Logitech z5500 cables

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slugger_2003

Limp Gawd
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Jan 30, 2007
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I'm planning on buying the z5500 speakers and I've read bits and pieces about it. People talk about digital in and optical cables and such and when it comes down to it, I have no idea what they are talking about.
Assuming I also have a sound card like the Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1, how am I going to get the most out of the speakers? With an optical digital cable or...? Anybody care explaining any of this to me? Cheers
 
an optical cable/toslink

is this

With you audio card, you can either hook it up w/ the provided wires (ie. center, surround, rear wires) aka green, black, orange...

or if you have an optical out, you can just use the toslink cable to connect the z5500's to your audio card...

that's what I use, but I have a laptop w/ an optical out

I'm sure you will be blown away by the z5500's they are great speakers!
 
I got a set of z5500's three months ago and they are great speakers, though there are a couple of quirks I've experienced with them, but first to your question about digital optical cabling.

To get the most out of these speakers you should get an audio digital fiber optic cable, you can get one 6" in length at Walmart for about $20. I had to get a 20” cable because by PC is a long distance from the control center which is where all in the input/output plugs are. The control center is the part of the speaker set with the readout and dial, not to patronize.

This is just a 5.1 system, not a 7.1 so there are no side speakers. Also make sure that your sound card has an optical digital connection which I’m certain it does. My sig rig has it on the Intel 965 motherboard, I don’t have a discrete sound card, and it works great.

As I said I do have a couple of minor issues with these speakers, but nothing bad. Every now and then the control center will shut off while I’m watching HDTV programs. It will tend to happen a couple of times one day, and then not again for days. Also, on a less frequent basis, all sound will have drops, like a choppy recording. Turing the control center off and on fixes the problem.

I’ve scanned the Logitech forums and have seen others with these issues, but other than possibly some bad speaker hardware, I’ve not found any fix. I think part of the problem is with my onboard sound, which is based on Realtek’s HD audio hardware, not exactly the best in the world. Realtek has updated these drivers almost 10 times since August when I got this Acer rig, and upgrading the drivers seems to have help with these issues. Not to dwell on these issues, as I said, they are very minor, and not frequent enough to give me much concern. Just a quick turn of the switch gets everything straight for days afterwards usually.

Hope I’ve help you. These are great speakers, especially for HDTV and content in Dolby 5.1. I hope you enjoy them!
 
I've got these connected via coaxial and they are great PC speakers. I also use this connecting my xbox 360 via the optical. Both connections are fine, and both will server your purposes.
 
So the cables that come with the speakers are "coaxial" cables and the digital fibre optic cables are the upgraded cables?
Will I notice a genuine deifference between the two? I'm kinda going all out on this rig so it would make sense to buy the digital cable but if it makes absolutely no difference then it would be a waste of money.
I appreciate that onboard sound and cheap sound cards may not be able to take advantage of this but as I said originally I'm planning on buying the Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 card which is a high end card for desktop computers (relatively speaking, as I'm sure you most likely get cards for people who do producing and such).
Thanks so far all, you've been great :)
 
Lol, I just got a brand new set from Logitech (warrantied my Z-680's) and these speakers rock. However, for me, these are not my PC speakers. These are my living room home theater surround sound speakers.


Yes they work great at this!
 
Since the digital coax and digital fiber optic connections, are both, well digital, no its not going to make a great deal of difference if any. Fiber optic connections are on even cheapo PC these days, and I went with it because I have a long cable run, and fiber optic is the best way to go for longer connections.

I would'nt sweat it too much, either connection type will be great.

Enjoy!
 
I have the z5500 also and they are great. I have a xonar d2x that should arrive tomorrow and while i plan to run some stuff over the optical connection does anyone have any idea about upgrading the analog cables from the sound card to the z5500. I was thinking about getting 3 ipod in car cables of about 6' each but i am looking for something better than what is supplied with the system.


Also if you plan on using the digital connection i think you should use the optical instead of the coax if you are going a long distance. I have heard of problems with cheap optical connections messing with the signal introducing jitter but with prelude you should not have that problem.
 
I've had mine for over 3 years and had 0 problems. Amazing quality, amazing speakers.
I use the digital coax line. The sound is clear and I get very good sound out of my x-fi card.
 
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