Be sure to visit for all the latest comprehensive hands-on reviews and best-of roundups. Note that if you click on one of these links to buy the product, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our.

Logitech has been at the top of the computer speakers game for decades, as they have consistently put out great products that cater to the gaming crowd. The new G560 PC Gaming Speaker / joins their established line of RGB peripherals as it does indeed have its own lighting, and is the first desktop speaker from Logitech G designed specifically for gamers. Their stylish look, ample power, and unique lighting make them an interesting new entrant in the PC gaming speaker market.

Design and Features The G560 is a 2.1 speaker system, meaning it has two satellite speakers (left and right channel) that sit on your desk and a subwoofer to handle low frequencies. The satellite speaker chassis are a teardrop-shaped truncated cone laying on its side. The teardrop serves two purposes; it gives the speakers a wider base so they don’t roll around your desktop, and the interior acts as one of each speaker's two lighting zones.

Yes, lighting zones. There's one facing out from the front, and there's a second lighting zone in the form of a dome on the back of each speaker. More on these lighting zones later. More Expert Tech Roundups.

On the top of the right speaker are three buttons in a column extending towards the back of the speaker chassis. The first is an assignable (by using Logitech software) button and the last two control volume. The assignable button is textured so it’s easy to identify by touch. A small white power indicator light is under the grille towards the top of the speaker. On the back of the right speaker is a headphone jack, a Bluetooth pairing button, and a power button. The subwoofer is a typical black box with a down-firing woofer and a port on the front.

It’s a bit taller than most subwoofers that come with computer speaker systems at 15.9-inches. On the back is a hard-wired power cable, two color-coded DB9 connectors for the satellite speakers, a 3.5mm input, and a USB port. The USB port has indentations for two plastic guides on the included cable that help secure it in place. The USB cable is the only included cable and is necessary to fully utilize the speakers’ gaming features.

When the system is connected to your computer by USB and Logitech’s Gaming Software is installed you can customize the lighting zones on your display, the function of the assignable button, adjust a 10-band EQ for the sound and create custom equalizer profiles, and enable the DTS:X Ultra virtual surround sound. DTS:X is the successor to DTS-HD Master Audio. Within the Logitech Gaming Software, settings can be saved to separate profiles that can be used for specific games, when listening to music, or for watching movies.

If you have any other RGB Logitech peripherals, you can also sync the lighting across all of your accessories. But there’s more than just user-created profiles.

When you scan your computer for games (via the Logitech software), any that have a pre-existing profile are automatically added. Some of these games – including Battlefield 1, Dota 2, GTA5, and Counterstrike: GO – are further integrated by using Logitech’s LIGHTSYNC technology. This adds a custom lighting response to what is happening in your game. The two different lighting zones will react and enhance explosions, when you take damage or are healed, and whatever other effects the game’s designers have chosen to add.

Even Discord is integrated with lights reacting to when you or someone else is talking or you receive any notifications and mentions. There’s also an Audio Visualizer for when you’re listening to music that reacts to the different frequencies being played.

The mids and highs are represented by the front lights, and bass tones by the lights in the rear. For games that aren’t integrated you can use the Screen Sampler tool and assign four lighting zones (two on each speaker) to respond individually to specific areas of the screen.

So if you assign the back of the left speaker to the bottom left side of the screen and a flamethrower ignites in that zone, a yellow/red light will bloom from the back of your left speaker. And hopefully you’ll move out of the fire too.

You can pair two different devices at a time to the G560 via Bluetooth, and pairing is easy. Just hold the Bluetooth button on the right speaker for a couple seconds and the G560 shows up as discoverable in your device's Bluetooth list.

G560 Features Supported By Logitech Gaming Software For Mac Free

When you switch back and forth between sources it takes a few seconds for the speakers to start playing. The controls in the Logitech Gaming Software do not affect anything coming through Bluetooth.

This includes the EQ and the Audio Visualizer. Performance Logitech recommends that you turn your system volume down before playing anything and slowly increase it so you don’t unexpectedly destroy your eardrums or scare any pets. I couldn’t recommend this more and emphasize to start from zero because these speakers can get loud. With the speakers set by default to 11 (thank you, Spinal Tap) through the Logitech Gaming Software I initially had my system volume set to around 25 out of 100. When I started up Battlefield 1 I almost emotionally scarred my son – who was 10 feet away – with a sudden explosion of sound before quickly lowering the volume.

This 240-peak watt system pumps out the decibels. You can also go into the software and easily adjust the volume of each speaker, but with them set at 11 I never brought my system volume setting above 30 and mostly lived with it in the low teens. Overall the G560 sound really great. To my ear there’s a slight boost in the highs but they sound clean, and aren’t piercing at all.

The midrange, where you find a lot of vocals, are nice and present without pushing forward too much in the mix. As is the trend with most speakers and headphones, the bass is very heavy, with a peak around 130Hz. The sub can get a little below 40Hz but really starts to kick in around 60-70Hz.

G560 Features Supported By Logitech Gaming Software For Mac Mac

For me the bass is too much, but luckily I could easily adjust those low-end frequencies with the 10-band equalizer. There’s even a preset called ‘Drop the Bass’ that does an adequate job. Even with the bass lowered a tad, the mortar explosions in Battlefield 1 were substantial. My wife could feel them from the other side of the room, even though she was listening to music through her earbuds. When playing Battlefield 1, the lights automatically reacted to what was happening on-screen. For instance, they turned orange as my health went down – but I never found it to be distracting. On the contrary, at times I was hoping for a little more lighting action. There’s definitely some interesting potential for what the lighting can do as more games support it in the future.

And since I already own a, the lights were synced and the changing colors added some extra visual interest. The Audio Visualizer, which changes the lighting based on audio that is playing, was far more subtle than I expected it to be. The actual audible volume output didn’t affect the lights in intensity at all, which is what I expected, but instead it was all based on the frequencies present in the music signal. I found myself occasionally getting distracted by the effect as I was typing and could definitely see myself having it on while playing music as I did other things around the house.

In the Logitech Gaming Software is a 7.1 menu where you can enable the DTS:X Ultra virtual surround sound. For fine tuning, there are volume controls for each speaker in a 7.1 setup – center, front left and right, surround left and right, back left and right, and the subwoofer. The virtual speaker effect does a good job opening up the soundscape in front of you (especially when simulating a center channel), but I never found myself thinking there were actual surround speakers. There’s a bit more openness to the virtual surround speakers, but sounds from any of the right-side speakers will sound right and left-side speakers will sound left. There’s only so much any two-channel setup can achieve. Purchasing Guide The Logitech G560 PC Gaming Speaker has an MSRP of $199.99, and ship in April or late March.

They are available for pre-order now on Amazon:.