Well, I received my new speakers. The Logitech Z-5500s came in a humongously bulky box. It turns out that the subwoofer didn’t fit in the old spot and now basically I have no place to stretch out mylegs. Unless it’s on top of the subwoofer. At least now it doubles as a footrest.

Anyway, I spent about half an hour cleaning up and removing my existing Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 speakers. Shortly after I ran the all the wires for the new 5.1 system, I discovered a terribly disappointing fact: the Logitech’s mid-range is just terrible.

I found that the ProMedias just had more presence. It didn’t necessarily fillthe room, but then again neither does the Logitech set in plain old 2.1 stereo mode. I’m sure that bass-heavy users will rejoice, but I’m not that happy about the poor midrange performance. The highs are clear, but I find the bass to be a little sloppy and the mids just non-existent.

Of course, I had already suspected this level of performance. However, I just couldn’t resist the optical connection and the multiple inputs. Also, considering that with my Blackbird 002 I will be gaming more, a 5.1 surround sound system just seemed more appropriate. Things sound better with a little boost in the mid-rangeon an equalizer, but that’s no excuse.At the same time, at Dell’s rock bottom price of $180, I couldn’t really argue. You get what you pay for. My recommendation for music lovers: stick with the Klipsch set. If on the other hand you’re more about gaming and heavy bass, the humongous subwoofer will certainly satisfy your heart-pounding and desk rumbling needs.One thing: I haven’t been able to test the Dolby Digital/DTS performance. Once the Blackbird 002 comes in, I’ll give it a run with some HD files I’ve got. It’ll be playing through an optical connection over my Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer card.