8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
I love 'em!
Date of Review: Aug 7, 2006
The Bottom Line: Buy 'em! You'll love 'em too!
I got my Logitech Z-5500s as a gift. They replaced my defective Klipsch 5.1 ProMedia speakers. In fact, they replace three sets of defective Klipsch speakers. I purchased the original set and the others were warranty replacements. Klipsch has known design issues with their speakers and never fixed them, but they begrudgingly replaced them until my warranty expired.
The Z-5500s have very good sound. They can be very loud and they have a powerful bass. A number of people have complained about the over-powering bass, but that's easily remedied by adjustments on the control unit and furthermore with controls in Windows. Personally, I don't have a problem with the bass. The fact that it's available if I want it is a nice feeling. I could easily turn up the bass and volume and receive noise complaints from my neighbors in the house next door.
The sattelite speakers and control unit are all an attractive black and silver color combination. The speakers are all a nice shape and do not take up too much room or look out of place in a computer room. The sattelite speakers can be rotated on their stands (for wall mounting), but not adjusted vertically. They will have to be placed on the desktop surface so that they point up to the listener's ears instead of up to the ceiling.
The control unit is easy to adjust and the blue back-lit display is easy to read. The power button is lit red when the unit is off and is lit blue when the unit is on. Both colors look very nice. The control unit is kind of big, but then again it is the "brain" of the unit, so that's understandable. It has all of the input bells and whistles that you would want too. Three channel digital mini-din (for most PC sound cards), digital coax and digital optical (for high-end CD/DVD players), a side mini-din (for MP3 players), and a headphone out. What more do you want? BNC? :P
The remote is relatively simple. The buttons provide easy access to all of the control unit's adjustments and menus. The wording on the remote could be a bit larger (for us aging gamers), but it's an easy-to-read font type and color (white arial on black). Unfortunately the remote only works when pointed directly at the control unit. It takes a bit of practice to get it just right.
The supplied cables for the sattelite speakers were nice and long. They should be more than sufficient to reach any computer room placement. They were the small gauge (I don't know what size). They could have been the larger, higher quality cables, but that would have increased the price. I'd also rather go buy my own upgrade cables if I'm so inclined.
The cable from the control unit to the sub-woofer is relatively long, but they will still have to be placed near one another. Also, the three mini-din cables that go from the control unit to the PC are only about six feet long which is a tight fit for my placement of everything. I can always go buy longer ones if I want.
Overall, I'm very pleased with the Z-5500s. Their sound is very good for games or music. As far as my ear is concerned, they more than match the sound quality of the Klipsch and, most importantly, they still work!
