March 2, 2003
Let's talk about the most
important aspect of any speaker system, namely, the sound quality.
First impressions are very important and with these speakers, my first
impression was very positive. I spent several hours listening to
a wide variety of sound sources in order to get a better feel of this system.
I listened to a lot of pop music which emphasizes bass and midranges, classical
music for highs and midrange articulation, and a few select scenes from
DVD's to inspect the dynamic range of the speakers.
While listening to CD's,
I liked how the bass was very strong and clear and didn't have any "boominess"
to it. I've heard that many people "complained" that the bass was
too strong on this unit (I thought that people could never get enough bass!),
but with the bass knob turned to about 50%, the sub matched the satellites
pretty well. At high volumes, there was very little audible distortion
that you could hear from the subwoofer itself, which is always impressive.
The thing I really liked about this subwoofer is that the crossover frequency
is set low enough that you don't get a lot of mid-range sounds coming out
from the sub. A lot of cheaper speakers systems have this problem
where the "subwoofer" has mid-range sounds coming from it because 1) it's
not a true subwoofer 2) the satellites are way too small to reproduce the
mid-ranges. In the cheapo systems, when you have somebody with a
mid to deep voice talk or sing, the sound bounces between the sub and satellites
with each word. It is very painful to listen to. The Logitech
system doesn't have this problem..
The mid-range is very good
with voices coming out very clearly and instruments sounding lively, but
I thought the highs were a bit weak. It felt like the response curve
slightly fell off at the high end. This was especially noticeable
with string instruments and guitar pieces. The high notes just didn't
ring as clearly as they did on the Altec Lansing or HK system. On
most pieces of music, this wasn't very noticeable, but in direct comparison
to other systems, it was audible. How much of a problem is this?
I'd say that if you were to just compare the highs across all 3 systems,
the Logitech Z-340's would lose. However, as a complete speaker system,
the Z-340 sound very good. I guess you could say the Z-340's are
biased towards the bass side of things.
Watching DVD's on this system
was very good. Especially movies with a lot of explosions and car
crashed. The bass was convincing and the dialogue sounded good.
The lack of high highs wasn't all that noticeable while watching movies
which usually have a lot of different ranges of sounds coming at you at
the same time.
Overall, I think this system
is a great buy for $50. It compares well with my Altec Lansing and
HK systems which are both much pricier speakers. Good bass, good
mids, slightly weak on the highs. I'm very happy to see that consumers
are getting a lot more for their money these days when it comes to computer
sound and speakers. Computers speakers have come a long way and the
Logitech Z-340's raise the bar for good speakers at a very reasonable price.
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