Logitech Z-560 THX Certified 4.1 Speakers

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Wayne

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Logitech Z-560 THX Certified 4.1 Speakers

Author : Wayne Date : 3rd May 2002

...Product	Logitech Z-560
...Manufacturer	Logitech
...Supplier	Logitech
...Price	RRP £199.99

Introduction :

When you hear the name Logitech chances are you immediately think of mice and joysticks, or if you do manage to conjure up an image of speakers it's likely to be their early Soundman and Xtrusio range that seemed to almost get lost amongst a sea of equally performing and similarly priced midrange and budget offerings. That's not to say that these were bad speakers, in fact the Xtrusio DSR-100 was a very capable setup that I owned briefly and was actually very impressed with, but it was never able to compete with the big names in the industry, primarily Klipsch and Boston.

Back in February 2001 Logitech acquired Labtec, another company not particularly famous for its high end audio solutions but one which none the less brought with it a wealth of new engineering talent that no doubt had its part to play in the product we're reviewing today.

In September of 2001 Logitech announced its latest speaker range the "Z" series which comprised three models, the budget Z-340, mainstream Z-540 and finally a product that they hoped would at last reserve them a place with the big boys, the Z-560.

It's the Z-560s I'm looking at today so before we get to the meaty bits let's take a look at what's on offer.

Superior THX® certified audio for PC games, music and DVDs

THX® certified 4.1 surround sound speaker system
Feel it: M3D technology provides realistic surround sound for extreme gaming and PC desktop theater
Brute force subwoofer design delivers huge, room-thumping bass
Revolutionary satellite drivers enhance mid and high-range tones
SoundTouch™ Control Center lets you "fine tune" your listening environment
Revolutionary ultra-wide bandwidth phase aligned satellite driver technology and polished aluminum phase plug design offers supreme tone quality
Feel as if you're right in the middle of it. With our exclusive M3D Matrix technology, you experience amazingly realistic surround sound from standard 2-channel stereo sound sources such as music CDs and MP3 files. Home stereo style connectors use standard xxx-guage speaker wire so you can place the speakers anywhere you choose.
8" diameter "long-throw" subwoofer with wood enclosure delivers thunderous bass performance for the ultimate audio experience.

Total power output: 400 watts RMS

- Satellite speaker power output: 212 watts RMS (53w + 53w + 53w + 53w)

- Subwoofer power output: 188 watts RMS

System frequency response 35Hz - 20kHz

Sounds impressive but let's decode some of that.

THX Certification :

THX certification was introduced by Lucasfilm in the early 80's to try to standardise the quality of audio produced in cinemas. THX certified cinemas were guaranteed to offer sound that did justice to that of the original soundtrack and the first two opened in 1983 just in time for Return of The Jedi. In 1990 the THX certification program was made available to home theatre systems but it wasn't until last year (2001) that it was offered for PC multimedia systems. Currently there are only five THX certified speaker systems listed and these are the Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 System, Klipsch ProMedia 4.1 System, Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 System, Altec Lansing ADA 885 4.1 System and Logitech Z-560 4.1 System. According to Lucasfilm, they examine the sound performance, user interface and construction quality. Performance parameters include bandwidth, frequency balance, front/rear speaker matching, directional characteristics, minimum peak sound pressure level and the system's ability to play up to its rated output level. In addition, ease-of-use is evaluated, including installation, set up and operation. To be honest the issue of THX certification for multimedia PC components is a bit of a muddy area with nobody enrirely sure precisely what criteria are used for testing so it's probably best to just think of it as a form of quality assurance. There's no doubt the standards when compared to cinema and even home theatre systems was dumbed down a little for the PC so although it doesn't carry quite the same weight for the PC it does at least guarantee you an extremely high quality product.

M3D Technology :

When you listen to a stereo sound source through four speakers the normal approach is to "mirror" the sound from front to rear, that is you hear the same output from your rear right speaker as from your front right and the same from your rear left as from your front left. This may make for a more encompassing sound but it's something most audio purists would turn their noses up at. The idea of M3D without getting into the technicalities behind it is that the incoming sound is split into four outputs with the rear channels containing all the ambient effects. This gives the impression that you're hearing sound produced from the front channels while any sound reflections, echo, reverberation and so on will picked up from behind pretty much as would happen in a real life environment. These ambient effects are not artificially created, they are simply extracted from the original stereo input by combining the rear right output with an out-of-phase version of the rear left and vise versa. This actually works surprisingly well though it's better suited to some sound sources than others. If you're sound source is already four channel then using M3D is pointless as it will ignore the two rear inputs completely.

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