Alesis M1 Active 320USB

320USB Monitors are ultracompact, 2-way nearfield monitors, with a 3'' woofer, 1'' tweeter [1'' tweeters seem to be shrinking over the years!] 1/4'' MDF enclosure w/ 3/8'' front baffle.

-These are powered speakers with their own D/A converter. NOT bi-amped. They put out about 10 watts per channel, which is reasonable with these speakers' efficient drivers.
-Online you may see these sold as poly-cone woofers. I took off the grilles and they are unmistakably paper. The tweeter is a cloth dome. They are spec'd to cut off at 80hz but slope off a little lower than that. They easily reproduce 20khz.
-Crossover cap is 4.7uf 50v, which if I'm not mistaken means the tweeter is crossed over around 4.7khz?
-Connections: 1/8'' stereo, 1/4'' unbalanced, RCA, USB input. Powered speaker weighs about 5 lbs, the unpowered speaker is not really even heavy enough to plant it firmly on a speaker stand. Even just a lead weight inside would be an improvement.

-Let's get the bad news out of the way first:
These speakers are badly sealed. At 100hz there is VERY serious chuffing from the headphone jack. Mine is taped up, it was so bad. I have all the unused jacks at the rear taped as well. The improvement is immediately noticeable.
-The cheesy enclosures, the tuning and the port chuffing all resonate together right around 100hz, the same frequency as the bass boost, rendering that feature pretty much useless for serious mixing.
-These speakers come with metal grilles, which seem to cut off the treble around 16khz. If you are very careful you can remove just the tweeter grille, it pays great dividends in mixworthyness. The treble is still a little grainy sounding from the electrolytic crossover caps.
-Now the good news!:
Apart from the resonance issue around 100hz, these speakers have decent bass for their size, relatively flat in response [again, discounting the resonance], they have nice transient response from the small, lightweight paper drivers.
-Also owing to the 3'' drivers, the crossover frequency is nice and high, not right smack in the middle like the Monitor 1 MKII, which crosses over at 2khz. Because the drivers are small they beam less than larger drivers, and have nice off-axis response. I have not been able to distort the amp, even with non-standard internet audio. I have not tried a hot line input.
-The headphone jack: either the impedance is a mismatch for my Senn HD 280 Pros, or I am just hearing that the amp is sort of sonically tailored to give flat freq. response with the drivers. It's not far off, but for serious heaphone monitoring I plug in elsewhere.

These monitors are tiny, and they sound pretty alright. They will fit in your backpack. And though I don't like the metal grilles for what they do to the treble, I do like that they are pretty indestructable.

I don't want people to think I have a bad opinion about these speakers. They are probably the highest fidelity speaker/amp combo for the price EVER. $100 for speakers that do 80-17,000hz with reasonably flat response is mind blowing.
If I lost these I would upgrade, no doubt. However, these speakers got me recording at a time when I was poor, and for that I will always love them. I also have a fondness for fast transients, small drivers, and high crossover frequencies.
If you like big honkin' frat-boy speakers with 15'' woofers and nasty crossovers right in midrange, these are not for you. Then again, if you like fratboy speakers audio engineering is probably not for you either.