Buy Now

Logitech V-20 speakers

£30.13 from DABs £34.97 from Amazon £49.95 from John Lewis

I used the Logitech V20 speakers with three different PC's and three notebooks, in five out of six cases I was more than happy with both the quantity and quality of sound they gave.

Inside the box is a 25x18x6cm toughened zip up case and this contains the pair of speakers 16x8x4cm and a very small user guide, that's it, no CD nothing else.

Instead of the speakers connecting to the line out socket they connect to a USB one. What should then happen - it did five out of six times - is very rapidly you see several bubbles in the tray and then a message saying ready for use. Before you try them I suggest you turn the master volume down a chunk or you might get a burst of sound far higher than you want.

See also: Speakers

more

There is a leg that extends about 4cm from the base of speaker 'A' and extending from the end of this is a 90cm lead that plugs into speaker 'B' from the base of the leg of this speaker a 60cm USB extends, this can go to any USB port on the PC or Notebook. On the top of this speaker are seven buttons and an LED. The LED lights blue when receiving power (taken from the USB lead) and the seven buttons control the speakers and more.

Three of the buttons sound up, sound down and mute work in any Windows application. The other four play/pause, stop, track/seek back and track/seek forward work in programs where these actions are appropriate.

The speakers are stated to work with any Windows 98SE or later PC. Five of the PC ran one flavour or another of Windows XP and the other was a Windows ME system.

So you no doubt are wondering which PC things did not work. It was my test XP system the first I connected them to. As soon as the first message disappeared in the tray I got the 'if your hardware came with a CD insert it now' message. As stated no CD is provided and even though it reluctantly completed the install from files on the CD as soon as the install completes it comes up with a 'Cannot Start Code 10' message. Despite removing the EMP Audio Device and reinstalling several times over weeks the routine is always the same. Logitech technical support do not know of this error or what a EMP audio device is. Calls were made to the USA and heads scratched but no solution was found.

However on the other two PC's one XP and one ME the install was quick and neither made any reference - however fleeting - to EMP audio device. The three various XP notebooks all worked fine and again the installs were very rapid.

This remains one of life's mysteries, the test machine is due a reformat and complete reinstall shortly and should this solve the problem I will let you know as a comment on the review.

If you ever need decent sound quality - say to watch a DVD or three or listen to some music CD's with a notebook these speakers are small and easy to pack in the corner of a case or in the boot of a car.

My Internet searches found them at a best price of £30.13 from the link below, but others outlets were not that much dearer. Maybe it seems not that cheap for a pair of speakers but sound quality is good and plentiful.

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3XF9

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/GB/EN,CRID=2173,CONTENTID=10908