Verdict: Produces rich powerful sounds and has plenty of versatile inputs.

The Z-5500 has been riding high on our Elite list for more than three years now and there's still nothing out there to topple it. It isn't the most powerful set on test, it doesn't have the highest number of inputs or features and it doesn't even have the highest fidelity, but when it comes down to fun per square inch, this is the set that made our pulse race the fastest.

The subwoofer is enormous, with a forward-facing 10in driver that looks ready to do some serious damage to your internal organs. The five bulbous satellites look smart without being too fussy. As with all the Logitech sets on test, the desktop stand rotates to become a wall bracket. Behind each removable speaker grille is a single 3in driver. Logitech calls this a Phase Plug design, which basically means that it looks like a normal speaker cone except for a bullet-shaped centrepiece that handles the high frequencies. Separate mid and high-frequency drivers (as Creative's GigaWorks S750 has) can improve the sound quality by allowing the drivers to handle a smaller frequency range more accurately, but it can also lead to phase problems at the crossover area, where certain frequencies are reinforced or cancelled out depending on the angle of the speaker and your hearing. Logitech's coaxial approach - whereby two drivers are in effect mounted on top of each other - should offer the best of both worlds, although as ever, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

The wired remote control is the star of the show; it sports a backlit LCD screen, a smattering of buttons and a chunky brushed aluminium volume knob that looks as though it belongs on a posh hi-fi rather than a PC peripheral. The set's vertical layout won't blend in with the average living room, but it's good-looking enough for this not to matter. The LCD screen displays various nuggets of useful information, so you can be confident that you're decoding Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks in full surround sound, or upmixing stereo sources using Dolby Pro Logic II. Fewer buttons and more knobs would make it even easier to use, but on the whole, it works well. However, we're less fond of the inputs' location on the back of the control unit. With analogue, plus coaxial and optical S/PDIF inputs, it's unlikely that regular input swapping will be necessary; moving these connections to the back of the subwoofer would keep messy cabling out of sight. At least the headphone and auxiliary inputs are sensibly located on the side of the control unit, keeping them out of view but still easily accessible. If you need more analogue inputs, perhaps for use with hi-fi separates, then the triple mini-jack sockets used for 5.1 surround can be switched to function as three separate stereo inputs.

In our music tests, the Z-5500 battled it out with Creative's GigaWorks S750 for pole position. Both are capable of excellent clarity, huge volumes and tumultuous bass, but the GigaWorks set's was the most impressive. However, such deep sub-bass extension didn't always improve the quality of music, with some tracks sprawling awkwardly into the nether regions of the frequency spectrum. This might be a fault of the recording, but we suspect that it's due to the room acoustics of our test lab, as very deep bass tends to misbehave in anything but expertly designed, acoustically treated rooms. The Z-5500's bass wasn't as deep, but it hit the spot when it came to throbbing basslines and punchy kick drums.

Higher up the frequency spectrum, the difference between the two sets was more apparent, although it was just as hard to choose a clear leader. The GigaWorks sounded detailed, glossy and smooth, with excellent high-frequency extension right up to the point at which our ears stopped functioning. The Z-5500 offered slightly less grunt at the top, but it displayed a much brighter, forward tone around the upper-mid frequencies. Whether this is a positive or negative is very much a matter of taste. The GigaWorks is more faithful to the original source, but the Z-5500's brighter tone provides an increased sense of space and clarity. This is hardly surprising, as the upper mid-frequency range is where a lot of the interesting audio occurs - speech vowels, guitar crunch and other instruments' harmonic overtones. It's also the frequency area that makes gunfire and explosions slap you in the face. In DVDs and games, the GigaWorks had the edge for ominous rumbles, but when it came to full-scale, surround-sound sonic assaults, the Z-5500 was the daddy.

This isn't the only great speaker system on test, but it's the set that has it all: excellent clarity and detail, floor-shaking bass, plenty of volume, lots of inputs and on-board digital decoding. A smug grin is pretty much guaranteed too.

• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008
• Multi-GPU graphics - 20th June 2008
• CPU water cooling - 17th June 2008

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