New Speakers

Really, I see those sorts of speakers as unnecessarily complex for the purposes you intend. The USB aspect and LCD readout are pretty much techno-fetish features which gives Logitec an excuse to add to the price tag. Sure, that LCD is pretty cool, but is it really necessary? And sure, there will be slightly less noise since digital data is converted to analog in the boxes, but anyone other than zealous audiophiles will not notice, nor care(though apparently excepting your case where the video card makes mounds of noise @_@). Not to mention the footprint is rather large (4.5"x4.7")

Here is a set of Altec speakers with a small subwoofer, smaller satellite footprints(2.5"x2.5"), and a deliciously smaller price.
Buy.com - Altec Lansing VS2421 Multimedia Speaker System - 2.1-channel - 28W (RMS) / 56W (PMPO) - Black - VS2421
In fact, it even appears to have been designed intentionally for those lacking in desk-space.

I can't attest to the sound quality since I've not used it, but there doesn't seem to be many people online bitching about it. Also, the signal to noise ratio is 80dB, which is better than your old ATP3s(though not by much).

Then again, I put a lot of weight on price when looking at these sorts of things, to keep that in mind.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Most speakers these days still use 1/8" jacks, seeing as how that is what most sound cards use still.
I was looking into this whole USB speaker business, and its turning out to be a give-and-take scenario. While interference noise in wires can practically be eliminated by restricting the Digital-Analog conversion to inside a shielded box, there is also the added concern that the USB system cuts out filtering and preprocessing like sound cards would; so there appears to be a chance of tinniness, distortion and other such problems in USB speakers. According to some reviews of the Z 10, this seems to be the case. I imagine that there are some USB speakers which avoid this problem, though I've no idea which.

With the D-A conversion being performed in a sound card (which is made for that explicit purpose), the sound will be properly filtered and such; but again, there is the added problem of picking up noise in the cables, which is a big issue for RR since apparently either his video card sucks balls like a $30 whore since it emits so much noise, or his sound card fails because its picking all this noise up.

Right now, I'm not seeing anything in the USB-speaker world thats catching my eye. =\

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by PiccoloNamek

I wonder, what do you mean by the sound being "filtered" properly? I would certainly hope that the DAC of a USB speaker would be performing the proper filtering. (Such as high or low-pass filtering, etc.)

Well, you see thats the thing. As I understand, DACs are still digital devices, and practically speaking sometimes their outputs can be jagged messes; especially if the manufacturer doesn't include on-chip filtering. DACs don't output theoretical delta-width impulses of exacting voltages, but rather set its output to a certain voltage and hold it for the sample time before changing to the next value. This leads to high frequency ringing due to the transient response, and I figure the ringing is filtered with a low-pass filter. In some cases its done on-chip, and in cost-savings setups its done on-board.

I can't really say a whole lot with certainty, since I don't have the schematics of either a sound card or that Logitech system in front of me. However, the complaints that I have read online lead me to suppose that the Z10s have a poorly designed low pass filter which cuts off too low at the upper treble, and possibly an additional high pass filter which cuts off the bass too high.(If they even filter at all. Another alternative is that they're just not filtering, and the cutoffs are part of the digital design, saving them on added components. Why buy components which you can gloss over that with some fancy code?) Then there is the other possibility that, using cheap components, or lazy code, the magnitude drop begins uncomfortably early for anti-aliasing purposes. There are of course a variety of different reasons for this, but I suspect its just a cost-savings call. The USB and LCD features add a considerable amount of perceived value, so they probably figured they'd get away with this result and the price they charge.

This is just an inference I'm making from criticisms I've read online.
[/nerdmode]


God, did I just write that?
I think I'm learning something.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.