Like the 2.0 Soundstage Speakers, the Eagle Tech 2.1 Multimedia Speakers evoke a sense of affordable class and refinement – again, something that would fit perfectly inside the modern home. On a personal note, though, the 2.0 Soundstage Speakers has a slightly more unique look to it – and it would be nice to see that in the 2.1 Multimedia Speakers as well in the next design. That aside, the wooden enclosure for the speakers and subwoofer is sturdy and is really quite nice overall, adding a touch of sophistication.

As for the wiring layout, there’s not much to say as it’s a rather standard design for a 2.1 speaker set. The speakers plug into the subwoofer and the subwoofer is then connected to the computer, MP3 player, or HDTV through the line-out audio cable. What’s noticeably nice about this particular set, though, is it uses a standard two-prong plug instead of a bulky adapter like some competitor’s designs.


The Sound
The Eagle Arion 2.1 Multimedia Speaker set provides rather good value for the money. Like the 2.0 set, the sound is on par with what you would expect from a product of its price tag. Given the small footprint of these speakers and subwoofer, however, it does push some pretty big sound for its size – a pleasant surprise, I should add.

Now let’s get to the test. The 2.1 speaker and subwoofer set was added to a home entertainment set up in a living room environment, consisting of a Shuttle small form factor HTPC, a Pioneer karaoke system, and a Samsung plasma TV. The first round of testing was with sound coming from the HTPC and the second round was with sound coming from the karaoke system.

As with the 2.0 set, I tested the speakers listening to various genres of music. This time around, I only tested the sound using CDs – and not YouTube – as we have more faith in the quality of the music file with a CD (you never know with the files on YouTube). With better control over the music file quality, what I can say is that I was quite impressed with the sound. I played back several songs – from R&B to hip hop to alternative rock and everything sounded great. There was little, if any, distortion and the sound was fine, even with the volume up to 75%. Bass was also quite good for a subwoofer of that size.

For round two, I tested the speakers with karaoke music videos, played back on a Pioneer system. The system itself usually pushes out pretty good sound, no matter what speakers I’ve tried, so I expect the sound coming from the Eagle Arion 2.1 set to be just as good – if not better – than that from the HTPC. And indeed, the sound was impressive. While it would not be fair to compare the sound to a standard home theater set up with floor standing speakers and a big-box subwoofer, given the size and the price tag, I was very much impressed what I heard.

The verdict: I would highly recommend the Eagle Arion 2.1 Multimedia Speakers to anyone looking for an affordable home entertainment speaker set for a dorm room, bedroom, or small family room (it’s going for about $30, street price, at the time of this article). Any room bigger in size would probably require bigger speakers in order to appropriately fill the room with sound, but realistically speaking, you should not expect an entry-level speaker set to replace something like a set of Polk Audio floor standing speakers anyway.