Right out the box you get 4 satellite speakers, one sub woofer, one center speaker, and a host of inputs to get started. Putting it all together is very easy. Instructions be damned, just find a suitable space to place each speaker and that’s it. The 4 satellites have a swivel bottom so they can be placed standing up or turned to be attached to a wall. The center speaker is the most nifty as you can stand it up or if you have a flat panel TV, you can attach it to the top of the set. Everything plugs into your PC and all the cords are at a suitable length for small spaces. If you have a bigger room then you may wanna go another route or buy some extension cables.

Once I had everything set up, it was time to take em for a test run. And test I did. First off is music. The X540 has this matrix vector button that turns anything that is 2.1 into 5.1. It sounds pretty good on paper but the execution is lacking. Thankfully the Val-caves computers are powered by Creative’s X-fi soundcard so I saw no need to even use the Matrix button. Music played clear and crisp and even directional sounds came off well. However it didn’t pack the punch I really wanted. Overall I was impressed.

Movies is where the X540 shines! Just for kicks I cued up the hi-def trailer of Spider-man 3 and was floored because with music it was good but with movies…. Whoa! The subwoofer thumped to life. My mouth salivating, I reached for…. Spider-Man 2 DVD. These Speakers shine like nobodies business. Sounds are crips, clear, You’re immersed in sound, I mean yea a true surround sound set does better but for $100 speakers, I’m not complaining. And I didn’t stop there. I had to use my reference DVD Polar Express to really test out how well these speaker sound. The X540 passed with flying colors. I repeat myself once more, if anyone wants a good reference DVD for sound, Polar Express is the way to go. Listen as the train runs the rails, the jingle of the bells, hell any and all sound effects rock on the X540 to the point that when it was over, I was speechless. How can something so inexpensive be so good?

Well the X540 isn’t perfect. With music, it’s good just not as great as it can be. On the box the X540 states that it can work with the Playstation, which PS I’m not sure. It even comes with an adapter, which confused me to see how it world actually work with the PS2. Lastly the center speaker needs something to better lock it down. On two occasions the center speaker slipped and smacked into my television, which caused no damage, but what a scare!

So with the holiday season upon us, look to the folks at Logitech and their X540 5.1 surround speakers to grace the tree this year. With great sound comes great entertainment and the X540 fills the need quite nicely. Retail price is 99.99 and the X540 has been Valkor tested and TOV approved.