Z5500 - My Love/Hate relationship

[Gimpymoo]

Well, I have had these for over a year now and I feel a little miffed by them.

I like them on one hand as for games, they are fantastic, they just seem to fall down on everything else Films are OK yet music is bit pap in my opinion.

Has been mentioned many times before, they are just too "BOOMY". I have a pair of Logitech Z3's which costs a quarter of the Z5500's yet I somehow prefer for some stupid reason, even though they are only 2.1, the sound is more "crisp"?

I listen to a lot of talk radio on the PC and to be honest, it just doesnt sound right as is just too boomy if that makes any sense?

So, what to do?

For over £200, I guess I expected more although you read the reviews, make your choice and pay your money

Will probably be selling them to make way for some deecent headphones although have no idea how much they are worth 2nd hand as I see the brand new price as gone up quite a bit owing to the exchange rate.

My heart tells me to keep them but my head says to get rid

Am I being unfair, am I missing something?

 

[dovey]

What sound card are you using? Mine were very boomy with my x-fi but my donar d2x and laptop realtek sound a lot nicer. Instead of leaving the sub at 2 ish i had it on default with the d2x, might be something to look into!

 

[snowdog]

They are not too boomy in any way imo, just a bit too bassy if used in stereo mode ( or ''direct'' if the source is stereo).
I would love them to be much more boomy/punchy.

But anyways, use ''stereo X2'' mode for music and it should be fine. If you're using any stereo to 5.1 mixing on your soundcard: Disable it. It deforms sound too much. At least my previous CMMS 3d on my audigy SE, audigy 2 and other 5.1 mixing from my realtek HD, soundmax HD were absolute rubbish.

Radio talk indeed sounds like absolute rubbish on pc but I think it has more to do with the radio quality: Radio(stations) was(/were) always a tad louder and bassier than other sources, it doesn't sound right when I listen to radio from the internet. And of course the bitrate is very rubbish from radio sources, usually only 96kbit/sec or 128...

Been listening to some flac and the Z5500's sound pretty well imo until you go above 60% of the volume. This is on rock music mainly.


I use these settings:

Soundcard: Audigy 2 ZS. NO MIXING or any other sound deforming things.
Connection: Analog 3x 3.5 mm jacks.
Settings:
''Direct'' For 5.1 sources like films and games, subwoofer 100%. Also use this for when I want (some of) my (stereo) music to be bassy eg. gangsta rap or something which means the 2 fronts only do the music and the sub the basses, nice and bassy.
Stereo X2 + 100% subw for anything pre 90's + ( modern) rock, jazz and a few more things. Nice loud treble and bass and treble are nicely balanced imo. In fact I think the bass could be louder in some cases. But 5.1 on this type of music sucks imo and simply cloning the fronts to the rears works best.
Dolby Pro Logic 2 movie ( and subwoof at 100%) for old stereo movies: works really well imo.


Overall I just miss something like a ''loudness'' effect which makes the basses punchier but not all louder if you know what I mean. That aside the midtones are a bit crap from 60% up volume and the difference in bass is barely noticeable above 70% to the boost 22 level. But you can't expect everything from speakers costing 250€... I have temporary removed the 2 rears and replaced them with 2 jamo dynamic D4 speakers ( ages old but sound well ) and it sounded better on high volumes but the difference was minimal on lower volumes lower than 50%.

 

[MadMatty]

Could try using the sub volume too control boom. Also in Vista maybe tweaking the sound options will help. By default the satalites are not set full range enabled.