logitech 680 owners - are they great or awful?

[joecool]

as the final part of my doom3 upgrade i'm getting new speakers and i've pretty much decided on the logitech 680's. however, i still have two qualms:

1) a number of folks on newegg AND the logitech forum complain about defective components; esp. prolems with rattling from the bass.

2) an even larger number of folks complain about a hiss coming from the speakers when no sound is present.

having said this, it is also a fact that if your stuff works you probably aren't going to post questions on a users forum. however, i'm still a little nervouse. so, i'm hoping that anyone out there who has a pair of 680's can weigh in here and share your experience. fantastic? life-altering? piece of junk? you be the judge ...

on a related note, there seems to be a lot of controversy about how to connect these to an audigy2 sound card, and whether or not they do true 5.1 decoding. based on what i've read it seems that the best, and easiest, solutin is to connect the 3 analog outputs of the audigy to the analog inputs of the 680's and let the pc do all of the decoding. however, some folks seem desperate to use the 680s decoder. what i want to know is, why? your pc can do a perfectly fine job of decoding ac3 with little overhead. so maybe there is some trivial amount of signal degradation in the line from the sound card to the speakers, can you really here it? i agree with the general philosophy that digital is better, but in this case i just don't see it. can somebody clue me in?

thanks,

joe

 

[ugopk]

I have the 560 and i like them for computer use. They generate good clean clear sound, but a little hash for my taste now.

I would assume 680 to be similar

 

[minofifa]

i bought a set of them and they are now up in a large room. I am very satisfied with them. I have experience no rattle or buzz in the bass and the speakers are quite clean. They definately are in a different league than my old creative system.

 

[Gamingphreek]

I have the Z-640's and i do have the hiss however the sound is very clean and crisp otherwise. Also you mightwant to look at Klipsch's Pro Media Ultras and Creative Gigaworks S750's. All of them are great though.

-Kevin

 

[joecool]

cool, thanks minofifa ... anybody else?

 

[eldorado99]

I had the 680s about a year ago for 6 months, at the end of that 6 months the sub started rattling, I tried to fix the problem, with limited success. I ended up returning them to the store and getting the Klipsch Promedia Ultras and I am very satisfied so far, although I have not yet had the Promedias for quite as long, they do seem to be higher quality in both construction and sound quality. Although I must say when my 680s did work, they were quite impressive, they did sound very nice, but the Promedias IMHO sound a lot better and seem more capable.

 

[joecool]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
I have the Z-640's and i do have the hiss however the sound is very clean and crisp otherwise. Also you mightwant to look at Klipsch's Pro Media Ultras and Creative Gigaworks S750's. All of them are great though.

-Kevin

pro medias look pretty good but dang are they expensive! ditto for the gigaworks. the 680s seem to have the ideal combination of features and price. plus i kind of dig the funky control pod with the blue LCD (yeah, i know, it can be hard to read, but i checked it out at a store and it didn't seem to bad).

 

[Gamingphreek]

Also aren't the Z-680's the only ones out of the bunch that are digital. Not that it really matters but i think they are.

-Kevin

 

[eldorado99]

Yeah I forgot to mention in my previous post: There was a small amount of hiss on my set of 680s too but it was negligable, it prbably depends a lot on how they are set up in the room, but, my promedias don't have ANY hiss sooo...

 

[RussianSensation]

Hmmm I personally don't have 680s but I wanted to provide my own opinion anyway.

After searching Pricewatch.com, I came up with this:

Z680 $279
Creative S700 $324
Klipsch $349

i figured S750s are way too loud, way too much money, and to properly enjoy them you'll probably need an extra set of stands to position all of the 7 speakers around.

So we have 3 above. Z680 and Klipsch are $70 apart, which is somewhat a lot. Also Klipsch were around $350 all this time, but I've seen Z680s drop to 230-250 a month ago, so I am not sure why the price rose back to $290. I think the best would be for you to go to the store and listen to all 3 of these speaker systems. (like BestBuy or COMPUSA maybe)

For the $$$, Z680s seem really good. I am not sure about the decoding, but shoulnd't Audigy 2 do that anyways, so I am not sure how useful that feature is on the 680s. The hiss, assuming it is there, you can just turn off the speakers when they are not on. I mean as long as there is no hiss when you listen to music I dont see how this is a destraction. I just think the best judge of a speaker are your own ears and no one else.

Z680 Review

 

[joecool]

i can get the z680 from amazon for $220, so pricewatch is pretty high. however i haven't seen the klipsch anywhere for less than $350, so the difference is actuall $130 AND the klipsch have only a single input (analog) vs. three for the z680 (analog, digital coax, digital optical).

seems to me like the z680's are a better deal, but not if the build quality is poor. i've heard they improved all this, i just would like confirmation from somebody.

 

[TheBoy]

i have had z 680s for 8 months now, i haven't had any problems with rattling bass. There is a slight hiss from mine, but it's only annoying if you actually try and listen to it.

 

[joecool]

ok, boy, tell me more ... do you play your sound loud, soft, or middle? i generally keep it pretty quiet so i'm a little worried that the hiss will be annoying ...

 

[TheBoy]

i dont play it incredibly loud most of the time. I just put some music on moderately quiet and if you listen to the music you dont hear any hiss, but once again, if you really listen for it you can hear the hiss. But in my case it might be because the speakers are so close to me (just under a metre).

Just remembered, I put the subwoofer under my desk, about a metre from my monitor and it made part of my screen get tinted blue. Just in case you have limited space to put it.

 

[Kilrsat]

I've had my z-680s for 4 months. No hiss, no rattle, just nice sound.

I've always connected it via digital coax or digital opitcal, just to cut down on the wiring mess and I have absolutely no complaints. The DD and DTS decoding works for me, so I'm not sure what the debate about it is.

 

[joecool]

TheBoy: the magnets in the sub actually affected your monitor for a meter away?! yikes!!! does it pull change out of your pockets, too? this is actually a little worrisome for me as that sounds like the same location i will use for my sub. not really any other place i can put it since the control pob cable is short.

Kilrsat: one of the big issues w/digital connection from the audigy2 seems to be that unless you are playing from a digital source (like a dvd) you only get front channels at the digital output. i guess the audigy2 doesn't actually encode the signal into dd or dts, it just ships whatever its got, and if it's got analog 5.1 (say, from a game) it can't actually drive it all on the digital output so it just drives front channels. at least, this is how i understand it. what sound cards have you used with it?

 

[Kilrsat]

Originally posted by: joecool
TheBoy: the magnets in the sub actually affected your monitor for a meter away?! yikes!!! does it pull change out of your pockets, too? this is actually a little worrisome for me as that sounds like the same location i will use for my sub. not really any other place i can put it since the control pob cable is short.

Kilrsat: one of the big issues w/digital connection from the audigy2 seems to be that unless you are playing from a digital source (like a dvd) you only get front channels at the digital output. i guess the audigy2 doesn't actually encode the signal into dd or dts, it just ships whatever its got, and if it's got analog 5.1 (say, from a game) it can't actually drive it all on the digital output so it just drives front channels. at least, this is how i understand it. what sound cards have you used with it?

That is the true behavior of how the Audigy2 works. The Audigy2 will not give you EAX positional sound through the digital connection.

I've always used my set with SoundStorm Nforce2 boards, so I could just slap on the DD encoding. If you want 3d positional sound with the Audigy2 you will need to use the analog connectors.

 

[joecool]

[qThat is the true behavior of how the Audigy2 works. The Audigy2 will not give you EAX positional sound through the digital connection.

I've always used my set with SoundStorm Nforce2 boards, so I could just slap on the DD encoding. If you want 3d positional sound with the Audigy2 you will need to use the analog connectors.[/quote]

thanks, that's what i thought. what i don't get is why so many audigy2 users gripe about this. like i said in my original post, it's easy enought to connect the analog outputs, and i really can't believe there is that much signal degradation in that short cable.

so the soundstorm boards always drive dd encoded data on the digital output? that means they actually encode data, since most sources won't be dd to start out with. pretty slick!

thanks for the info!

 

[TheBoy]

now i measure it, the distance from the bottom of my monitor to the top of my sub was more like 60 cm, and from the area of my screen it affected i'd say if it's about a metre away you should be alright.

And i think that was sarcasm but i'll answer it anyway, no it doesn't pull the change out of my pockets

 

[Kilrsat]

Originally posted by: joecool
[qThat is the true behavior of how the Audigy2 works. The Audigy2 will not give you EAX positional sound through the digital connection.

I've always used my set with SoundStorm Nforce2 boards, so I could just slap on the DD encoding. If you want 3d positional sound with the Audigy2 you will need to use the analog connectors.

thanks, that's what i thought. what i don't get is why so many audigy2 users gripe about this. like i said in my original post, it's easy enought to connect the analog outputs, and i really can't believe there is that much signal degradation in that short cable.

so the soundstorm boards always drive dd encoded data on the digital output? that means they actually encode data, since most sources won't be dd to start out with. pretty slick!

thanks for the info![/quote]


Yes that's the big SoundStorm feature. When enabled it encodes all audio bound for digital output into a DD stream. Thus allowing the z-680s or your regular surround sound receiver to give you surround sound not only when watching movies but also while you're playing games, all through a single cable.

 

[joecool]

hmm, still sounds like it could be a problem for me ... what kind of monitor do you have? how far away is the sub now?

 

[ponyo]

I've 2 sets of Z680s. Picked it up when CC was clearing them out for $200. Best thing I like about it is the control pod and the multiple inputs. It's nice having SPDIF, Coxaxial, and analog and being able to switch between the three with the remote. I also like the fact that it uses regular speaker wires so you can get long wires and hide it well. As far as sounds go, it's all subjective. It's nice and loud which is plenty good for me. I'm not audio snob so I really can't give you technical answer but it sounds good to me for computer speakers. I have one set hooked up to my computer and and had another set hooked up to my Infocus X1 projector but have since replaced that with Kenwood receiver and JBL speakers.

I really have only one complaint with Z680s and that's the hiss. It's present in both of my sets and you can hear it if you have the speakers close to you on the desk. It's annoying but you can always turn the speakers off when it's not in use. That's what I do. Having the control pod and remote makes it easy to do that.

Z680's are the most versatile speakers IMO and works great for what I need. Control pod w/ remote, various inputs, and the ability to use regular speaker wires makes it very convenient for hooking up multiple sources like computer, dvd player, game systems, etc. As for sound quality, it's subjective but I think it's good enough for most people. If you're audio snob, you probably shouldn't be messing with MM speakers anyways and probably use separate receiver and speakers.

As for connecting Z680s to your Audigy2, you should use analog connections. It'll sound better than digital and you'll get 5.1 in games too.

 

[ponyo]

Originally posted by: joecool
hmm, still sounds like it could be a problem for me ... what kind of monitor do you have? how far away is the sub now?

I don't have this problem and my sub is sitting only couple of feet from my Sony G520p. I've never seen anyone mention this problem before in any review.

 

[Kaijufan]

My Z640s hiss, but its the first surround sound system Ive had, so Im happy with them.

 

[joecool]

thanks naustica. i too think the multiple inputs is a big plus - my basic thought is that at some point these speakers will get moved from my pc to the kids entertainment room and driven by an xbox for gaming and dvd surround sound. nice to have something so versatile. the hiss still worries me tho - as pc speakers they will be on my desk and relatively close to me. hopefully that won't be a problem. some folks report no hiss. i wonder if they just got lucky, don't notice it, or logitech actually fixed the problem?

why will the analog connectors to the audigy2 sound better than digital?