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Poll: is it desirable to measure some "cheap" plastic PC speakers?

Is it desirable to measure some "cheap" plastic PC speakers?

  • Yes, absolutely! (for the science sake, for general reference, for "preference reference", other rea

    Votes: 59 56.7%

  • No, why bother? (it's Klippel abusement, not worth Amir's time, other reasons...)

    Votes: 41 39.4%

  • Whatever, I don't care (indecisive, not my area of interest, other reasons..)

    Votes: 4 3.8%
  • Total voters
    104
pavuol

pavuol

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Lately a friend of mine sent me a link to Logitech Z200 speakers, asking me if they are OK option for a very tight budget (daily PC usage, YT, skype, multimedia consumption). I said if I were him, I would eat less and spare some more bucks and go for at least some starters in "personal monitors category", like Eris E3.5 or something like that..
That said, I think it is not a bad idea to have measurement also for some mass market plastic PC speaker, what do you think?
Logitech model mentioned above seems like a good candidate (high proposal on Amazon website, high number of rankings with relative high score..)

Looking on its product page / datasheet, you can of course read only some basic data:
- 10 Watts Peak/5 Watts RMS power produces room-filling sound. Each speaker has one active/powered driver that delivers full range audio and one passive radiator that provides bass extension.
driver size: 2.5 inches
fq - 80Hz-20kHz
Sound Pressure Level (SPL Max) - >88dB max

Personally, I would be OK also with some shorter test suite for this kind of, say, market segment ;) (less points...).

z200-stereo-speakers.png
 
I measured these at one point and was pleasantly surprised, with reasonably flat response and low distortion 300Hz-15kHz.

The crossover at 200Hz was also correctly executed, and there was a high-pass filter on the "sub" at an appropriate frequency (50Hz iirc). Its output was excessive in the upper bass though, giving it a one-note-bass sound and making it impossible to find a sub level that gave a satisfying bass balance. Still, I was quite impressed for the price. Unfortunately I no longer have the measurements to share.

Screenshot_20200319-001552.png
 
I bought a pair of these in 2014

https://us.creative.com/p/speakers/inspire-t10

They sound good enough for the task. Maybe better than I anticipated.

They're in use with the Little Woman's desktop.

I haven't considered measuring them.

Maybe I will.
 
I have been using these with my computer desk for more than 15 years. No desire to upgrade.

log230a.jpg



I use my HiFi system for more considered listening.
 
I voted No. Another reason being it steals precious time from other worthy speakers getting measured.

However if there are some cheap speakers which are time proven and measured on other forums/websites it would be worthwhile to repeat them occasionally to understand design implementation, construction and choice of materials/drivers point of view.
Regards.
 
I voted no. Loudspeakers like that are what I call 'signal presence' monitors, i.e. just to know what's going on rather than for quality monitoring or even just listening for pleasure. They will be fine for gaming or watching videos on a PC but not for much else.

S.
 
pavuol said:
That said, I think it is not a bad idea to have measurement also for some mass market plastic PC speaker, what do you think?
Click to expand...
My vote is yes, especially for these Logitech Z623's. I would REALLY like to see these THX certified speakers tested.
 
andreasmaaan said:
"Creative T3 etc"
Click to expand...

Interesting opinion. They were the rage when they first came out (passive radiators, oh science!) but then got universally panned as time passed. Science vs ears, would one side win or would both agree?

SimpleTheater said:
My vote is yes, especially for these Logitech Z623's. I would REALLY like to see these THX certified speakers tested.
Click to expand...

Many people know it is bad. But just as many people swear it's good.

Data of this sample point would be "Here you go, here's the crap that you've been listening to. Now go buy some proper speakers. And stop asking what DAC you should buy with these speakers, seriously."

I'm serious about the last sentence.
 
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I voted yes and here are my reasons:

- Some speakers, like Promedia and Bose, are priced pretty high up to warrant investigation based on price.
- We choose products that many people are using yet there is lack of technical information about them, only lots of hot air. This leads back to the point above.
- "PC speaker" is just a form factor. The function/purpose is same as any other speaker. And people should not be robbed of good sound just because they don't have enough space. We might miss miracle products like iLoud.
- I want to see how Focal speakers would measure.
- I want people who say Soundsticks III sounds good to curl up in despair.

So in a sense maybe my stand echos both yes and no. It boils down to relevance, which has always been the case regardless of plastic-speakers or not. Speakers that everybody is using, yes. That $30 speaker from aliexpress, no.
 
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If PC oriented speakers are an option , I would suggest the Creative T40 and T100. Both are not cheap though, into the US$100/ range but you get a bit more functionality compared to the typical powered/ active speakers in the US$100~150 / pair range.
 
Wombat said:
I have been using these with my computer desk for more than 15 years. No desire to upgrade.

View attachment 58583


I use my HiFi system for more considered listening.
Click to expand...

Actually I had those speakers as well for a long time (in 5.1 configuration) and my point of view is complete opposite - they were rubbish and borderline offensive. There are better speakers even in budget category and I think those abominations should never be justified just because in specific use case quality of audio is not important.
 
Greats points being made all around. I voted ‘yes’ because I frequently give purchase advice to others but find myself woefully equipped to make a good recommendation to non-audiophiles.

Testing only audiophile (i.e. not mass consumer) speakers would reward the existing ASR community the most, I’d bet.

But, doing a few inexpensive but popular choices could introduce more people to ASR, held us make recommendations to normal people (let’s face it, we’re not that!), and, perhaps most interestingly, provide a complete scale for the performance benefits of additional expenditure.
 
I voted No. Not because I'm not interested in such measurements. It would actually be educating to see how the top-selling "cheap" PC speakers perform. For me, it's a matter of priority, Amir can't test everything. I very much prefer him focusing on tests of more expensive equipment for which spending $30 more doesn't have a 90% probability of significantly improving sound quality and where a lot of products are just snake oil.

We don't even have a single well-performing budget stereo amp tested yet that is not discontinued. Allo Volt+ D is super-hyped among budget amps (low power though) but wasn't tested yet. Topping A50 headphone amp was released some time ago and still not reviewed. DBR-62 speakers performed beautifully but a follow-up with their more budget (but newer) version B6.2 can't be done because Amir has too much backlog and has to deny accepting more equipment for reviews.

Please don't take me too personally, but I also think that sending discontinued/overpriced stuff for reviews isn't too helpful for the community, for example, expensive headphone amps just to see how much worse they are from the $100-200 nearly perfect devices released over the last 2 years.
 
wwenze said:
Interesting opinion. They were the rage when they first came out (passive radiators, oh science!) but then got universally panned as time passed. Science vs ears, would one side win or would both agree?
Click to expand...

That's interesting, I had no idea they were popular. I only measured them because my girlfriend had them and I was surprised at how good they sounded and wanted to know how they measured.

I don't have the measurements anymore, but I do have the correction filter I created at the time, which shows that the listening window response must have measured +/-3dB throughout the whole operating band of the satellites, ie from 200 up to 15,000Hz (it rolled off after that). They also had pretty smooth polar response IIRC.

Also IIRC, distortion was under 1% at moderate levels (I think I measured at 83dB or so) from 300Hz up, rising just a bit at the bottom of the satellites' passband. This was not a particularly audible issue though.

And it was actually more the midbass (90-100Hz) that was too hot. It sounded quite ok with a couple of EQ filters on it though. Definitely not clean, but plentiful for such a little system.
 
edechamps said:
My vote is yes because when I tell people that their "PC" speakers are crap, it'd be nice to have data to back that up. (Being pleasantly surprised would be even better of course.)
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I would think this would be common sense. If they can't get past that, then I'm not sure the data will be prudent anyway. :D
 
Feels like a no brainer to measure them. Logitech has probably sold more speakers than any other manufacturer that has been measured thus far. They are out in the wild and it would be interesting to see what they do.
 
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