A couple years ago, I was in need of a new set of speakers for my computer. The Cambridge Soundworks speakers I was using (purchased well before their assimilation by Creative Labs) had been going strong for many years. However, they had required a repair the year before (blown capacitor in the subwoofer) and the volume control was becoming a touchy beast. If the control was bumped, it could cause all sound to be lost in one of the channels. Thus began a frustrating exercise of tapping the control with one finger until full stereo sound was once again achieved.
At the recommendation of several people whose opinions I value, I looked in to the Klipsch line of computer speakers. I narrowed the choices down to the Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 and the ProMedia GMX A-2.1. The price was the same for both units. Not being much of an audiophile myself, the difference in specifications between the two models meant very little. Therefore, I settled on the ProMedia 2.1's for two reasons: 1) more aesthetically pleasing - the industrial look of the GMX's was a little much for me, and 2) I couldn't find the GMX speakers anywhere in a store to listen to them, whereas the ProMedia 2.1's were everywhere.
The ProMedia 2.1 speakers have been a great investment. The bass is solid, strong, and deep. The highs are crisp and sound natural to my amateur ears. But like most things technological, they are not without their gripes either.
The power switch is located on the subwoofer. If you're like me and place it someplace out of the way (like under or behind your computer desk), this makes turning them off rather inconvenient. Your best bet is to plug them in to a power strip mounted under the desk and use that to control power to all the devices you wish to turn off when your computer is not in use.
The biggest problem I've encountered with them is the quality of the DIN plug that runs from the main control pod to the subwoofer. This plug carries the audio signal from your computer to the subwoofer. It's always been a bit touchy in that if the connection isn't 100% solid, you'll lose most of the bass or even audio altogether. The problem is that the connection never really feels 100% solid. It's kind of loose and wiggly. Many times, I've bumped this plug with my feet ever so slightly causing my sound to go crazy.
Over time, I've noticed the plug becoming more and more touchy. When it was acting up, I would have to wiggle the plug more and more to get full sound restored. About a month ago, I powered up my computer and noticed that my speakers had no power whatsoever. No amount of wiggling and finagling of the DIN plug restored power to my speakers.
As the speakers were out of warranty, I had little choice but to visit the Klipsch web site in search of answers. It was on their forums that I saw that this isn't an uncommon problem and it's caused many a customer loads of frustration. How common is this problem? Common enough that their forum administrator has posted a wiring diagram for the plug so that customers can purchase a replacement cable from Radio Shack and splice it in to their speakers to replace the faulty one. It's also common enough that enterprising individuals are marketing their services on eBay to do the replacement for those that don't trust their soldering skills or can't read a wiring diagram themselves.
Browsing through the forum archives, you'll see that there are many complaints and accusations being thrown about by customers who believe Klipsch is knowingly selling a sub-par product. Their administrator stands by the product (of course) and dismisses the complaints with the classic "if this were a design problem, we'd receive more complaints" response. As biased as you might believe my opinion to be (as one of the affected individuals), I believe the evidence suggests otherwise.
What makes this even more unbelievable is the fact that Klipsch sells replacement control pods through their online store (the offending plug is hard-wired to this control pod). However, it appears that Klipsch cannot keep this part in stock for longer than a few days. In the month mine have been broken, they have been listed as unavailable. Browsing through forum archives shows that they usually get a shipment in every couple of months and they sell out the same day they're put up for sale. If I'm not mistaken, the part comes from China and is only made available in small quantities.
Shouldn't all this be telling Klipsch something? Their customers are complaining about a faulty product. They cannot keep enough replacement parts available in stock to meet demand. To counter this, they post a wiring diagram for the offending part on their official company forums to satisfy those with the inclination to risk frying their subwoofer (and put them in the market for an entirely new $150 system).
At the moment, I'm leaning towards attempting the repair myself (with some assistance from one whose soldering skills are superior to my own). I'm not inclined to purchase another potentially faulty unit from the manufacturer and I'm certainly not willing to pay an eBay'er more money to fix them for me.
I'm not sure when I'll need to replace these speakers once and for all, but when I do, I'll have to think long and hard about whether the good times with these speakers has outweighed the bad.