[Back!] Logitech Z-5500 Digital 5.1 Surround System $220 shipped at Amazon

Cheapy mentioned a digital TOS cable and then bmsdaddy mentioned an optical cable. Are they the same thing??

Forgive me for being naive, but I have never had a "surround" sound system before...
 
[quote name='strayfoxx']Cheapy mentioned a digital TOS cable and then bmsdaddy mentioned an optical cable. Are they the same thing??

Forgive me for being naive, but I have never had a "surround" sound system before...[/QUOTE]
- A Toslink cable and an Optical cable are the same thing. Just a note to potential buyers of cables. Toslink cables are digital cables, meaning that the sound is either there or it isn't. Don't bother wasting extra money on expensive toslink cables. Buy a decent built cable and save your money. There is no difference in sound.
 
Well after much begging I got the wife to let me get these. Thanks guys

Now I need to find out what all cables I need. I know atleast one of those optical cables. Before this thread I didnt know that so thanks.
 
[quote name='zaq2g']From what creative cs has told me, theres no way to do eax with digital, it has to be analog using three 1/8th stereo connectors. One cable is for front l/r, one for rear l/r and one for center and sub. So eax can work with this unit using the 6 channel analog inputs.

[edit] additionally, the reason for this is because eax is processed on the pc. the only way it could work digitally is if the reciever was an eax decoder and you could send raw eax encoded streams. i personally have never seen an eax hardware decoder, so im not really sure if one even exists.

if you look on the back of your sound card, there should be a bunch of 1/8th inch connectors. there should be a light green, black and some kind of really light orange. IIRC, the green is fronts, black is rear and the orange one is center/sub. these connectors correspond to a 1/8th inch stereo minijack input on the z5500's, im not sure if they are color coded, but i believe they are.

for others who are not concerned with eac, these 3 inputs can also be used as 3 separate stereo ins via a small toggle switch. this will allow a total of 5 devices plus i think there is an in on the side, although im not really sure. so we have either 4 stereo ins, 1 digital coax and 1 digital optical or 1 stereo, 1 6 channel analog, 1 digital coax and 1 digital optical.

hope all this helps and not messes people up[/QUOTE]

thanks for the input but yeah I know this speaker system will work with the multichannel analog. I currently use the propreitary digital SPIDIF Din which is actually Digital Signal from my card to my DTT3500's Receiver which ises a propreitary system with the 1/8th jack and the mini din on the back of the receiver.

I guess I really don't need a new system, my current system is fine even though I guess power standards it is weak, but my neighbors have complained about my current speakers. But man with 219 and no tax and amazon prime.... It's hard to pass...
 
I've got them set up in my dorm room.

I'm on the 8th floor.

People outside and a good 400 yards away yell at me for having it too loud.
 
Man, i ordered these on friday and the arrived on saturday shipped free with amazon prime. sounds great, but the sub is ginormous. Its bigger than 2 of my old yamaha tss-1 subs. The ones that came had regular tinned speaker wire, not permanetly connected wires so its easy and cheap to extend the speakers if needed.
 
[quote name='zaq2g']Man, i ordered these on friday and the arrived on saturday shipped free with amazon prime. sounds great, but the sub is ginormous. Its bigger than 2 of my old yamaha tss-1 subs. The ones that came had regular tinned speaker wire, not permanetly connected wires so its easy and cheap to extend the speakers if needed.[/QUOTE]

It's big, but that mother fucker packs a punch. I had a bottle of water in the middle of my desk, and within 15 seconds, it had fallen off.
 
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And it doubles as a trash receptacle, too. Bonus.
 
[quote name='CheapyD']That's not a sub...try the Bose Acoustic Wave Cannon:


Bose2.jpg


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[/QUOTE]
Acoustic Wave Cannon...sounds like something Samus could be packin'.
 
Hey guys, I am a tech newbie. So I don't understand most of these stuff. Can anyone tell me is it possile to hook this thing to a laptop via a usb drive or the 3.5 mm headset jack?
 
I got mine in last night.
It was my first 5.1 experiance with 360. WOW!

Thanks again OP.

These things are awesome and I loved COD2 with them last night.
 
[quote name='mgsvr']Is it a huge differences with 5.1 system man? I'm getting mine next year .[/QUOTE]
Incredible. Wait 'till you actually hear the bullets zipping past your head and explosions going off behind you.
 
[quote name='SteveMcQ']Incredible. Wait 'till you actually hear the bullets zipping past your head and explosions going off behind you.[/QUOTE]

Wow I never think about those sound effect before. All I hear for couple years now is 2 damn speakers on my TV or my PC gaming. Now I just can't wait after hearing bullet zipping past your head..etc. Playing BLACK will be good.
 
i have one question, how long are all the different cables? I wanted to run the sub in the corner of the room, and to where my tv sits it would be about 14-18 feet along the wall. Would i have enough cable to run the system?
 
[quote name='DeathMoJo']i have one question, how long are all the different cables? I wanted to run the sub in the corner of the room, and to where my tv sits it would be about 14-18 feet along the wall. Would i have enough cable to run the system?[/QUOTE]

The cable running from the control center to the sub is only 7 feet long. The connector is a 15 pin d-sub cable, like computer monitors use. You could get an extension cable to make it longer, but most monitor extension cables are missing a pin on one end and won't work. These show all the pins being there, so they should work. This site is cheaper and I've even heard of them before, but I can't tell from the picture if the pin is missing or not. It looks like it's there - send them an email to be sure. I saw a post from a guy that made his own ~10ft extension cable, and he says it works fine.
 
Got them late last week and didn't have time to hook them up with all the holiday stuff, but last night got them going with both XBox and PC games. Try playing any decent WWII FPS (DoD:S, CoD2, Red Orchestra) with this setup. Then change your crapped-pants afterwords.
 
[quote name='pinatamonkey']The cable running from the control center to the sub is only 7 feet long. The connector is a 15 pin d-sub cable, like computer monitors use. You could get an extension cable to make it longer, but most monitor extension cables are missing a pin on one end and won't work. These show all the pins being there, so they should work. This site is cheaper and I've even heard of them before, but I can't tell from the picture if the pin is missing or not. It looks like it's there - send them an email to be sure. I saw a post from a guy that made his own ~10ft extension cable, and he says it works fine.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the reply, i have decided just to move my dvd stand over slightly which will make room but will look a little out of place but thats ok. I ordered them last night and they shipped today. Hopefully i get them next week, they said estimated delivery as Jan. 10th! I just have to go pick up an optical audio cable for my xbox 360 and ill be good to go. I should really learn to save money! haha.
 
In regards to how long the cables are...

The speaker wires come with three 15' cables and two 25' cables. The sub needs to be placed away from any other electronic objects such as TV's etc but it only comes with a 2' power cord, and the control center plugs into it.

This thing is amazing. I had a quick question though. I tried listening to CD's off my harddrive on my 360 and I had no sound in my center speaker or my rear speakers. I have the audio settings changed to Dolby in the Audio menu of my 360 so why am I not getting sound to the other speakers? My games, movies use all the speakers but why not music off my 360?

Also is there a difference between Dolby 5.1 and DTS?
 
ok another questions, i am going to use this as a cheaper home theater system so i plan to hook up my 360 via optical input, my dvd player via the coax input and the last thing i wanted to hook up was my tv. Now my tv only has optical out and normal RCA out. I was looking at the 6 channel mini connectors and thought i could use a RCA to mini cable. How would this work? I don't really care if the tv comes through with stereo sound. I just don't understand the 3 mini connectors on the back, is it 3 seperate stereo connections?
 
[quote name='DeathMoJo']ok another questions, i am going to use this as a cheaper home theater system so i plan to hook up my 360 via optical input, my dvd player via the coax input and the last thing i wanted to hook up was my tv. Now my tv only has optical out and normal RCA out. I was looking at the 6 channel mini connectors and thought i could use a RCA to mini cable. How would this work? I don't really care if the tv comes through with stereo sound. I just don't understand the 3 mini connectors on the back, is it 3 seperate stereo connections?[/QUOTE]
That's for getting 5.1 surround on your PC. One is for the front and center speakers, the other for the rear satellites, the other for the 'woofer.

If you're not going to be using this for your PC though, you can convert the 3 inputs into 3 separate stereo inputs. You just get that cable converter you were talking about and you can then have 3 more inputs to use alongside the optical and coaxial. There's a toggle switch on the back that does it.
 
[quote name='SteveMcQ']That's for getting 5.1 surround on your PC. One is for the front and center speakers, the other for the rear satellites, the other for the 'woofer.

If you're not going to be using this for your PC though, you can convert the 3 inputs into 3 separate stereo inputs. You just get that cable converter you were talking about and you can then have 3 more inputs to use alongside the optical and coaxial. There's a toggle switch on the back that does it.[/QUOTE]

Can you please explain this further? I just received this system, and found out that I can use it with NOTHING other than my PC because of these inputs. With other PC speaker systems, I used a converter to change the headphone-jack port that plugged into the PC sound card into dual red-and-black stereo inputs.

Does this switch change these three (front, rear, and center) into three separate channels for sound?
 
[quote name='BarrettSan']Can you please explain this further? I just received this system, and found out that I can use it with NOTHING other than my PC because of these inputs. With other PC speaker systems, I used a converter to change the headphone-jack port that plugged into the PC sound card into dual red-and-black stereo inputs.

Does this switch change these three (front, rear, and center) into three separate channels for sound?[/QUOTE]Sure, I'll try.

Take a look at this pic.

If you move that switch on the far right down to the "Stereo 1-3" setting, the 3 colored jacks (marked "6-Ch Direct" and "Stereo 1-2-3") become 3 separate stereo inputs. You'll need to get a cable that goes from the RCA Audio connections (Red and White) to a single 1/8" stereo plug.

You basically need the opposite of that converter you have now.

There's actually 6 different components you can have connected to the system at once (if you don't hook up your PC speakers to a 6Ch direct connection). You've got the 3 speakers connections, the two digital connections (optical and coax) and there's another on the side of the control panel for another stereo connection below the headphone connection.

Hope that makes some sort of sense.
 
Yes, thank you, that helps a lot! :)

Will these 3 inputs still support things like Dolby Surround Pro Logic II for the Gamecube? I can utilize optical on the PS2, but the TV and other systems don't have this kind of output. My plan is to run all of the systems through the HDTV, then run the RCA audio out to these speakers.
 
[quote name='SteveMcQ']Sure, I'll try.

Take a look at this pic.

If you move that switch on the far right down to the "Stereo 1-3" setting, the 3 colored jacks (marked "6-Ch Direct" and "Stereo 1-2-3") become 3 separate stereo inputs. You'll need to get a cable that goes from the RCA Audio connections (Red and White) to a single 1/8" stereo plug.

You basically need the opposite of that converter you have now.

There's actually 6 different components you can have connected to the system at once (if you don't hook up your PC speakers to a 6Ch direct connection). You've got the 3 speakers connections, the two digital connections (optical and coax) and there's another on the side of the control panel for another stereo connection below the headphone connection.

Hope that makes some sort of sense.[/QUOTE]

SteveMcQ,

Thank you sir!! That makes sense and i thought i understood it but wasn't totally sure. Im not a big tv watcher so my HDTV does really need to be hooked to the system, i don't even have cable. I might switch the optical cable from my 360 sometime to my HDTV when im watching football games over the HD broadcast. I am however a huge gamer/movie watcher so having both hooked up with digital coax and optical is a MUST!! Thanks again! Can't wait to hook this system up tomorrow after work.

Amazon's turn around was amazing, ordered Monday night at around 10pm, it shipped and left Dallas, TX via UPS Ground on tuesday at 8:30 and is scheduled to be here and delivered the 29th!
 
Sure guys, no prob.

DPLII should work just fine through either of the 3 stereo connections or the extra one on the side (remember that extra port on the side in case you want more components on there). Then just hit the "Effect" button on the remote or control center and you should be able to switch to DLPII.

BTW, I stronly suggest you send in the registration card or do it online for your product. I originally had the Z-680s. The logic board blew out, I called Logitech, and they sent me the updated Z-5500s brand new as replacement at no cost to me.

Really great products, with great service.
 
cheapy could you talk to amazon and tell them to keep the price low for about another 2 weeks...thanks.

to give CAG the credit of this purchase, do i just order through the links in the OP?
 
Yes, the stands that the speakers come on can be rotated and used as wall mounts. I do not believe they supply the actual screws though.
 
what kind of screws would i need? Also is this a good system for a bedroom just for a tv set? i recently bought the 32 inch version (1800 dollar one) of those xbox 360 display tvs, and now i wanna rev up with a surrond system. Is this surrond system usable with GC ps2 and the original xbox too? Can i hook it to a standard dvd player?
 
[quote name='thingsfallnapart']what kind of screws would i need? Also is this a good system for a bedroom just for a tv set? i recently bought the 32 inch version (1800 dollar one) of those xbox 360 display tvs, and now i wanna rev up with a surrond system. Is this surrond system usable with GC ps2 and the original xbox too? Can i hook it to a standard dvd player?[/QUOTE]

Not sure what kind of screws you would need, but the places on the satellite base where the screws fit have a removable rubber mount; you could take one of these out and fit it to whatever length screw and head size you wanted at a hardware store.

Yes, this is a great system for a TV set only.

Yes. With PS2 and Xbox, you can use their optical digital sound ports to produce true digital sound. I tried this tonight with a DVD movie and it was incredible. The Gamecube has only RCA sound out, but the speakers can still use Dolby Pro Logic II with the 'cube.

Yes, you can hook this system up to a standard DVD player in a variety of ways. Most good DVD players have coaxial sound out and thus can plug straight into the speakers. Otherwise, you can still use the RCA sound output like with the Gamecube.

My personal setup has everything running through the TV, and then two RCA sound plugs running through a converter to the speaker control center. The PS2, however, runs through optical for DVD movies and whatever games support it. I have to say that it's a spectacular gaming and movie system. Seriously near theatre-quality.
 
[quote name='BarrettSan']Not sure what kind of screws you would need, but the places on the satellite base where the screws fit have a removable rubber mount; you could take one of these out and fit it to whatever length screw and head size you wanted at a hardware store.

Yes, this is a great system for a TV set only.

Yes. With PS2 and Xbox, you can use their optical digital sound ports to produce true digital sound. I tried this tonight with a DVD movie and it was incredible. The Gamecube has only RCA sound out, but the speakers can still use Dolby Pro Logic II with the 'cube.

Yes, you can hook this system up to a standard DVD player in a variety of ways. Most good DVD players have coaxial sound out and thus can plug straight into the speakers. Otherwise, you can still use the RCA sound output like with the Gamecube.

My personal setup has everything running through the TV, and then two RCA sound plugs running through a converter to the speaker control center. The PS2, however, runs through optical for DVD movies and whatever games support it. I have to say that it's a spectacular gaming and movie system. Seriously near theatre-quality.[/QUOTE]

thanks ordered...cant wait to hear king kong threw these guys!
 
your not alone cheapy, ive heard of other people with this same problem...maybe it has something to do with the xbox 360 putting the cd player sound out in stereo only?
 
I got these last week for my 360.
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/pr...ONTENTID=10928
Its my first time having a full 5.1 system and all.
The manuel is total crap for telling you what to set things to and such.

On the remote there are three buttons in the middle that say SUB/Center/Surround.
Those are all set to like one or two bars.


For your systems do you turn those settings up to max (all of them) and then use the overall volume to adjust the sound?

There is also a night mode that I have no idea what it is.

I have played with its setting a lot but I just wanted to know what you all have yours set on since it would help me decide what it I might set mine on.

Help
 
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