Logitech G51 Surround Sound 5.1 Speaker System (Black)
- Turn on Matrix mode to create 5.1 surround sound from 2-channel stereo sound sources such as music or legacy games
- Music Matrix mode delivers a natural audio profile
- Gaming Matrix mode boosts the subwoofer and rear satellites for a more intense gaming experience
Bring your games to life with 360-degree surround sound. Your games are meant to be experienced in surround sound. Now hear your enemies sneaking up behind you, and listen for action in every direction. The G51 is the first G-series speakers, designed specifically for gamers. Besides delivering an immersive surround-sound experience and thunderous bass, it is equipped with gamer inspired features including the weighted, non-skid control pod, independent, easy-to-access mic and audio mute control
Rating: 
(out of 104 reviews)
List Price: $ 229.61
Price: $ 469.99
Are Wireless Surround Sound Speakers The Wave Of The Future?
If you like to enjoy the thundering bass and wraparound sound that you often experience at the movie theater, then building your own home theater with surround sound may be just what you need. The technology has been steadily progressing in recent years and now it appears that the equipment and formats needed for true surround sound are in place. And as always, improvements are constantly being made.
One of those recent improvements is wireless surround sound speakers. It’s not hard to understand the attraction that such a feature can offer if you have ever tried to set up a home audio system before. Installing the actual electronic components themselves is fairly quick and painless, but then you are faced with the all important question of where to put the speakers so they produce the best sound. And on top of that, you have to figure out how to run the speaker wires so that they aren’t hanging out there in obvious sight. And suppose you run the wires for your speakers and then find out that you want to move them around to try a different setup? Well, you can understand how challenging surround sound speaker installation can be sometimes.
So someone came up with the idea of making wireless surround sound speakers instead. It sounds like the perfect solution, and may be for you, but you also should be aware of both the pluses and negatives involved.
On the plus side, you can theoretically place the speakers anywhere you want in the room without having to consider running wires at all. You can also change the configuration of your speakers around easily and find the best surround sound setup that fits your room. Because there are no wires to run, you don’t have to color-code anything or make sure that you match up the wires to the right connection which is often so confusing for most people.
On the negative side, there is one major drawback that must be considered and that is how the speakers will be powered. Normally speakers that are connected by wires are powered using the current sent from the receiver or amplifier, but wireless surround sound speakers don’t have a power source, so they must be plugged into a wall outlet on their own. That does negate some of the benefits of using them in the first place, namely being able to put them wherever you want without worrying about connections. However, that all depends on your particular room setup and how well endowed your home is for electrical outlets. At least a power outlet should be closer than the receiver that is on the opposite side of the room.
Some surround sound speaker systems are coming with only the two rear speakers setup as wireless. This does make sense as they are usually the ones that create the most problems when setting up a surround sound speaker installation. But before you buy, just plan out your room carefully and decide where in general you would like to put your speakers for best performance and then you can know better whether a wireless surround sound system will be a good choice for you or not.
Find out more about surround sound setup and surround sound installation by visiting our Home Theater website.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Review by D. Jackson for Logitech G51 Surround Sound 5.1 Speaker System (Black)
Rating:
I was a little reluctant to purchase another set of Logitech speakers. My first set, the Z-560, worked well, but one of the channels burned out about 16 months after I purchased them.
My second set, the Z-680, sounded great but had a fatal flaw: HISSSSSS. I had to have a box fan going in the room to drown out the constant hissing. It finally drove me to seeking another set, and I desperately sought out a non-Logitech set of speakers. Sadly, in my narrow price range, there were no alternatives that I can find.
With some relucatance I ordered the G51. I set them up yesterday, and so far I’m very pleased with them. The soul-searing hiss present on the z-680 is mercifully gone, and the system sounds excellent. The bass is sufficient without being overpowering (provided you turn it down a notch or two from the default setting), and the control pod is sensibly sized and sports a great, logically laid out interface. Mids and highs are perfectly acceptable for a relatively cheap computer speaker set.
The matrix mode works surprisingly well (though I think it’s likely nothing that revolutionary, just a re-imaging if their existing stero x2 mode) for both games and music.
I don’t have plans to use the silly ‘patent pending mod system’ (pretty much just a piece of transparent plastic to slip printed designs into), but if you do want to ‘pimp your rig’ then I suppose the option is there.
Here’s a couple of tips for the new G51 users:
1) Take off those grills on the speakers! They are *not* acoustically transparent, and in my ears the highs opened up a bit after removing them. Just be careful not to poke anything into the exposed speaker drivers!
2) BE CAREFUL if you mount the center channel on your LCD screen; I cringed when I read the instructions to ‘tighten the hinge screw’ – this is applying pressure to your LCD monitor. If you over tighten you might experience the pleasure of cracking your LCD screen in half. I simply placed mine on top and used a little double sided tape on the base – I’d rather have a slightly loose center channel than a pair of non-functioning 11″ flat screen monitors.
PROS:
+ great sound
+ easy installation
+ excellent control pod
+ simple center-channel LCD mounting option
CONS:
- front speaker wires a bit too short
- hard-wired speaker cables
Review by R. Stanway for Logitech G51 Surround Sound 5.1 Speaker System (Black)
Rating:
These speakers are a lot smaller than I thought they would be as shown on the product image. Still, they pack high quality sound and the bass is good, despite the subwoofer being almost half the size of my last one. My one huge complaint though – these are surround sound speakers Logitech – why are the cables so short! I’m unable to mount the rear the satellites anywhere – currently with the sub/amp under my desk, the maximum distance the rear cables will reach is about 6 ft behind me, and the satellites on my desk have no further slack on the cables either. Really, the cables were quite a big disappointment as it severely limits where I can put the speakers. I don’t think having the rear satellites sitting on the floor partially obscured is what these speakers were designed for. The cables seem to be some kind of RCA plug and are hardwired into the satellites, so I don’t know whether it’s possible to try and extend them.
Besides the cables, everything else is great. The default bass level was way too high for my liking, it took a fair bit of playing around to find a good spot where it wasn’t too boomy. The matrix mode works somewhat well, although I’ll probably be leaving it off since having to adjust it constantly is not really worth it. For those like me who were somewhat worried that matrix mode could only be set to “Gaming” or “Music”, the button is a push-button that toggles between None, Gaming and Music, it’s not a sliding switch as the pictures may make it seem.
Overall these speakers are excellent value for money – sure they won’t go as loud as some of the higher end models, but they are perfectly loud enough for movies, music and games. I would not hesitate to give these 5 stars if it weren’t for the issue with the cables. If you’re looking for compact 5.1 system, you won’t get much better value than the G51.
Update (2007-11-16): I purchased some 25ft RCA F/M cables for the rear satellites and they have much better positioning now. One additional issue I have noticed is whenever the system is powered on and not muted, the subwoofer driver is vibrating and causing a very low but discernible hum that is audible over my system noise. Raising or lowering the volume has no effect on the loudness, and the hum only stops 2-3 seconds after muting or immediately on power off, which leads me to believe it’s some internal component causing it and not noisy output from the sound card or interference. We do get slightly higher than usual utility voltage, so it could be something that goes away if you have clean 120v power.
Update (2009-11-21): System died one month after warranty expired. Control pod still gets power but woofer and speakers are lifeless.
Review by Al for Logitech G51 Surround Sound 5.1 Speaker System (Black)
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Received these a week ago, gave them to the daughter of a friend of mine as a gift, she took them into her room as me and my friend were chatting, by the time we went back to her room to set them up for her she had already installed them and was online playing WoW and telling her friends about her “awesome” new speakers, I think this speaks volumes about how easy they are to install.
The speakers allow you to use RCA plugs to hook your stereo into them and switch between the computer and the stereo at the push of a button, a feature for which my friend curses me every day when his daughter wakes him to 200db music in surround sound, seriously though these are loud I can hear her music in the driveway, distortion free.
In summation, I feel if you are in the market for speakers these are the best in their price range.
Review by joyousdance for Logitech G51 Surround Sound 5.1 Speaker System (Black)
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The sound is fantastic, everything that the other reviewers have noted and then some. I was more than satisfied.
Some notes on what others said:
One reviewer stated the speakers were tiny compared to what was expected. So I was waiting to receive some really tiny speakers, but they were pretty standard looking to me. Perhaps that reviewer was waiting for theatre speakers or something, but these are made for a computer. They are a little over 4 inches wide at the widest part and 8.5 inches tall. They were actually bigger than I wanted. But that is not a big complaint.
Another reviewer stated they did not like the volume knob because it skipped volume levels. I agree that the notched feel of the volume knob doesn’t allow someone to get the exact volume desired, but it is subtle degrees of loudness and I would not hesitate to purchase these because of that.
Another reviewer stated the wires for the back speakers aren’t long enough. I measured them a while ago when I first set them up and my vague memory says they are 14 ft. long. This wasn’t an issue for me as I have an L shaped desk and was not concerned about getting perfect surround sound. They would be way more than enough length if a small speaker table was set up behind the chair, but if these need to be mounted on a wall, there might be an issue with cable length.
And there was a reviewer who said the sound improves without the speaker covers. I agree with this assessment. They sound a little more clear with the covers off. So I keep the covers on for protection when I am not listening to music, but pull them off when I am planning on extended listening time. I probably could leave them off, but I don’t want to worry about the dust collecting on them.
The subwoofer is gorgeous looking and very powerful.
The table top volume control is cool because you can push a button to select the total volume, subwoofer, back speakers, and center speakers and changed the volume for each of these. There is a mute button and a place to plug in headphones and a microphone.
I didn’t like how the speakers are at one set angle and can’t be adjusted. And I also can’t see how they could be wall mounted unless someone puts a shelf on the wall to set them on. They don’t appear to have the ability to just screw into a wall.
All in all, the price is hard to beat for the kind of sound these speakers produce. Exceptional value!
Review by dog guru for Logitech G51 Surround Sound 5.1 Speaker System (Black)
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I picked up these speakers about a week ago and am ecstatic about them! I upgraded from a very good 2.1 system to this 5.1 surround and the difference was amazing (even using my onboard sound). This setup has a controller which allows you to emulate 5.1 sound via a 2.1 card. I also went ahead and upgraded to a 5.1 sound card and the difference was amazing. These speakers really shine on their native sound card. The balance is nothing short of astounding for such small speakers. I am an audio engineer and am impressed with this product. Logitech is still the leader in the industry for peripherals. I will always get their products. Oh and btw, surround sound is a must for gaming!