Strange speaker placement on T series?

[TonyJZX]

I think overall the sound quality is ok.

I'm not so impressed with the sound quality thru the 3.5mm jack.

However the placement of the speakers makes music sound better if you tilt the laptop up and stare at the bottom.

Or if the edge of the laptop where the speakers are point at your face.

They sound worse when you are typing away at it.

Did deaf people design the speaker setup on the T series?

[dr_st]

Actually, there is often an advantage when sound rebounds off the desk, instead of going straight up at you.

[starbork]

Hehe, yeah I actually prefer the underledge placement on the T2x as opposed to the under-your-wrists placement on say, the 600. A friend and I traveled all over Costa Rica with a 600, and it made a great music machine, but to get decent sound out of it we would set it upside down on it's open lid, with the speakers pointing straight out.

Man that little 600 kept on truckin. Writing journal entries on the back of rickey-butt dusty chicken busses jouncing down the worst roads known to man, late night tunes on the beach (shake the sand out the next morning), even used it as an emergency light several times when the sporadic electricity would fritz in our beach bungalow.

It's still kicking in a Chicago loft as part of a DJ rig

All reverie aside, I do see your point, and when not on a hard surface the speaker placement can result in some muted or muffled sound. Anyone know if anyone yet makes a kick butt pcmcia (or USB?) sound card?

[Orevin]

The T series was not meant to be a multi media machine and I think it does a good job. I have a few Dell C610 over here and the sound seems to come out of the internal PC speaker... beep beep....

Anyone know if anyone yet makes a kick butt pcmcia (or USB?) sound card?

I've heard good things about the Creative Audigy 2 (PCMCIA) from a DJ

[schen]

As already pointed out, the design goals of these machines are not as mobile media centers, so how they do is pretty good overall considering. Actually, one of the main issues is the problem with keeping the size down on a machine that is expected to travel regularly and well. Secondly, although they sounded pretty good, there were many complaint regarding the location of the speaker in the 600s not the least of which was the it was under the lid when the machine was docked and an external monitor in use. Someone did point out in an earlier post that the sound bouncing off of a hard surface made sense. Although I'm not absolutely certain that IBM used it as a design parameter, this is an actual acoustical law called "boundary effect", where the soundwaves are reinforced by using the corner created where the edge of the angled bottom meets the table (or other hard surface). That is why subwoofers sound much stronger (although less accurate) when place in the corner of the room. The downside is that you not only don't get boundary effect when placed on a soft surface or in a lap, but there are always trade-off you make in any design. The alternative would be the 9-11lb beast such as the Toshiba Qosmio.