It’s amazing what you can do for $50 nowadays. I remember a 5.1 speaker setup used to cost hundreds of dollars not too long ago. I bought these speakers about 5 months ago I’d say, and I’ve been amazed ever since. Sure, I could do better, but for $50, you can’t go wrong. Logitech makes pretty impressive speakers for the money, and I encourage you to pick up a set of these. Each speaker is hardwired with an RCA connector at the end. You connect all of the speakers into the subwoofer. The right speaker has a serial-port connector that screws into the subwoofer, and contains the volume control. The subwoofer itself has a dial for the bass, and I have to set it down most of the time to keep the neighbors nice. Also, I should state that these are computer speakers. If your soundcard doesn’t support 5.1, you can easily buy one for as low as $7, although you may want to splurge for an $7.50 or $10 card instead. And of course, like most things, the more you spend the better performance you’ll get. Heck, a pretty decent 7.1 card only costs $22 currently. 5.1 is (sigh) being phased out, which is part of the reason why this is so cheap, but hey – most DVDs are only encoded up to 5.1.

The satellite speakers aren’t all that heavy, so don’t expect them to jump through hoops. If you’re really ambitious, you can easily throw in female RCA jacks if you want to use your own wires (ah, that would require real work though). Bottom line – if you’re currently stuck with a 2.0 or a 2.1 setup, do yourself a favor, skip the strip club for a night, and throw some money into some real entertainment. Sure, it’s not THX certified, but who needs to go deaf anyway? With my current (and recent) setup, I don’t hear any noise, and sound is as crisp as I’d ever want it. DVDs sound awesome, 3D gaming has never been better, and my MP3s now surround me. Of all of the stupid stuff I’ve bought in the past, I am definitely glad I jumped on this one. This is money well spent, and I don’t regret a penny. Go on to Newegg.com and get you some fun!

Edit (Jan 12, 2007): Currently the price is now at $60. Is it still worth it? My answer is yes. In fact, I think I actually did pay $60 for these, but the price was at $50 when I wrote this article. I was recently at an upscale mall (Sommerset) and I noticed the Sony store used these speakers to demo one of their water-cooled blu-ray computers along with a widescreen 30-some inch high-resolution monitor. I’m probably looking into this too much, but I wondered why they didn’t use Sony brand computer speakers instead. Would I pay $70 for these speakers? Probably not, but I think you would still be hard pressed to find a better deal even at $70.

Edit #2 (January 21, 2009): These things crapped out on me about a year ago. Basically I was hooking up my computer at my new apartment and accidentally plugged in my 19″ LCD monitor into the subwoofer (subwoofer uses a VGA connector). Stupid mistake, didn’t think it would actually kill my subwoofer. Awesome how the fuse is soldered to the component board on the inside. I found the same fuse online (with pigtails), and now the speakers work, but only 3 of them. Well, I’ll keep the speakers around I guess, but the subwoofer with built-in amp are just about junk now. They were really freakin awesome when they lasted, but unfortunately they’re not really built to last.

Ah, and some specs for those of you who care (from Newegg):