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Multimedia speakers for the PC have come a long way since the first Sound Blaster equipped the PC with the means of blasting out MIDI music and 8 bit sound bites. From micro mono tweeters to 7.1 surround systems you would think there is no way else to improve the basic multimedia speakers.
Well that’s where you’re wrong cause you see, Logitech has came up with a brilliant idea of fitting out their latest multimedia speakers with touch sensor buttons and a cool amber coloured LCD panel. Introducing the Z-10 Interactive 2.0 Speaker System. What’s so cool about a LCD on a speaker you say? Well not only does it show the Volume, Bass or Treble’s level setting , but it actually interacts with your PC via a USB cable. How? Read on.
The interactivity of this system is where things get
interesting. The Z-10 does come with a CD with a driver and a software called
Logitech LCD Manager. With this software installed, you will be able to control
music playback directly from the touch sensor buttons on the speaker itself!
There are a total of 13 touch sensors buttons on the right speaker which is
encased in a shinny smooth surface that is cool to look but very easy to smear
with your fingerprints. Too bad cause you'll be touching them very often. Good
thing Logitech provided a chamois of sort to help with that. Or so I thought
they did as stated on the box, but the unit that came to me was sans the
chamois.
You have the 1-4 Internet radio preset buttons, a display
button for changing the LCD display mode, media control previous track,
play/pause and next track buttons, the power button, mute and a level button to
change the volume mode to bass or treble plus the actual increase or decrease
buttons. The Internet radio preset and media control buttons will work only if
you're using either Microsoft Windows Media Player, Apple iTunes, Winamp,
Musicmatch Jukebox or Real Player.
If that's not cool enough, the LCD panel can even inform you
of new emails coming in via your Outlook. The LCD basically has 4 display modes
which can be changed manually using the "display" button or automatically at a
preset time using the LCD Manager.
- Media Display - this displays the artist and
song title, time left and total time of the song plus the current stage of the
song.
 
- LCD Clock - this shows an analogue and digital
clock as well as the day and date.
 
- LCD Countdown Timer - a stopwatch and countdown
timer.
 
- Performance Monitor - this shows the vital CPU
and RAM usage in 2 separate bars with a percentage figure above it.
You can also use the LCD Manager to disable any of the
screen to save memory. Yes each of the fun function above requires a small
service to be started in the background as you can see in the screenshot below:
Now you may be thinking this is just a USB powered speakers,
and yes you're right. The Z-10 not only uses the USB to communicate between the
software and itself, but it acts as a USB powered sound card cum speaker so it
truth it can even be used on PC's without any sound card not that there are
many PC's without built-in sound. It also comes with an auxiliary input if you
wish to use it for your MP3 or CD player.
On to the most important aspect of a speaker system, the
sound. For a 2 speaker system, the Z-10 really does produces a relatively rich
sound with especially good quality bass which I think is almost on par with
most 2.1 system. The 3" driver and 1" tweeter seems very capable of doing their
job but like any multimedia speaker system they tend to distort a little when
reaching the max volume setting. But don't let that put you off, cause this
baby is one of the best 2.0 speaker setup I've heard so far. The only thing
that may put me off is the price.
The whole package includes the 2 speaker itself, a user's
guide, a CD with the drivers and the Logitech LCD Manager software, a premium
cleaning chamois and 6 fts worth of speaker, USB, AC Power and 3.5mm stereo auxiliary
cable comes at a recommended selling price of RM699 with a one year warranty
period. Is it worth it? Truth be told, no. However if your room has a certain
lack of space and you like showing off that cool LCD display, then I guess
there's no stronger medicine then the Z-10.
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