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Logitech Z-680 Dolby 5.1 PC Speakers Reviewed
PhatBass writes "PC Speakers certainly have come a long way from the little buzzers we used to
listen to before the days of SoundBlaster. Remember the 'Windows Speaker
Driver' that gave you more than beeps and buzzing through the little cone in
your case? Well now we have full Dolby Surround Sound setups, THX
Certified, the works, for Gaming, DVD and Multimedia bliss. Take a look at
the
sweet Z-680 setup from Logitech that is reviewed here, they sport 1000 Watts
of Peak Power, a hardware Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 Decoder, Digital Inputs and
serious style."
For the price of most PC Surround sound speakers and cards you could buy a nice Surround Sound stereo system and run your PC audio through it, and it usually sounds alot better. I have seen it done mayof times and the sound quality is superb.
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
When will speaker manufacturers stop quoting meaningless figures?
Not if you plan to power it with your on-board chip or internal audiocard.
Its not the speakers so much as the soundcard (and the placement of its ad/da converters) that makes a PC worthy of an audiophiles interest. As long as the converters are sitting on a PCI card, or worse yet, on-board, interference is bound to turn the average audiophile away.
There exist solutions for getting the converters outside the PC case (breakout boxes) that certainly help, and if you keep it digital all the way from PC to your sound-system (no i dont mean a cheapy set of speakers from Logitech) things can get even cleaner. The Hammerfall and DIGI cards from RME for instance are a nice option in this case.
But then if you're talking true audiophile, they'd laugh at even thinking about having a PC anywhere near where they plan to listen to music. The fans on pretty much any moderm PC lift your ambient sound-floor to somewhere in the -60db range regardless of the quality of your output chain.
So the answer is no. If an audiophile is going to spend $10,000 to buy a set of headphones, they dont want a PC. But then there are audiophiles and there are audiophiles.
"I'm tired of all this 'Aren't humanity great' bullshit. We're a virus with shoes" - Bill Hicks
Same with the characteristic "Watt" itself. Root Mean Square? Peak value? ...? - not really comparable.
btw, thank you for the good comment.
Your right, this is a silly question.
Why buy a PC as a media station when you can buy a stereo?
My PC is my media station, because i live in a dorm room where space is at a premium. Surround sounds setups don't crowd the desk either, because most speakers for these systems are either mean to be wall or floor mounted. THe only thing taking up space on your desk is the decoder box and possibly the center channel. Also, in my case, the monitor is clearly larger than my TV. I prefer a crappy 19" over 13" any day. Also, how many Stero systems do you know of that will play MP3s, OGGs, WMF, DiVx in any flavor, and quicktimes? Not only that, but with Vivo you can hook up your game systems and have everything integrated.
In terms of versatility, there is no "true" stereo setup that can match a PC right now. It may not be pretty, and it has its fair share of PC quirks, but when space is a premium and you want semi-cheap versatility, give me a good PC with a nice sound and video setup anyday.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
I agree with you that PMPO is misleading. But your assumption that those teensy little speakers powered by their teensy little power supply can put out 505 watts continuous is completely ludicrous. Maybe 5 watts.
Your problem is that you took a completely fanciful peak power number and assumed it had anything to do with reality. Peak power ratings for a speaker have nothing to do with reality.
Plenty of people have pointed out that 1000W PMPO is irrelevant, but I will tell you that the total of 505W RMS doesn't mean that much either - at least without other information.
What I want to know is: how many decibels @ 1W, 1m? I have a pair of speakers which are 200W each, and I bet they're louder! There's also the harmonic dirstortion - will the system start flattening out sine waves when it gets near the maximum output level?
Here's another thing: the quoted range for the system is 35Hz - 20kHz, but they don't specify the frequency deviation. If it's more than +/- 3dB, then it's going to start sounding uneven.
Someone asked about the difference between good speakers and bad ones. Here's a couple:
That last one is something I really appreciate with my speakers. Try this: turn your speakers up to a good volume, good pumping bass etc. Then turn them right down - can you still hear the bass? On cheapers systems that'll disappear quicker than the higher frequencies. Good speakers will "kick" without being intrusive.
-- Steve
I agree whole heartedly with the parent comment, with a couple of reservations.
HiFi store for nice sound quality. HiFi speakers are designed to sound "nice" to your ears, by introducing various colorations that are not present in the original signal
I disagree with the term 'colorations' - this suggests that various extra signals can be introduced by speakers. Generally this can only be true for processing components like the pre amp, pre amp or the DAC. Speakers only vary in thier response at a particular frequency.
If you want to have accurate sound reproduction, you should consider buying studio monitors
Well yes and no. Monitors are designed for as flat a frequency response as possible and therefore be as unforgiving as possible of the source signal. That in itself will not give you a 'nice' sound quality, it will only show you the colorations in the rest of the system.
If you use Near Field Monitors than you are using speakers that are specifically designed to present the stereo image when right on top of them, whereas most HiFi speakers will only present an accurate image at a distance roughly equivalent to thier seperation.
If you are using the speakers in a normal PC setup then you need Near Field Monitors such as those produced by the late TDL, or as you suggest the Spirits (Haven't checked your other recommendations, always myself found Tannoys a little bright)
On a PC I doubt you really want a monitor grade sound reproduction system. They are designed to be totally unforgiving and highlight every single detail in the sound field. On a PC the hiss and pop of the 2 dollar DAC is going to be in your face, the distortions from MP3 compression, all that nasty clicking and buzzing becuase the sound card is unshielded and sitting in a fairly harsh RF environment.
Besides 'clinical' sound quality is not the same as 'good' sound quality. A totally clinical reprodcution is very tiring to listen to beacuse the faults are so obvious it detracts from the stuff that is okay.
For most people I would advise go and listen to the stuff you want to buy, NO HiFi component is perfect in its response so put together a chain of components that sound pleasing to your ear. If you listen for pleasure then your requirements are different from those running a home studio.
The better and more transparent you make your system the less source material you will have to play on it. Its no surprise that the majority of CD's are mastered with compression and effects and a tonal balance to make them sound good on 100 dollar boom boxes because thats 95% of the market - on a good HiFi it will sound terrible, on a monitor grade system unlistenable. Its no coincidence that most HiFi enthusiasts end up listening to classical music and live concert albums, as these are the few that are general produced in a tonal flat manner.
Put it this way - a soft focus photograph is generally a better portrait image to most people than a pin sharp unflattering photograph. The same goes with HiFi
In terms of is your hearing good enough to hear the difference - well that depends.
If your hearing is not damaged then it potentially is good enough, if its trained. Once you start listening to a quality system you may not notice right away the improvement, but go back to listening to the boom boxes and it will sound horrible and muddy. Then you will start to notice some of your albums sound more open, crisper, deeper, the sound more full,; yet others will remain closed in like sounds coming from in a bucket.
You can tell by the emotive, non technical words I'm using that the subtleties of tonal reproduction bettween a good system and a great system are exactly that - subtle - and very personal. The only person that can tell is YOU.
My rule of thumb is that for every zero you add the sound quality doubles. So a 100 'quid lifestyle hifi' sounds twice as good as a 10 quid radio. A 1000 quids worth of decent HiFi sounds twice as good. To get better you need to spend 10000 quid - and most people will stop with a system of a couple of grand because to get better costs so much more.
In summary to the original question you can get much better kit for not much more than a PC speaker system from your local HiFi dealer - but its not worth spending a huge amount because the PC as a source is very low quality.
Just a side note, "--r3mix" still does a pretty good job, but is now obsolete. The "--alt-preset" settings have taken over from where r3mix left off. I personally use "--alt-preset extreme" and find it to be pretty darn good. Better than r3mix sometimes..
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
If an audiophile is going to spend $10,000 to buy a set of headphones, they dont want a PC.
If someone got them to pay $10K for a pair of headphones, they aren't an audiophile -- they're an idiot.
May we never see th