Digital Home Thoughts: Logitech's Z-10 Speakers: Your Laptop's Best Friend

External Audio is Better Than On-Board Audio
The speakers have the ability to accept a 3.5mm analog input on the back, and there's a 3.5mm headphone back on the side. Standard fare. What's not so standard is the fact that you can connect directly to the speakers via USB, and this is the preferred form of connection in most scenarios. If you have an X-Fi card on your desktop PC, you'd want to use that because it would drive better sound. Most computers have on-board audio, which is prone to distortions and weak signal strength. By using the USB cable to deliver a purely digital signal to the digital to analog converter in the speakers, you end up with much higher quality audio.

I tested these speakers with my Fujitsu 7010D laptop, which is typical of laptops with cheap Realtek on-board audio. I listened to the same song, at the same relative system volume, on the Z-10s using the headphone/audio-out jack on my laptop and compared it to the USB output. The difference was night and day - the USB connection provided cleaner sound (with no discernable distortions), crisper mid and high end signal, and the bass sounded much fuller. I was definitey impressed with the audio fidelity of the digital to analog conversion that the Z-10s performed.

The All Important Question: Do They Bring The Bass?
Without a sub-woofer, can two small-ish speakers deliver any real low end? I'm a bass player myself, so bass is important to me - I tend to tweak EQs and bass/treble settings toward the bass end of the sonic spectrum. On the Z-10s, the bass response seems "near field" (for lack of a better term). When I was sitting two feet away from the speakers, the bass sounded excellent on the fat-'70s-toned Temptations tracks I pumped through them. But when I moved to a distance of six feet, the bass dropped off quite a bit.

This reinforces my belief that these speakers make excellent companions for a PC system (especially a laptop) that you're sitting in front of and a less-than-ideal companion for my Roku M2000 that needs to fill a 20 by 50 foot room. That's not the fault of the Z-10 speakers of course - you always want to use the right tool for the right job. Bass signals coming from a sub-woofer in particular need some distance for the sound wave to expand.

The Final Word
Logitech has delivered a solid set of speakers - regardless of whether or not you fully utilize the LCD screen, these are good speakers. If the idea of getting email alerts on your speakers appeals to you, you'll love these speakers. If that sounds useless, but you still want great-sounding speakers, the Z-10s remain a good choice.

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He really likes trying out new speakers.