My old Logitech Z-560 developed a short in it creating nasty crackling noises over one channel. The Z560 was a rare beast, a $140 400 watt 4.1 monster that Logitech built to really high standards to create a strong foot forward into the PC speaker market. Sadly, their quality has declined since then, and their current offerings are cheaply made, sound far worse with music than the 560s, and have even fuzzier and more overwhelming bass than the 560 did (the systems one flaw). I decided to try 2.0 systems to see if I could get good PC sound without the added failure risk of a high powered sub and the muddiness that all that extra bass and clumsy frequency transitions between sats and sub causes...My findings, from worst to best:
Logitech Z-10: 30 watts. Looks good, costs a lot, $150, list. Sounds dreadful. Despite having a largish 3" woofer, and a 1" tweeter, the Z-10 seems to be doing a lot of signal processing of music and the soundstage sounds compressed and artificial. Changing bass and treble makes things worse, and your music will sound different (and worse) on these speakers than it would normally. The touch controls and LCD screen are useless pricy gimmicks that increase chance of failure and add weight and cost to the system. Who in the world needs to see the name of the track playing on the bottom of the speaker? Anyway, these are a disappointment, with the worst sound and tied for the highest price. The speakers are heavy and well made, very stylish, though easily smudged with the reflective black surface on the front of the speaker. Logitech needs to redo these, silly gadgets and useless feature are tolerable, bad sound however is always a deal-breaker. Two stars, for style and build quality.
Klipsch ProMedia 2.0: Also 30 watts. Nice sound, good price, $100 list. Dual 2.5" woofers and a 1" tweeter with a Klipsch high-freq horn in it. These sound pretty good, but they are unexpectedly bulky and poorly made. The oddly formed speaker housing means these take up a lot of space and the volume and bass control knobs look like they come from a $10 CyberAcoutsics set. The cheapie knobs, bulk, and ugliness make these fit for corporate presentations where good loud sound matters and where style is largely irrelevant. For the home user, the cheap knobs may well break over time, which was the Achiles heel for my 560s; quality system, cheap volume pot. Three stars, good though not excellent sound, reasonable price, loses points for ugliness and some shoddy cost cutting in build quality. The bulk is sort of a neutral issue, as the larger box size probably helps the sound and bass extension of the units, but for some users the footprint and added portability difficulties may be an issue.
Creative Gigaworks T20: 28 watts (though the box says 22 watts!) $100 list. Creative obscures most specs on these, probably fearing the single 2.5" driver versus the bigger Logitech and the double same size drivers of the Klipsch may convince buyers that the T20 lacks in comparison to its rivals. Truth is the build and design of the T20s makes them sound much better than either the Z10s or the Promedias. These little speakers can put out an awesome amount of clear accurate sound, and they look great and feel very sturdy. Treble in particular is excellent, and the alleged Bass Xport technology must have something to it, as bass is more than adequate. The separate bass and treble knobs may or may not appeal; to some, they offer more control, to others the added circuitry distorts the signal and gives an added area of complexity in the design that may fail. The portability is excellent. The only real problem is that Creative is so secretive about the wattage and driver size, out of unnecessary concern that buyers may avoid getting these because of a few watts or a half inch. These sound great, look good, and the size to sound ratio is impressive. Four stars.
M-Audio AV40s: 40 watts, $200 list. My personal choice, these speakers are much bigger than the other contenders, but the amazing sound and plentiful bass will convince you that you don't need to even think about a sub system. These wooden cabinets are very attractive and sturdy, but are not exactly portable weighing 14 lbs and being quite bulky. (More so than the Klipsch, but they also look nicer and are built better.) Besides the size and weight, the other issue is cost and maybe availability as few vendors sell M-Audio, and the price for the AV40s even with discount will be $50-$65 more than the cost of the other units I looked at. To me the sound and accuracy (no distortion at high volume, lots of accuracy at low volume) of the M-Audios, at both low and high volume, offsets all the problems. Four stars, loses a star because of higher cost and weight. (Note though these are still theoretically portable, far more so than any 2.1 system or even the average boombox...)
Do You Need More Power, a Subwoofer, or More Speakers? Probably not. If you sit at your desk with the speakers a few feet away from you, you do not need much more than 30 or 40 watts for great powerful sound. A subwoofer (unless it costs a lot!) will just screw up crossover freqs, create too much bass, and encourage the mfgr to give you cheapie satellites on the theory that the loud prominent sub will wow the casual listener who will not care that the sats have 1" uni-drivers and are made of cheap light plastic. Unless you need to entertain parties with your PC, you don't need more power or a sub.
As far as surround sound, unless you watch movies on your PC or play a lot of FPS shooters that need positional audio, the added wires and difficulty of positioning the rear and surround sats in the listening environment are too much of a pain for most folks. Plus a decent PC surround sound system is at least $250, meaning a much higher cost than any of these 2.0 systems.
Buying Recommendations: Don't mind big and bulky? Get the M-Audio AV40s. (Note the company has a smaller less powerful variant, the Av20s, but I did not hear these and they do not seem to be widely available so I cannot comment.) Want small and portable, get the Creative T20. The Logitechs unfortunately have no comparative strengths, and the Klipschs are adequate but offer no real advantage over the Creative. If you can find the Promedias significantly discounted, they may be viable.
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