The Logitech Z-10's are a pair of powered PC speakers designed to allow high quality listening direct from a PC via a USB link. Born from the same high end product family as the Di Novo keyboard the Z10 speakers have quite a few tricks too, including touch sensitive controls and even basic control of internet radio.

The guts of the Z10 speaker system are provided by a high quality set of drivers, namely a 25.4 mm dome tweeter and 76 mm high-excursion woofer that together provide 30 watts RMS which should be more than enough to fill your average room. In a break from most PC speakers there is even a bi amp design whereby the tweeter and woofers are separately driven akin to the higher end HiFi speakers and their bi wire design.

Set-up of the Z-10's requires you to load a Logitech driver on your PC which then pipes both control and audio via USB .20 to the speakers. Control is on one of the two speakers and sits below the driver units, what is neat is that  the Z10 has a touch sensitive panel which means that the control surface can change to perform differing functions. Above the panel is an orange backlit LCD panel which changes role depending on the application in use on the PC, from playback track title and progress bar when using an MP3 application like iTunes or Windows Media player to a radio tuning interface when listening to radio one on the web.

We started with the Logitech Z-10 speakers plugged up to our test laptop and used Windows Media player as the source. We worked our way through a range of tracks to see if the high end drivers were more than a gimmick. The good news is that audibly tyheZ10's sound as good as they look, in fact we go as far as to say they are better than the majority of iPod speaker systems. They handle bass with aplomb and manage to keep it separate from the top end probably due to the bi amplification, this means you can have a bassy R&B track and yet the vocals sound crisp and life like. LP insisted on putting on some Hammond organ and seemed very impressed with the overall sound, pushing the volume to beyond acceptable levels before any hint of distortion crept in.

We were able to control WMP 10 from the speaker touch controls easily, there is track skipping, play, pause and volume control plus you can see the name of the track playing, duration, bass / treble adjustment and a progress bar. Then switching to listening to an internet radio station allows you to use one of the 4 programmable presets which can relate to a radio station each, perfect if you want to have this set-up in the office but don't want to root around the PC every time you want to change station.

Then there is a nifty little display button which toggles the LCD readout from its playback function to a clock / date readout which looks uber cool and is something that will have you workmates staring at wondering which alien mother ship you nicked your speakers from. Should you want to plug in an iPod or other MP3 player there is also an aux jack although you won't be able to control it from the Z-10's.

Priced at £85 and shipping with both 2 meter USB cable and speaker cables and a 2 year warranty the Logitech Z-10 speaker system represents good value for money too.

In a market where every iPod speaker system seems to blend into each other with their ice white styling and so so audio quality this jet black speaker system with its backlit control and LCD panel not only looks great it sounds it too.

Published - 11/12/2006

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