Logitech has been a major player in computer speaker for the recent years. Their speaker characteristics are best suited for gaming and video purpose since their bass capability is able to shake room! And it seems that Logitech keeps their speaker characteristics to be just like that in the current product release. Enough said, let's take a look at two speakers worth buying from Logitech :)
The first one is Logitech Z4. Priced below $100, this speaker product will hit the market for gamers and movie lovers on budget. Why? Because there are no competitor so far that seems to offer 8" subwoofer on their speaker products for this price range. This is the main strength for Logitech Z4 - Bass. You may wonder, why size does matter for subwoofer? Because the larger the subwoofer, the lower frequency it can produce...
Logitech bundled their 8" subwoofer with 2" dome driver in Z4's satellites. Somewhat, we feel that this is unbalanced system. How can 2" satellite driver keep up with 8" subwoofer? The mid and high will be easily overwhelmed by bass the subwoofer produce.
To tackle this problem, Logitech invent a new technology which they call it pressure driver. Pressure driver is a passive driver whose membrane will be moved along with the real active driver. If we see from the image below, we can see that in each satellite, Logitech included 2 pressure drivers. And to reduce the massiveness of bass produced by Z4's subwoofer, Logitech apparently uses 8" pressure driver in their subwoofer with unknown size of active driver....
Something that is missing from this product is tweeter. If only Logitech include tweeter on their satellite, maybe this speaker will have more musical characteristics, but anyway this is a really good multimedia speaker for gamers and movie lovers. Just take a look for its specification and you'll realise that for its price - below $100 - this is a really good offer.
Z4's Specifications :
- Total RMS power: 40 watts RMS - Satellites: 17 watts RMS (8.5 watts x 2), Subwoofer: 23 watts RMS
- Total peak power: 80 watts
- Frequency response: 35 Hz–20 kHz
- Drivers: Satellites: 2-inch dome driver, 2-inch pressure driver, Subwoofer: 8-inch pressure driver
- Speaker dimensions (H x W x D, inches): Satellites: 9 x 3 x 3.75, Subwoofer: 9 x 9 x 9.37
- Signal-to-noise ratio: >92 dB
Another product worth buying is Logitech Z2300. This is Z5500's sibling, another great product from Logitech which is highly recommended. Catch a glimpe at the image below and we can see that the design of Z5500 is superior than Z4's. But how about the specification? Is it really superior? Let's see it!
Hardware
- Drivers: Satellites: 2.5-inch polished aluminum phase plug driver
- Subwoofer: 8-inch long-throw ported driver with sixth-order bass reflex enclosure
- Speaker dimensions (H x W x D, inches): Satellites: 6.75 x 3.5 x 6, Subwoofer: 11 x 11 x 15
- SoundTouch™ wired remote control: Master volume, Subwoofer volume, Headphone jack, Power/standby
Technical Specifications
- Total RMS power: 200 watts RMS Satellites: 80 watts RMS (40 watts x 2) Subwoofer: 120 watts RMS
- Total peak power: 400 watts
- Frequency response: 35 Hz–20 kHz
- Signal-to-noise ratio @ 1 kHz: >100 dB
- Amplifier: Ultra-linear, high-capacity analog
- Compatibility:PC or Mac, CD playerDigital, (MP3) music player, DVD player, PlayStation®, PlayStation®2, PLAYSTATION®3 (with provided game console adapter), Xbox®, Xbox 360™ (with provided game console adapter)
Z2300 has 200 watt RMS power! It's more than enough to make your computer table be shaken when you turn up this beast to its maximum. Z4's with modest 40 watt RMS really looks pale compared with Z2300. Being high in RMS power means that this speaker can be played at loud volume without have any perceived distortions. Logitech Z2300 also has been THX's certified which marks this speaker capability as small home theater speaker.
This speaker is offered in price range $160, making this speaker will face Edifier's C3 directly. Who will be the winner? You'll decide :)
