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Rating: 
Summary: Cheap 5.1 Solution
Review: I was thinking about purchasing some new surround sound speakers for my laptop which I use as my primary computer. Most laptops don't have built-in surround sound capability, and I absolutely refuse to pay $80 or more for the Audigy USB solution. On a recent trip to Circuit City, I found the Starlogic for about half that and bought the Logitech Z-640 speakers based on other reviews.The Starlogic is very easy to set up. Just plug it in to a USB port. If you are using Windows 2000/XP, it automatically recognizes it. No drivers required. The built-in sound card was automatically disabled and sound output was sent to the Starlogic. The manual has a lot of grammatical errors as if it was written in a foreign language and translated to very bad English. There is one major step that was left out. You must go into the Control Panel > Sounds and Multimedia and change the speaker setting to 5.1 Surround and then again in the configuration options in your favorite DVD player. There are three buttons: MUTE, SUR, MIC. The SUR emulates surround sound ("Q-Space technology") if you are listening to music or whatever that was not encoded with Dolby Digital sound. It is automatically disabled if you are playing back DD sound. My biggest complaint is that it is not automatically re-enabled when you are done watching a DD-encoded movie. The MIC button toggles the amplification of the line-in port. On the enclosed CD is a copy of WinDVD 3.1, a speaker testing application, some really lame movie previews, and a no-name CD music ripping/burning application. Overall, the sound isn't as good compared to my Koss C220 Home Theater. That could be the speakers, but I definitely have surround sound now. Anything is better than the cheap 2.1 and built-in laptop speakers I was using before.
Rating:
Summary: Cheap 5.1 Solution
Review: I was thinking about purchasing some new surround sound speakers for my laptop which I use as my primary computer. Most laptops don't have built-in surround sound capability, and I absolutely refuse to pay $80 or more for the Audigy USB solution. On a recent trip to Circuit City, I found the Starlogic for about half that and bought the Logitech Z-640 speakers based on other reviews. The Starlogic is very easy to set up. Just plug it in to a USB port. If you are using Windows 2000/XP, it automatically recognizes it. No drivers required. The built-in sound card was automatically disabled and sound output was sent to the Starlogic. The manual has a lot of grammatical errors as if it was written in a foreign language and translated to very bad English. There is one major step that was left out. You must go into the Control Panel > Sounds and Multimedia and change the speaker setting to 5.1 Surround and then again in the configuration options in your favorite DVD player. There are three buttons: MUTE, SUR, MIC. The SUR emulates surround sound ("Q-Space technology") if you are listening to music or whatever that was not encoded with Dolby Digital sound. It is automatically disabled if you are playing back DD sound. My biggest complaint is that it is not automatically re-enabled when you are done watching a DD-encoded movie. The MIC button toggles the amplification of the line-in port. On the enclosed CD is a copy of WinDVD 3.1, a speaker testing application, some really lame movie previews, and a no-name CD music ripping/burning application. Overall, the sound isn't as good compared to my Koss C220 Home Theater. That could be the speakers, but I definitely have surround sound now. Anything is better than the cheap 2.1 and built-in laptop speakers I was using before.
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