It's pretty hard to evaluate computer speakers being an audiophile. As such I expect whatever speaker (car, home, theater or in this case, multimedia) to do what it's supposed to do- reproduce sound accurately.
The Altec Lansing BXR1121 has a characteristic of its own making music sound colored. Tonal balance is jagged with a sharp dropoff above 8khz (which is expected, having no dedicated high frequency driver).
The subwoofer does make its presence felt (as advertised) though sadly, this is as far as it goes.
Overall- it's probably better than the pair that came free with your PC, but these Altec speakers cannot be used as reference speakers by those who edit music.
Final note: Inaccurate as it is, I still chose these over the ones I've auditioned- Altec VS4121 and 2421 which sounded too equalized with too much emphasis on the frequency extremes which is good for show offs, Creatives T10 which sounded overly bright, and Logitech's R20 which sounded no better than their cheapest SP100 speakers.