bootz, annie
It's best if you can listen to them side by side. The CompUSA near me has both the Harmon Creatures and the Logitechs (and others) set up for side by side comparisons.
One CompUSA branded speaker had specs that read just fine, at a price $10 less than the Logitech X230, but side by side there was no contest. The clerk advised me the CompUSA speakers were their best-selling model, but they totally failed the sound check, IMO.
Each of these systems has its own little proprietary control and interconnect quirks. They are often hard-wired, with little flexibility for custom placement of components. For Instance, the controls for the X230 (love the name) have an on-off button and overall volume on the right satellite speaker. The speaker isn't really heavy enough to support this type of switch, so the speaker slides away from your finger as it presses the button. You have to hold the speaker while you press the button. The volume control knob is good, decent size to control overall volume. The bass volume knob is on the sub, which is on the floor, probably, and will not often be adjusted once you find your general preference level. There is no treble control.
On the other hand, the touch-sensitive volume control as on the HK Creatures is a huge mistake. When the phone rings, or you just need to turn the volume down in hurry for any reason, you want to turn down the volume with a knob, not wait for a cheesy touch control to respond in its own good time.
With the hardwire nature of the interconnects, the speakers are often tethered to the sub, and to each other at fixed maximum distances.
The X230 speakers are tethered to each other at a hard-wired max of 5 to 6 feet, with no way to extend that without cutting the hard wire and splicing in a cable. The input to the unit is made to the right satellite speaker through a four foot (approx) long cable terminating in a minijack, which can be extended. The speaker/input assembly is connected to the sub through a cable that has null-modem plug assembly (9pin), which can be extended with a null modem cable, so the speakers/input can be moved further from the sub, if necessary. The sub has the amplifiers and power cord, so needs to be near the outlet.
About these speakers in general, I would recommend sorting them out first by listening to them side by side, as much as possible, and CompUSA is a good place to do that.
After you have your price and sound rankings in order, select by features, keeping in mind the hard-wired/proprietary nature of the interconnects, controls (some have wireless, but I couldn't find one with a wireless control that sounded good and was priced right.)
If you spend an hour at CompUSA doing this, it will be well worth your time.
I am by no means endorsing CompUSA. I don't know if it's just this store, but I suspect they all have alarms going off every 2 minutes, that last for about a minute and 55 seconds.
But it's a good place to sort out speakers and listen to them side by side.
AI
