Digital Trends

Logitech Z-680

March 18th, 2003 | by Benj Mauck

Features Continued...

The Z-680 intends to be a much more user friendly system, complete with a large control center, wireless remote, and many new features.  One of the biggest advantages of this system is its capability to accept multiple inputs such as digital coax, optical, stereo mini-phono, and six-channel direct via three mini-phono jacks.  On home theater systems it is generally expected to have multiple inputs — but for a computer speaker system this is relatively new — and quite useful.  For instance this allows your game system to plug into the mini-phono jacks, your DVD or VCR to connect to the digital coax, your CD player to the stereo mini-phono jack, and your computer to the optical connector (or any other variant of this).  Of course all this could be accomplished externally with a switchbox or similar device but this internal solution is simpler and more elegant.  Unfortunately if you want more than four devices (ie DVD, VCR, TV, Computer, Game system, etc.), or if some of the devices require stereo RCA cables, you will be back to engineering a work-around — something many are accustom to doing anyway.  For instance, send the audio from the DVD, VCR, & Game system to the TV and connect the TV out to the Logitech control center (effectively making the TV into the switchbox).

Another feature to make this system stand out is its ability to automatically detect the stereo/surround input signal, rather than have to manually select which input to use.  Its ability to distinguish between a 5.1 Dolby Digital, DTS, or stereo sound, and adjust accordingly is a distinct advantage over cheaper systems which generally will play the stereo signal only on two speakers.   A manual fix for this was placed on Logitech's cheaper Z-640 speakers - a matrix button was used if you needed to switch between stereo and surround inputs, and had to be pushed each time your inputs input changed between stereo and surround.  Again, the Z-680 offers an elegant solution — the only setback being a ~5 second delay needed for automatic detection and switching.

The other features found in this exceptionally large control center are a LCD display, a hefty volume knob, the IR sensor, several buttons, and the I/O jacks.  We are not sure what purpose the overall bulkiness plays; it looks like all these features could easily have fit into a box one-half this size.  Nevertheless the control center is quite functional and allows switching between the various inputs, several effects, settings, levels, and a mute option.   Most of these features will rarely be used — but for the audio enthusiast it will be interesting to go through each of the various effects: Dolby Digital, DTS, MPEG, Dolby Pro Logic II Movie, Dolby Pro Logic II Music, 6 Channel Direct, Stereo X2, and Stereo.  Depending on your input your options of the above will be limited.  The remote has the same options as the control center, plus a test button to confirm each of the speakers is operational.  The remote's range is great, as with its layout and shape.  The system uses standard speaker wires — making it simple to replace with wire lengths to suit.  As with the other Logitech systems, speaker mounts are reversible to allow for wall or table mounting.  Also it is arguably one of the more aesthetically pleasing speaker systems available.

Unfortunately even with such a high quality system we had several disappointments.  First — right out of the box the red center channel speaker jack was broken.  Perhaps this was just an early quality control issue, but in our opinion the biggest issue is a concern that even Logitech notes on its web page — the background noise.  Audiophiles will notice immediately a significant amount of white noise at low volumes.  While this is not noticeable at louder music levels — we found that even after 3 clicks on the volume (out of 27) the background noise exceeded the music volume.  At close range it takes turning the volume up to about half-way to totally drown it out.   And in a quite room the white noise is still distinguishable from 15 feet away.  Logitech attempts to justify this in several ways — primarily explaining that this is normal in high power systems and can be fixed by placing the speakers further than 6 feet away.  While placing the speakers further away will definitely help, we feel that some better noise reduction circuitry would be a great help.