Z5500 subwoofer doing mid-range also?

djoye

djoye

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I've been using the Z5500 setup for about three weeks now and I've noticed that the sub seems to be doing more work than it should be responsible for. The problem is that it seems like the sub is in charge of doing mid-range sound as well. This is annoying because I've gotta turn up the sub to get heavy-hitting bass but at the same time now the mid-range is blaring through the sub and ruining the audio quality.

I'm not maxing the sub out and bass sounds very good in music with no mid-range (RAP) but in anything else I can hear the mid-range in the sub AND IT SUCKS. :mad:

I'm using an Audigy 2 Platinum but the subwoofer crossover filter setting doesn't seem to be functioning normally with the Logitech system connected. I'm not too worried about losing some mid-range, I don't really expect too much from speakers this size but damn, don't put that crap in my subwoofer.

I'm just wondering if anyone knows how the Z5500 stuff works and what the lowpass filter is for the subwoofer. Maybe I'll open it up and see if there aren't any filter knobs inside.
 
I think that is the problem with most pc speaker systems, the satelites are just too small for their job. I have way cheaper logitech z-3e and i had to turn the bass down with the eq, but then i lost some of the midrange as well..
 
Yeah I've noticed that the z5500 sub is a little boomy too. When I was using my m-audio revo 7.1, I could set the crossover frequency manually so it helped a little. But, with my X-Fi, I end up having to lower the 125hz part of the EQ about 25%.

Vista has a control panel option where you can specify that your satellites are fullrange, but I'm not sure if it makes a difference. I'll experiment and see.

Update: Supposedly, the satellites are full range. Anyway, the X-fi options (bass management / crossover freq, etc) don't have any effect. I guess the speakers or control pod do whatever they want lol.
 
You are right, the sub is expected to carry a large amount of the midrange or the midrange is mostly lacking in most satellite/sub systems. I have read a lot of forum posts regarding Logitech subs "I had to turn down the bass", which is my experience as well. Most PC speakers/sub systems are known for producing a booming heavy crappy bass. Little satellite speakers can never be full range and can only handle the higher range. They just don't have the physical volume (space) to produce mid and lower range.

Bottom line is PC speaker manufacturers can get away with producing overpriced and sucky powered speaker systems because of the convenience of not running an amp/receiver. Unless you want to include a receiver/amp and use real speakers, options are limited for really nice sound. You might want to check out AVS Forum for opinions on speakers to use with PCs. They live that stuff over there.
 
Yeah like the Panny 57 an some nice bookshelf speakers like my Usher 520s. Walks up, down and all around any "PC speaker" setup.
 
It kinda depends on what you define as midrange, bass and all that. In a classic, full scale setup, a sub won't be doing anything more than 80Hz, and often crossed even lower than that. However when you go with satellites, they just can't go that low. 200Hz would be about as far as you'd want to push the crossover point. Past that, the sub will have to take over. That is high enough to at least be considered mid bass by most people.

That's just the limitation of small speakers. If you want a sub that does less, you need speakers that do more. If you get some good 2-way bookshelf speakers you should be able to drop the crossover point to 120Hz or less. With some good floor standing speakers, you can set it pretty much as low as you like (60-70Hz is generally a good choice).

I wish there was a cheaper answer, but there's just not. If you want better sound, you've got to step up to something bigger than computer speakers. As long as the mains are small, you are just going to have to have the sub doing more than it should.

Ideally you want a sub under 80Hz because above that you start to get fairly good at localising the source of the audio. The higher it goes, the more true that is.
 
I've always used 80Hz for the low pass filter whenever it was available but I figure this Logitech stuff isn't letting that happen when I do it from the Audigy speaker setup.

Fortunately I got the Z5500s from Dell for $230 shipped so I'm not terribly upset. I was using a receiver, some good speakers, and a nice 12" Polk Audio sub but I wanted to keep that stuff in the living room. I'll most likely use that stuff later when I decide it's time to put some newer stuff out there but for now I think the Z5500 is as good a PC-centric system as I'm going to get.

Next week when I have time I'm going to crack open the sub to see if there's anything to adjust and maybe look at putting a filter on the woofer's wire(s) to get the noise out.
 
There's really not much you can do with speakers of that size. Even if you do crack them open and adjust the crossover (which is no easy task) you'll find then that instead of having mid bass in your sub, you just don't have it at all. The satellites just can't handle it, they aren't big enough. So if you direct it up there, you'll do nothing but screw up their sound and not get that range at all. You can mess around with an EQ if you like (if your soundcard doesn't have one Behringer makes a cheap one) but really you just kinda have to live with it until you can get some better speakers.
 
the z-5500 has a fixed crossover of 120hz or somewhere around there.. nothing you can do about it. I know some software like creative's let's you change crossover value, but its no use, just makes a gap.

O yeah, don't compare the logitech's satellites against even a cheap bookshelf speaker... you'll be amazed at how much midrange is missing.
 
The crossover must be hardwired on the amplifier or in the software inside of the control center thing. I opened it up and there was nothing to play with inside.

I think the best way to combat the issue without turning down the sub is to just place it far away and with the woofer pointing at you so you get the unf from it. That's what I've done and since it's far away the higher frequencies coming from it don't seem too loud.
 
Just about every Logitech speaker I have heard lacks midrange. Boomy bass and muffled midrange. I have a set of of Z-560 4.1's. I know, they're oldies but goodies.:)

I hated the sats, tho. So I picked up some Klipsch sats off fleabay quite some time ago, and it made a huge differance (at least for me).

IMHO, the Logitech philosophy of single speaker sats just does not work. Tries to do much with too little.
 
Another thing you can try is to seal the sub. Basically just block the port with something. Foam would be the best but cloth would probably work. This has the overall effect of extending the low end but reducing volume and making the drop off more gradual. Have a look at this page. You can see their graph as more ports are plugged it actually extends the low frequency response, but drops the overall level. You can try something similar on the logitech sub. Now it wasn't designed for tuning like the SVS was, but the same general principle will hold true (it just might end up sounding like crap). However, it is something you can do and then undo so there's not much to lose. You may find it moderates the woofer response to your liking.
 
Apologies in advance for thread necromancy.

One way to reduce the boominess is to disable bass redirection from FL/FR channels. This is often set at around 180hz (120hz was mentioned as a regular crossover above) and should be either disabled or reduced to 80hz (THX spec) and paired with a negative gain setting in your software.

For music you can set all this with foobar2000 and the Channel Mixer plugin. For video you can change it in The KM Player.

The subwoofer must make up the difference between the 3" drivers and the woofer, which is likely either 40 or 80hz range (compared to what better quality sats can do). The advantage of disabling or lowering the redirection crossover is it reduces the unnecessary load on the sub.
 
I know I'm awaking an old thread, but this is the subject I was looking for...

Logitech has the crossover set at 125hz, which sucks for music. There's also a lot of ear fatique in the mid-range, which can thankfully be adjusted down with the 2k slider (I use about -3db).

These things were not designed for music :(

Sadly, my Klipsch ProMedia 5.1's finally died after 6 years of faithful service. If they were still available, I'd buy another set in a heartbeat.

Is anyone aware of anyone doing a 're-work' on these things to take a bit of the Pit Bull out of them?

Another problem is they should have gone with dual-8's instead of a single 10". A ported 10" is already flabby as hell, and the 125hz crossover really exasperates the problem, with Music at least.
 
BTW... How the hell can something with a cross-over of 125hz become THX Certified?
 
THX certified is more of a gimmick than anything. In theory you are getting "Movie theater sound," however in reality there's a number of different kinds of THX certifications, and it is questionable how useful it really is. There's some rather awesome gear out there that isn't THX certified.

Personally, I'd completely ignore it.
 
Yeah, my understanding is that THX is mostly just a marketting label that they slap on to make a product more expensive. Kind of like the "Works on Vista" label they were putting on everything, even some hardware that did not, in fact, work with Vista. Focus on the specifications of the speakers, not on gimmicky marketting terms and you should be good.
 
Well at its heart, it is a nice idea. I mean originally THX was (and still is) a theater certification. Idea being that you get a good consistent sound across any theater. Ok, fair enough. It was then also adapted for home. Ok, also a neat idea. However you already run in to some problems in terms of implementation. Homes are different than theaters, so the question is how do you give that experience in the home? Well some of the choices they made, like dipole surrounds, not everyone agrees with including people in cinema (like Dolby).

Well this was successful marketing wise and making THX money wise. So they worked to expand it to other things, like computers. Problem is you are getting real far away from what a theater is. Theaters are large, treated, rooms with expensive sound systems. This does not translate to $200 computer speakers very well. So the definitions had to be changed, relaxed, and so on.

Another problem is that THX is very rigid about some things that may not be the best way to do sound over all. So you find good products that can't pass certification, despite being everything you'd want sonically.

As such it has become a marketing term for the most part. If all you do is movies, it can be mildly useful when you buy home theater gear to get an all THX setup, but overall I'd give it a miss.

I certainly don't shun THX gear, but I don't seek it out either. When I was looking at receivers it wasn't a consideration. In the end I was considering between two: An Onkyo that was THX certified and a Denon that wasn't. I elected to get the Denon for various reasons, none related to THX status.
 
Companys do afterall have to pay THX to get their products tested/certified, so of course there are a lot more good speakers/products without the THX label.

The problem with the THX labeling is that they don't publicly disclose what standards actually have to be met.
 
They do disclose some of them, and some of the standards are actually not always desirable. One case would be for the Ultra-2 certification, the high end home theatre one, your speakers have to be sealed and roll off at 80Hz. Well ok I guess that's fine for movies mixed for that, but it means your speakers are maybe not so good for music. A vented design with a lower extension is quite nice for 2 channel music. However it isn't allowed for THX. So all of my very favorite speakers can't get THX certification because they all have a lower extension.

In the case of receivers I'm not aware of any requirements that could be negative, but they still might be there.
 
Someone mentioned Bose in this thread early on; it should be noted that from my limited experience in browsing audiophile communities, Bose is a complete joke.
 
Sycraft said:
Another thing you can try is to seal the sub. Basically just block the port with something. Foam would be the best but cloth would probably work. This has the overall effect of extending the low end but reducing volume and making the drop off more gradual. Have a look at this page. You can see their graph as more ports are plugged it actually extends the low frequency response, but drops the overall level. You can try something similar on the logitech sub. Now it wasn't designed for tuning like the SVS was, but the same general principle will hold true (it just might end up sounding like crap). However, it is something you can do and then undo so there's not much to lose. You may find it moderates the woofer response to your liking.
Click to expand...

Would blocking the port damage the unit ?
 
Well i recently got a Z-5500, no point in starting a new one then asking the same thing..
 
neodark088 said:
Would blocking the port damage the unit ?
Click to expand...

No. As I said, all it will do is lower the volume level of the sub over all, and extend the low frequency response a bit. You have to remember you aren't talking completely blocking it, you are just talking increasing the resistance with foam or cloth.
 
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