Logitech X-540 5.1 Speakers

Speaking of the wired remote, the unit is roughly 2 inches by 3 inches and is attached by a cord that is roughly 5 feet long. The remote is designed to sit on your desk and allows easy access to volume and bass controls. There is also a power switch and a matrix on/off button. In the front of the remote, there is a plug in for a set of headphones.

With the X-540 being a 5.1 system, there are 5 satellite speakers. These include 4 speakers for front right, front left, back right and back left. There is also a center speaker that can be sat somewhere or be attached to the top of an LCD monitor.

The center speaker, can be mounted to the top of an LCD monitor as I mentioned. The speaker itself sits on a base that is small enough that it can be sat on top of a CRT monitor should you have one. If an LCD monitor is your flavor of display, the base of the center speaker folds down and can easily be ‘clamped’ onto the top of your monitor.

The ability to clamp the center speaker on top of your monitor is a small feature but one that I particularly like. It sits up high and out of the way but is slightly angled down towards my head.

The center speaker is not the only speaker that has multiple mounting options. The other 4 satellite speakers can be mounted on the wall or sit on the desk. Their movable base is what allows this to be done. If you have a large desk and want the speakers on the top of your desk, you can pivot the base around to allow a vertical positioning. If you want to mount the speakers to the wall, the base can be pivoted around to where it is parallel with the speaker itself. This will allow you to mount the speaker on the wall, leaving you with more desk space or more importantly, will allow you to place your speakers where they sound the best for you.

Also included with the X-540s are cords. There is one cord that connects your speakers to the back of your computer. These are color coordinated and are for your rear, front and center speakers.

Also included is a splitter audio cable for component hook ups. This is you want to use the X-540 with your gaming console, CD or DVD player or virtually anything else that you can think of with audio out.

Installation of the X-540s was simple and to the point. After routing the cables around and behind my desk, I simply plugged in the color coded cables and I was off to the races. You are left with quite a wired mess but that comes with the territory.

The X-540 features quite a few significant features, most notably, Frequency Directed Dual Driver (FDD2) technology. This supposedly evens out the sound, spread it out if you will, and not just produce sound directly in front of the speaker itself. Also, if you have a sound card only capable of delivering 2 channels, the ‘matrix mode’ will create 5.1 surround sound. While this doesn’t make up for true surround sound, it is a nice feature for those running non-HD onboard sound. Now for some company specs.