scurvy

Recently i got myself these awesome speakers, now Iam waiting for a X-fi Titanium Soundcard to pair them up with.

Wondering if anyone has the same combo and what ur individual experiences with them are.

I wish to hook them up via optical digital.

Judas

currently i've got 3 sets of these speakers.

i've got a set at the store setup, and a set at home, the other is for renting out.

the one at home is setup with the xbox360 hooked up via optical
the pc via Coax
the Blue-Ray set top player via 6 channel analog
Wii by 2 channel stereo in (so all ports are filled atm)

they are a pretty damn impressive unit..... anything better will cost significantly more to make it worthwhile

__________________

|2A|N

Funny you mention this here because I was looking at these yesterday. Really nice set and 500w is rather tempting, but I think my G51 suit me fine for the time being.

Zelig

They're nice speakers for the price, probably about the best you can do in an all-in-one set for PCs, since Creative and Klipsch both exited the higher-end market.

If you're getting a good soundcard, you'll get better sound via analog, as the DACs on the card will be better than the DACs in the speaker's decoder.

__________________
--

Judas

well considering the age of the system now...... i'm quite suprised that logitech haven't launch a 7.1 surround set as well as had a newer receiver with more inputs and options.

i mean thier 5450 which has wireless rear speakers were quite good with a 340/680watt rating. The receiver had more then 2 digital inputs and a few other nice options i really liked over the z5500's.

course i'd rather have a fully wired system versus wireless speakers.

A new Z-7700 would be seriously kickass if they allowed for 2 fiber 2 coax and 3 HDMI in with 1 HDMI out as well as 8 channel analog input not to meniton an aux analog stereo in. And to boot, Dobly True HD decoding and DTS True HD with 192khz/24bit support, would be simply perfect.

__________________

lepel

How do these compare to the G51?

Judas

in my experience.. the G51 would be like a little less powerful brother compared to the z-5500..... a little more up to date mind you but still.

the G51 would be nice for a small office..

the z-5500 better fills the space for a smaller living room and even the larger ones.

considering i had a set setup a a trade fair, people on the other side could still hear things relatively clearly at a lower volume...

__________________

FAlcom

I Got that speakers too! Awesome Sound!

scurvy

welcome to the club dude.

Hanzales077

Hello,

I must confirm that Z-5500 is really excelent (maybe the best) product at this price range. I can say over my life best investment. I have them over 2 years and fully satisfied Connected via 6 channel analog and via optical to Audigy4pro. DD and DTS content sounds magnificently and music...well... foobar2000-> 6 channel upmix plugin-> asio output-> excelent soud. My non-audiofill ears can't get better sound I think (at this price) f.e. Infected muschroom in FLAC sounds like from heaven. BTW One day I spent some time with positioning speakers to extremly accurate possitions and angles and played Jean Michael Jarre DTS, sit in the middle, closed my eyes and my head spin a lot after a while PS: ..sorry for my cripled english

Dark Lord

do i get to play? ive got a set of the older Z-680s. pretty much the exact same as the 5500s, just the newer revision.

ive had them for probably 4-5 years now. absolutely amazing speakers and i dont think i could say one negative thing about them.

__________________

Judas

there is a noticeable difference.. but yeah.. they are quite similare


the hidden features of the logitech set which are not explained in the manual anywhere are of interest as well.... booster volume is one

__________________

M0nk3m4n

Greets, ahh the Logitech Z-5500, had mine so long & they still sound PERFECT!Bahahaha
I have mine on my good old Sound Blaster Live! Value 5.1 (2003 PCI card) 10Hz Subwoofer
redirection is so nice, lol. Anyway, they're hooked up like...6-channel direct, not digital due to my
preference and the fact that I can't set the speakers to 6-channel direct if they're hooked up
with the Coax cable, as for the optical, I have no idea cause the soundcard hasn't got that plug.
Alls I know is, these speakers absolutely kick ASS for gaming/music/movies/regular TV shows/ect...

__________________
Hello World!Gimme a sammich!
Main rig's other specs: (Like besides the ones the site asks ya for)
Case:CoolerMaster WaveMaster Case, Soundcard:Creative SBLive! Value 5.1, Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard v1.0.(A bitch for typos!)
Logitech Optical USB Wheel Mouse.(Snazzy!), Logitech Z-5500 THX Surround DTS 24/96 Speakers (505 Watt RMS, 1010 Total)(Rumbly!!)

scurvy

Yeah playing UT3 with my X-fi titanium plus the Logitechs is Aural Nirvana.

RIV@NVX

Guys, are you aware that digitally hooked speakers should sound the same on all soundcards, besides software/soundcard DSP effects?

__________________
-- Vedran

Judas

"Should" and "do" is a different story..

depends on how well it's encoding the digital format..... course if it's doing passthrough, then no doubt it'll for sure be all the same.

__________________

OmegaRED

I don't have the Z-5500 yet but I have decided to purchase these speakers either online or locally (new or used) to go with my X-fi Titanium; I will plug my PC and Xbox 360 into it. Just trying to find a good price now, these speakers go as high as $450CDN! That's just too much

__________________

Judas

yeah i sell the z5500's for 450 atm..

the price has been fluctuating from wholesale costs of 260 bucks right up to 390....

__________________

Zelig

You might have to wait a little while to find a good price on a new set. Dell recently had them on sale for $280 with free shipping, so I'd probably look for anything under $300 or so.

Cheapest they've ever been in Canada seems to be $200 from Dell with free shipping or $180 at the B&M Tigerdirect store.

Keep in mind that Futureshop and Best Buy carry them in stock, so you can always pricematch there and get a little extra off.

__________________
--

OmegaRED

BB stopped carrying them (at least on the online portion) it's just Futureshop now. Newegg has a semi decent price of $350 though. I will probably just go with them. As Judas said, the $200 days are long gone, lowest it would be is around 300 but that could be anytime. Free shipping does happen much more often but im not a patient guy unfortunately. I see's the hardware and I wants the hardware immediately...like a better looking Gollum.

__________________

Judas

i wouldn't say they are long gone..

just give it a number of months yet for the USD to tank like crazy and we'll have those good buys back in our favor

__________________

OmegaRED

Went to pick one up today but some bastard had the last one on hold. Bastard. Guess I'll order it from newegg.

__________________

Judas

erg.. i don't want to know what the shipping costs would be.....

cost me 75 bucks to ship ONE 100 miles.....

they aren't light. or small..


But i still think they are the BEST bang for the dollar.... without having to spend several thousand for something equaly as impressive.

__________________

OmegaRED

70 shipping, it's actually $30 cheaper to order from newegg with shipping than to pick one up locally because all the stores here want around 450.

__________________

Judas

If the shipping didn't suck... my best price i could offer basically my cost.... is about $340 before pst/gst....

__________________

OmegaRED

I'm officially a Z-5500 owner!

NCIX refused to pricematch newegg last night and wouldn't go lower than $420CDN but a local guy on HardwareCanucks PM'd me offering to sell his unopened Z-5500 for $300. The timing couldn't have been better. Can't wait to try them out

__________________

Mac Daddy

Sweet deal man

__________________
"My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Zelig

Wow, I've never had a PM refused, did they give a reason?

__________________
--

OmegaRED

Below cost.

As for the Z-5500 itself, I briefly tested it out on Call of Duty: World At War, Watchmen Directors Cut DTS and The Dark Knight with both the Toslink and 6 channel direct analog cables from my X-fi. The Toslink connection sounded fuller to me but perhaps that was because the Z-5500 is doing the processing and the volume is at a higher level than my Windows volume (which I keep at 55% normally). I was pleasantly surprised that the subwoofer didn't rattle my walls though I didn't even go past 50% in the Logitech volume control. It's too bad Logitech didn't include some mounting screws for the speakers since they use 2 each the holes are large with rubber coating and the base is plastic which could be damaged if you aren't careful.

I had to unplug my Tritton 5.1 headset to use the analog jacks on my soundcard, can I use splitters for the Front, Rear and Sub/Center jacks so that I can output to both the headphones and the Z-5500 simultaneously or will that affect the audio quality?

__________________

Judas

using a splitter will indeed affect the audio quality as i've been playing around with analog splitting..

however i recommend the z-5500's digital connection over analog if you can, it's just far more "perfect" and the prologic 2x is extremely good (alternatively 2x stereo mode sounds great to if your not a fan of simulated surround on stereo samples)

If DTS-Connect or DDL is available, your laughing.

Alternatively get another cheap sound card or usb headset?

Typically i run with my center channel in my relatively appropriate living room at one notch below the default (marked with a * )... and the rear channel increase to 2 bars short of max.

I like my bottom end, so it tends to however between default and max depending on what i'm listening to.

The reason i turn the center down is due to having it perfectly in line with the front right and left. I find it's overpowering the descrete left and right channels in excellent movies or music.

Not sure about your place, but i've actually done damage to my house due to the system, my house is shifting, but i think i've excellerated it with the stereo some nights as at specific harmonics, i can get various walls to produce a rather bad racket.

I'm quite likeing having played with 2 of the z-5500's running in tandem in the same room.


Still yet today, compared to alot of the $1000 + JVC/sony/Pioneer/Panasonic/Samsung packaged surround sound kits, the z-5500 still outperform. The clarity is great, the sound is clean on a digital connection and very good on analog. At high volumes it doesn't "sound" that loud, vs the other stereos that tend to make you wince due to the massive amount of distortion they usually start to produce beyond easy listening.

Personally on a digital connection, i've never ran very far past HALF volume on typical stereo audio through a dvd player/xbox/computer or whatever. The only time i exceed the half volume is usually during various movies that seem to have alot of compression or something done with the audio. Analog however in many cases i've ran basically no higher then max. However still not into BOOST. If you hit the end of the volume slider, slowly keep turning the volume and you'll get a new slider that reads out Boost 1 through to 11. Each boost level is quite a big boost to the volume. Only time i've seen someone i've sold the z-5500 to use this, is with mp3 players plugged into the mp3 mini jack port on the side. I just keep cautioning them to make sure to turn the volume down when they are done or bye bye warranty.

__________________