PC Sound System meta analysis

My 2003 Altec Lansing AVS500 is still going strong after some facelift. I paid maybe £30 at the time. Over the years it's developing loud hiss when nothing is playing and after some trial and error, I narrowed it down to the 18V wall wart adapter. I swap the connector to an old 19V PC power brick and the hiss is gone! Bliss not hiss!

It's a 5 speaker surround system though I don't connect the extra two surround (basically using it as 2.1) and recently I thought the sub is giving cracks when playing low and loud. But there are a few settings which helped, like switching from Gaming to Stereo and turning the surround knob lower (more treble less mid).

So I am going to summarize my recent shopping research (articles and Youtube). My shortlists are all 2.1 system around £70 mark:
  1. Logitech Z533 (more technical info on Z623)
  2. Wavemaster Stax 
  3. Wavemaster Moody
  4. JBL LSR 305
In my small house I already own Dynaudio Focus 220 MKII and Dynaudio DM 2/6 with various amps. But each gives something unique that I love.  Dynaudio Focus 220 MKII is very flat and precise. The DM 2.6 connected to a Yamaha micro system is very warm and this AVS500 is versatile as it has a sub and very space saving on the study desk.

Back to my meta analysis:
  1. Logitech has quite good mid but suffers from hiss (or fuzz) even when nothing is fed. I am related to it from my previous bad experience with AVS 500. Plus the fact that the satellites house a mid cone tallies with the reviews that the highs are not great. I might be wrong as my AVS 500 has the same setup and the highs are more than adequate.
  2. Wavemaster Stax has strangely tiny tweeter but in reality not far from typical 25mm soft fabric or metal dome ones found in bookshelf speakers. And it has not one but two on each side! But it's still unusual and Youtube video reviews does show shrill highs and missing mids (but it could well be the limited recordings).
  3. Wavemaster Moody is my favourite shortlist because it's most like the Logitech minus the hiss complaints. The reviews are a bit mixed - great on Amazon and pro reviews but not so well in comparison tests. Alas I haven't found a common reviewer that carries both Wavemaster and Logitech. The best I can find are these two charts showing their similarities:

The JBL is sadly out of consideration simply because there's no 20cm space between my PC monitor and the side wall. But for EUR 210 per pair it's still very tempting esp it's effectively biamp and certified studio (which is kinda what I need for audio editing - but not for movie watching or my kids web games).

Summary

For now that I fixed the crackling of the AVS 500 sub, I'm going to stick with it a bit longer because I can't find faults every time listen to it. I just love the way the mid and bass is so integrated yet seemingly appears from nowhere:)

 

 

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