HTIB or logitech z5500

Z 5500 logitech @ 14 990/-

by pantaloon e-ZONE

5.1 speakers????? - Page 2 - Erodov, Inc - The Knowledge Vault!

Yesterday I went out to the nearby mall for dinner. There is an eZone outlet there in the mall. It had been a while since I had heard Logitech z5500. So I went to the outlet and hung around there for a while. Luckily for me, they were playing those speakers only so I got a good hang of its sound.

They had it hooked to a laptop featuring onboard audio. They had selected DPL II Music as play mode. Cannot comment on the usefulness of those sound modes as the speakers were almost put together in space of 4-5 feet. Here is what I observed.

Sound wasn't clean enough. I am not sure whether that was because of the poor source or that was the characteristics of the speakers. It was hooked to the laptop with a cheap (and long) AV cable (3 RCA-RCA). That may also have something to be the unclean sound. But I was expecting a little cleaner sound from a THX certified PC speaker costing INR 19k.

Bass was there, very much there, but slightly dry. But I wouldn't complain about the bass quality, at that price point. Bass was there, it was pretty loud and clear. That was the only system playing loud there and low end grunt could be heard (not felt) even in far corners of that large store.

High were okay, or can say good (keeping in mind the price). There wasn't any audible distortion at normal listening levels (I didn't ask him to play it loud for me, when it was playing loud I was browsing other sections).

Mids were missing though. Vocals weren't coming up at all with the rest of the spectrum. Quite possibly they had done it on purpose (may be, I'm not sure).

Despite all these problems, some tracks that were playing sounded good enough. One remix (from the movie Jannat most probably, thats doing the rounds as of now) was playing (quite loud) and it sounded good enough. One track from Aqua, Dr Jones, also sounded right. I believe, songs with not much of dynamic range would sound good enough on these speakers.

THX certification, and a nice packaging (Woofer looked attractive. You can buy one just as a show piece.) Good finish and useful table stand cum wall mounting design. I'd say it was an okay buy for that money. If someone just wants a nice, attractive okay sounding HTIB around an HTPC, it is an okay buy for the money.