Logitech Z560 THX Speakers

The Z-560s are the first speakers to emerge from Logitech since its acquisition of Labtec, and are the first multimedia speakers to be officially THX certified.

THX is essentially a list of manufacturing standards, and more information on this Lucasfilm-owned branding can be found at www.thx.com.

Good-looking and sturdy, this five-piece system connects to your PC via mini-jack cables and bare wire from subwoofer to satellites. The intention behind this is to reduce the interference that can often come from poorly constructed connectors.

The slightly less pretty remote has a headphone socket, along with power, fade (front-to-back output ratio), bass, overall volume and M3D controls. M3D aims to create surround sound from a stereo source; the effect is reasonable, but there's slightly too much reverb for our liking.

Positional information is accurate and sounds are crisp and clean. The lack of a fifth satellite seems bizarre at first. As all audio is fed solely via two mini-jack cables, there isn't a distinct subwoofer feed and we found that speech could occasionally be crowded out by sound effects.

The very chunky subwoofer inevitably produces brutally loud bass levels. These are clearly speakers designed for films as, even on its lowest setting, the bass is too high for decent music playback.

All in all, this is a very good set of speakers, managing to produce a cinematic feel even in the less-than-ideal conditions of our labs. But £200 could get you a better rounded set of home entertainment speakers.

Price: £199.99 (£170.20 ex VAT)

Specifications:

• 400w RMS total; 188w subwoofer
• 53w per satellite
• 35Hz-20KHz frequency response
• 100dB Signal to Noise Ratio
• Mini-jack connectors to PC; bare wire between woofer and satellites.

Contact: Logitech
www.logitech.co.uk