Anyone own Spherex 5.1 xbox speakers?

[Maximilian]

Im thinking of buying these, apparently some say they are Z5500 beaters, theyre rather tough to get a hold of in the UK though. Anyways i have a few questions:

1. How reliable are they? I own Z5500s and find that they blow their fuse a lot and they haven't been reliable in general.

2. Is there any sort of noise coming from the sub when nothing is playing?

3. Anything else i should know about these?

For example i wish i knew Z5500's popped when people screwed with the lights and also the new pop free ones have an audible buzz from the subwoofer keeping me awake unless turned off at the rear, and on top of that when turned off from the rear they have a tendency to blow the fuse inside the sub. These things would have been useful to know before i bought them.

 

[Maximilian]

Ill take it that noone knows what im on about lol. Ok then.

I read through two long threads trying to get to the story behind these speakers and it seems that they're out of production and have been for some time. They didn't sell well apparently because noone would pay $640 for a speaker system, so the retailers started selling them at <$250 prices to clear them, one guy even got these for $99, an absolute steal. Unfortunately since they were so short lived there isnt much on the net about their reliability/problems etc, read something about speaker hissing but thats about it. Dont think they would have suited me anyways, the remote is mandatory in order to control them, and at high volumes there is distortion.

 

[Unkno]

I have the set, bought it for 150...read a review before i bought it and it gave a pretty positive score. I owned it for a couple of months now and it's still running strong, can't say how reliable it is in the long term though. There's a little hissing when nothing is being played, but it can only be heard if you place your ear directly next to the speaker (not sure about the sub). Some people report not hearing hiss at all though. It won't be loud enough to prevent you from sleeping. Some people report that it pops sometimes when there's static but I haven't encountered this.


Hope this helped

 

[Maximilian]

Thanks, it seems that theyre pretty good speakers, just a shame they didnt really catch on, maybe because everyone thought they would only work with an xbox? Thats my guess anyways. Ive decided im gonna stick with my Z5500's though because ive recently ascertained that the buzzing is an actual fault and my new subwoofer should make the same inaudible buzz my old ones made, they shouldn't be louder, i originally thought the new "pop free" 5500's had electrical changes that caused a louder buzz than the pre pop free models but thats apparently untrue.

Hopefully whatever they send me will fix the problem, probably a new sub or something.