Provided By: Harman Kardon
Retail Price: $150.00 - $200.00
Review Date: 12/12/04
Written By: Rusty Newton

What we have here is a unique 2.1 setup from
Harman Kardon that you have probably seen but not had
a chance to play with. 
We have seen a few reviews on these but not enough,
so Harman Kardon decided to let us have a looksee for ourselves.

TechAbsorbed wants to know why they are so unique and see
if they are worthy of us gadget loving geeks. 

In The Box:

This unit was sent to me from the manufacturer so theres no reason to show the packaging. Lets get straight to whats inside.

Apparently very snugly packed in, here we see the Power Adapter.

After removing the first layer, we see the slender satellites.

Removing the items we see that besides the speakers we have
the power adapter with a Very long cord, also instruction manual
and warranty cards.

The way the subwoofer unit is packed in you could not even see it in the box so here it is out of the box...

 
...and with the satellites, click to zoom in!

Design & Features:

Tech Specs:

• Plug and play: Yes
• Finish: Translucent Plastic
• Powered: Yes
• Power: subwoofer: 20 watts RMS, satellites: 10 Watts RMS per channel
• Wall-mountable: No
• Weather-resistant: No
• THX-certified: No
• Crossover points: None
• Remote included: No
• Audio tone controls: No
• Frequency range: 44Hz - 20kHz
• Woofers (diameter): subwoofer: 6 inches; 9.15 inches diam. x 10.16 inches
• Satellites (diameter each): 2 inches diameter x 10 inches

Physical Design, outside: 

Most people will really really like the looks of the SoundSticks II, they are completely transparent. The only drawback to this is the clear acrylic they are made of, being so clear it is prone to smudges, dust, scratches etc. It all makes you want to be very careful when moving them around, that is if you care that much about how they look anyways, and I am supposing you do care if you buy speakers like these.

 I expected some kinda internal lighting for the SoundSticks II since they are transparent, but the only light is in the subwoofer. It is just a small power LED, there to let you know the power is on, not to add accent lighting.

 The SoundSticks II would look great in a bright lit room or an office. In a dark gamingprogramming den it might be hard to see your transparent speakers.

Physical Design, Insides:

 Heres a close up of some of the insides.

 
Left: Satellite,  Right: Subwoofer

the Harman Kardon decal, On the front of the subwoofer.

As you can see they are very well built, very clean inside, High Quality Harman Kardon work.

Next:

Next we will talk about the audio quality and features like the capacitance volume control.