These Logitech Z533 Speakers are fantasic, got them on offer for £60 from PC world… One of the shop-peons kindly allowed me to plug in and have a demo, and from a minute of killing all conversation in the shop with some tastful music at volume, I was hooked and had to have ’em.
Installed and at home in their native environment, they’re even better, the sound from these 2.1 is crystal clear over the frequency range, and I can now take full advantage of the highest quality DSP I own at the moment, built into my PC Soundcard. However, there is a commonly reported issue / problem with these speakers, which is largly made up, from lack of understanding…
Sleep. These speakers, like cats, like to sleep; see, they’re smart, not just regular speakers, but smart speakers. When they don’t detect enough signal on input, they turn off. This is a good thing.
The way people tend to use PC speakers is to set the volume knob on the speakers at a standard level, and then use the PC volume control to vary the actual sound produced, with dumb speakers it works fine. These speakers need a minimum level of signal coming into them to realise they’re needed and stay awake, without this, like cats, they sleep.
The trick is to turn up the PC volume level (After all, in most instances, the PC-Out is designed for headphones, it’s not a line-out), and turn down the speaker’s control knob a little; it won’t hurt the amp on the sound-card to do a little extra work… Only increase the actual volume knob if you want loud, which the Z533 handles with the ease of a jet fighter thundering through the sound-barrier. 🙂
End of the line statement about these speakers: Super-Awesome, but don’t be an idiot when using ’em.
But those speakers even mute itself when I’m watching a movie… so annoying.. :/
Hi Bas…
Yup had that problem and occasionally still do – but I’ve usually turned the volume on the computer too low! Turn the computer up, and the speakers down – does the trick 99% of the time.
Additionally, if you have a setting for your sound card to select “Headphones / speakers or line out”, then select speakers or line out 🙂
I got this thing for Christmas, but the standby issue is driving me crazy.
I did what you said and turned up every volume in the OS and the music player and everywhere else too, and then turned the knob down. It works for 2 hours (and exactly 120 minutes), and then it still goes into standby. This is nuts. There is no way to wake it up either, I have to manually turn it off with the knob and turn it back on.
I can’t believe it. I’m afraid I’ll have to return it and ask for a refund because I can’t live with this. It was a little too expensive to put up with this crap.
Hi Anonymous,
I feel your pain… Sometimes they still go to sleep on me, but as per the usual example, it’s because I have the PC volume set too low. Some sound cards have multiple sockets for output – might be worth looking at the different options you have. Of course, you could have a faulty pair of speakers, in which case there is nothing you can do except to get a refund. Try them with a different device, such as a mobile / mp3 box playing music, if the same thing happens, then yes there will be a problem.
Personally I’ve had them playing for entire days at a time without ’em going to sleep.
I have been having this problem recently as well with these speakers and it does get annoying especially when going to sleep as I use sleep music to help me sleep and they seem to go into sleep mode randomly which is annoying… I really wish there was an option to turn the sleep mode off though but I will try what you have said and see if it works…
So I tried your suggestion and it actually worked!… it never seems to turn off now which is great!… who would of thought it was something that simple that was causing it to go in sleep mode lol I would of never of guessed…
I’m so glad you posted this! I thought the speakers were faulty and I was going to have to replace them. So did you figure out anyway to turn off the sleep mode?
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for the kind words – In essence, nope. The speakers have this to save them in the long run, the only way is to increase the input signal – e.g. turn up the PC volume, turn down the speakers a little. It’s a good thing though, they’ll last a much longer time that way – I think they’re gonna hit the 5 year mark with me soon 🙂
I bought these speakers last week (actually no, the Z333 but the same happens) – and it’s been driving me nuts as the old logitech ones I had didn’t do it so I assumed it was a fault – and emailed into Logitech as such (though they haven’t replied to me yet, but….) – will try this now and see what happens. Thanks!
Good luck 🙂
Thanks for this post, I was wondering why my Z333 turns off automatically after some idle time or even sometimes while watching YT, while the other ones (Creative) were still working. I had volume set to ~20% on PC and in a half of speakers knob. Turning them off and on worked as well, but now I will do it your way 😀
Hi Dadi11,
Good luck with them staying on, it works 90% of the time for me 🙂 Turning them off and on again will make them work, but is a royal pain!
Thanks so much.. I’m glad I read this.. I was having same problem with my Logitech.. tuned laptop volume full.. n now for the past 15 minutes.. they are working fine.. don’t want to jinx.. but I hope this problem is resolved for me.. thanks for Ur tip