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The X-530 is a unique system to the value market, usually in cases like this companies tend to rely on a 6.5" driver to do the low frequency work since an 8" driver is usually too expensive and large to integrate in for a smaller low power system.

When breaking in the X-530 I ran regular tracks at low volume and some minor bass test tracks as well. I made it a point to watch for when the frequency danced around the stated limit for the driver to see if it was struggling seeing as it was only a 5.25" side mounted driver witha single straight port. The odd thing I found from this was that the driver was indeed getting down to the 40's without real distortion at low-mid volumes and also that the sounds coming out of the bass module were much smoother than system's I've tried in the past especially when the bass would have a kick to it. After cracking open the back of the sub I was able to find that Logitech actually did the one thing that so many ask for speaker producers to do, they made a smooth opening on the port inside the sub to prevent chuff sounds from the output of the sub. People tend to not realize it but this makes a large difference when it comes to higher volumes, instead of sounding like the sub is struggling to reach the tone it keeps a smoother low frequency sound coming out of it. Around 37hz I noticied that it was pretty much the limit for a good solid sound, at 35 and below it was at peak specially in tracks where the sub had to come up for midrange tones as well.

The only disappointing parts to the X-530 were the placement of the adjustment knobs and headphone features. The master volume control on the right speaker makes things simple but treble control and bass control to the satellites would have been a nice option even if by pushing in the volume control knob to alternate. The overall adjustments have to be performed by the user's PC for the most part minus the sub control as there is a knob provided on the back of the sub to adjust the volume level. The absense of these controls is unfortunate but this is most likely a feature removed on lower end systems. In the headphone department the actual plug for is found on the front satellite as well which makes things easy, unfortunately it seems that the sound is unamplified by the system from my attempts to tinker with system which leaves users deoendent on the output abilities of their sound card.

Unfortunately I didn't have a dual driver surround sound setup to use in comparison but I did have the Altec Lansing MX-5021's to use in 2.1 output mode. While a bit of an unfair comparison due to targeted groups it was the closest thing I really had around, also the Altecs did have a bit of an edge using the tweeter on the top of the dual 2" drivers while the Logitec system only has 2 single drivers w/o a tweeter. I played a few audio tracks but the main focus was on Aerodynamic by Daft Punk. After changing the Digifire to 7.1 I tested the systems out to see how well the FDD function of the X-530's in 2.1 held up against a higher end 2.1 system. After many passes I found that the clarity of the X-530 was very consistent despite the lack of a full tweeter in the range production, for a $79 system they are pretty competitive against systems like the MX for upper ranges thanks to the FDD implementation but in the lows even with the improved porting they can't compete with the frequencies of the MX sub.