altec Lansing set with a powered subwoofer. It was better than most boomboxes at the time, not to mention these things.
Oh man, neither of my two sets came with a subwoofer!
I think the 200mA power supply isnt powerful enough to push the speakers to their full potential, which is indicated by the flickering led light when you have everything turned up i've noticed similar things with some of my PC speakers or iPod docks hooked up with a power supply that doesnt have enough amps.
That Star Wars disco version is famous. Its by Meco.
I take the computer speaker find was a "sound idea"?
I have owned both the Labtec and MLI speakers. I think the MLI came pre-packaged with an Acer 486 that my mom got years ago.
I owned both back in the day, for whatever reason the SB badged speakers did sound a whole lot better than the Labtecs. I remeber them being a lot heavier (w/o any batteries).
I noticed the SoundBlaster ones had some styrofoam inside, supposedly for magnetic shielding, the heavier ones usually had SLIGHTLY better speakers with larger magnets. I've had the SB, Labtec, and Koss varieties of the same speaker.
nice little speakers would be good to use on a PC or laptop.
8 track into 90's computer speakers? It doesn't get more hi fi than that!
I remember having Labtec with the first PC we've owned back in the MS-DOS 5.0/Win 3.1 days, and I do attest to the "quality" of these. LOL!
Those are better than the speakers I am using now.
Yeah, on my PC, I just have a set of crappy Logitechs that I got for FREE. :)
Really nice video. Those speakers are complete crap. For grins, what's the name of the song at 14:37? I believe I've heard it somewhere before. Anyways, nice job. -Henry
There is no 14:37 in the video. But if you're referring to the last song, it's Split Enz - "I Got You".
Thanks! Yeah it was a typo; I meant to say 13:37
Hey I love Split Enz!
Can't remember if I had the SBS38 or the CT-38...both models look identical...But I do remember they had pretty good sound (when using the bass boost of course)
early PC speakers had things to hang them fromthe top of the monitor, im pretty sure it was labtec (aa powered only) speakers that came with my soundblaster card in about 1992
You should look for the Creative Cambridge SoundWorks Audio PC speakers. Those were sweet.
Huh...Definitely wasn't expecting Slaid Cleaves to be used to testing music...
My dad had a pair of these... they came with his circa 1994 Gateway 2000 desktop running Windows 3.1.1 for Workgroups. Yes I agree they sounded terrible. We used them with our Compaq computer until we got another brand new computer with Boston Acoustics BA745 satellite and subwoofer speakers. Then I realized just how crappy these were.
Modern cheap pc speakers come with a sub for extra vague but loud upper bass response. The drivers on the satellites are often optimized for treble details and the mids are just missing. Nobody seems to care about midrange frequencies on pc speakers. I'm not sure if that is really an improvement.
What are those cool disco tunes?
Those things were plentiful in Goodwill about ten years ago.
I remember getting a computer which had some free speakers. Problem was they weren't amplified so were very quiet!
I remember these!
I clearly remember these hunks of plastic junk, as a friend of mind had them for his windows 95 computer because his father found them in Big Lots for cheap, but thankfully during much of the 90's I was using a my Panasonic boombox with 5 band equalizer with an Radio Shack stereo audio to 3.5mm adapter going to the sound blaster 16 of my computer, and it was also nice because my PC did not have a front headphone jack, and my boom box had one, and with a headphone extension cable I could lay in bed all night listening to early Netscape radio and later shoutcast all at 56Kbps dialup speeds lol! although the streams I used where usually 16kbps to 24kbps so I could also run my IRC client for chat rooms lol!
I own Soundblaster speakers and i think they are pretty good and flat sounded. Nothing special but good referens speaker. I listened this video out of this this speakers :D
I always keep a few variable barrel power adaptors (with interchangable centre) for situations like these. Unless I'd be needing a stepdown/up with significant wattage requirement, these old junk electronics didn't meed that much power to bring to life.