Harman Kardon SoundStick 4 Bluetooth Speaker System (Factory Reconditioned)

I've always wanted Soundsticks for a Mac, ever since they first came out, and as I was no longer using a triple 27 inch monitor setup (thanks to the limitations of the M1), I thought now was a good time to try some tall satellites which formerly would have been hidden behind monitors. 1: The look I've always liked how soundsticks looked, but this new 4th generation I wasn't quite sure about; I just bought it because it was the newest version. Since I've had it, however, it's really grown on me. The satellites in particular have an organic quality that I find very appealing. They also take up very little desk space too since they're much taller than wide. They will not, however, fit underneath a monitor, so they're a bit limited in where you can use them. The subwoofer is the showpiece, and it is extremely eye-catching, but the lighting is limited in two opposite ways. Sometimes I want the light off so as not to have a glowing distraction in the corner of my eye, and there's no way (that I can find) to do that. Alternatively, if you want to use a wired connection (if you've got a ton of BT interference, for instance), the lightning can't be turned on. Bizarre. 2: The size The satellites are highly space efficient, which is in stark contrast to the absolutely enormous subwoofer. I had no idea it was going to be this comically oversized. There's a sense in which it's so large as to be almost a parody of a PC speaker system, like someone mocked it up as a joke. Don't get me wrong; I understand that subs can be enormous, but rarely are those intended to sit on your desk the way the HK's are. It will absolutely consume your desk, so you will inevitably put it on the floor, in which case, you won't get the cool looks you bought it for. I would be much happier if this were half the size or even smaller, which seems doable since my HomePod can match or exceed its bass at a fraction of the size. 3: The sound I'm no audiophile, and these sound fine to me. I suspect that for most PC/Mac speaker needs, these will do a very good job. I tend to use good (if not amazing) desk speakers, like the SBX Katana on my PC, and this can hang with those. Many reviewers have said that the bass is completely out of balance on these, and I find myself to be very sensitive to bass; I tend to like a lot less than most. Despite this, I'd say the sound is very balanced. It's a lot less "boomy" than my HomePod, for instance. I don't have any discrete bass control, which would be nice, but I've honestly never felt the need to adjust it, and I actually usually do turn bass down on new speakers. 4: The problems The biggest issue is the hum. The sub emits a moderately loud hum, basically the sound you expect to hear from aging fluorescent tubes. Underneath my desk, the noise is tolerable, and I only hear it in total silence. On my desk, it's very annoying, and any time there's a pause between songs or dialogue, I'm immediately aware of it. That's not to say it's loud; it isn't. It's just constantly audible in the background. Eventually the speaker goes to sleep and you suddenly feel this sense of relief because you realize that you've been tuning out this noise the entire time. The are some other very minor issues that I think most people will be able to live with. I've highlighted some small cosmetic issues; a weird mark on one of (and only one of) the drivers which is hardly noticeable, and you can see some regular drops of glue that are probably normal on the sub; these are a little more noticeable because your attention is really drawn to inspect this little piece of art. There's also a lot of fine hairlines that came on the speakers new; this doesn't bode well for long term usage, so you want to be super careful with these or they might look dull in 5 years, but again, I think I'm just extremely nitpicky. Most people would find this to be acceptable. It's really the hum that bothers me; I could live with the tiny cosmetic issues, and most people wouldn't notice. 5: The volume controls and sleep mode A lot of people complained about how this speaker automatically goes to sleep after enough time passes. I expected this to drive me crazy, but it really hasn't. It takes maybe 1-2 seconds for mine to resume playback, and it's just never delayed me enough to get on my nerves. I wish it didn't go to sleep, don't get me wrong, and it really ought not to, but it's not a big deal. People have also complained about the volume controls being on the sub instead of the satellite. I can definitely see how that would annoy you, particularly if you put it under your desk. But for my purposes, I just left it at default volume and controlled it with my computer, and that worked perfectly fine. I find that the volume controls become a lot more important if you use an aux cable, for obvious reasons (which I tested just for the sake of testing). I suppose I would say that, if you intend to use an aux cable, then you probably need to worry about the volume controls being reachable, but if you're on BT, it's no issue at all. 6: The support I jumped onto chat with HK about these things where they told me that chat support was only for "Harman Kardon Lifestyle Products" and that I had to e-mail their support system with a lot of information. This struck me as bizarre; why not support your most iconic product. Not a big deal though, I e-mailed them as instructed and two business days later I got a reply asking for a ton of technical information. Again, pretty ordinary stuff, but what struck me is this quote: "I see that your HK Soundsticks 4 has some damage, please be advised that physical damage is not covered under warranty." I really never claimed they were damaged; I was just asking if these things were normal or not. But what was really striking was that they claimed that physical damage wasn't covered under warranty; keep in mind that these are maybe 3 days old at this point. Physical damage isn't covered under the warranty? Then what is? Software damage? I don't know of any way to read that other than that nothing can ever be covered under the warranty. So at that point, I'd had enough and didn't bother replying. The e-mail implied that it wouldn't matter what I said anyway, I'd be buying replacement parts for the new speakers if the "issues" were abnormal. While the sound of these is good, you could say the same thing for iLoud Micro Monitors or AE A2+s or numerous other speakers at this price range; you're buying HK Soundsticks for their design. I don't mind paying extra for design, but if the whole point is to put this on your desk as an aesthetic marvel, you can't make it hum annoyingly loud, you need to give control of the lighting to the user, you can't take up a huge area of the desk, and you can't have numerous, albeit admittedly small, cosmetic defects. Any one of these things, other than the hum, would have been tolerable, but it really adds up. They don't feel like "beta" devices, but there are a lot of easy fixes on the table for a V2.0. I'm not saying that no one should buy these; they're competent. If you don't mind sacrificing the desk space and love how they look, then I think these are still viable. Most people aren't as obsessively detail-oriented as I am and aren't even going to notice the small cosmetic defects. But I wouldn't use these in super quiet environments like my office; the hum will very gradually drive you insane. In a moderately loud office or area where there's a constant low background noise, you might not even notice the hum, but I tend to work in total silence in my home so I'm admittedly more susceptible to this than a lot of people will be.