New Generation PC 5.1 Speaker Systems

New Generation PC 5.1 Speaker Systems

I guess I can sum things up this way: I might not be an audiophile, but I am the kind of guy who enjoys showing his buddies what some brutally graceful Z-560s can do. I like to crank up the volume and play the opening scene of "Ice Age" - you know, the part where "Scrat" is trying to escape from a couple of massive glacial avalanches? The scene is an awesome way to show off the bass and highs; the Z-560 subwoofer can literally shake knick-knacks off of shelves during this scene. My wife hates it...

My trusty Z-560's are still providing fantastic service, but they're starting to show their age. They're 4.1 instead of 5.1; they have no discrete subwoofer channel or wireless remote; and the only inputs are ¼" stereo jacks. They still rock my world, but thinking about them got me wondering... what has the PC audio industry accomplished in the last 5 years? What new speaker features have arrived to make our audible lives better?

To that end, we're going to be examining three new PC speaker systems with some unique and new functionality: Logitech's Z-5450, Creative's Gigaworks ProGamer 550W, and Altec Lansing's FX5051.

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Don Woligroski was a former senior hardware editor for Tom's Hardware. He has covered a wide range of PC hardware topics, including CPUs, GPUs, system building, and emerging technologies.

  • asheesh1_2000
    For me partially wireless is worse than wired so instead I am considering Logitech Z-5500. This article is 2 years old so I am assuming that Primal 5.1 was not released then otherwise I think it also would have been included.
    Reply