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Connecting 2 Logitech Z 5500's to 1 control pod?

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Spawn-Inc

Member
Joined
Jun 13, 2007
ok so heres the situtation, i have been having problems with my control pod and have had to send it back to logitech twice due to the backlight flickering.

on my second time sending just the control pod logitech sent me an entire set of speakers. so i now have 2 sets of speakers and 1 control pod.

i have a SVGA extension cable (15 pins) that will work with the unit to make the control pod cable longer. so i know i could cut the cable in half then solder in a second female connector to plug into the second set of speakers. it would work in terms of getting power to everything BUT will i kill my control pod due to to much voltage or amps?

i know if you have the same voltage on 2 different wires you can put them together and nothing will happen since there is no potential difference. the same reason why you get 7v from using a 12v and 5v wire for fans.

i'm worried about the amps though.

i would basically be making a Y connection.

so do any of you see any problems with this?
 
ok so heres the situtation, i have been having problems with my control pod and have had to send it back to logitech twice due to the backlight flickering.

on my second time sending just the control pod logitech sent me an entire set of speakers. so i now have 2 sets of speakers and 1 control pod.

i have a SVGA extension cable (15 pins) that will work with the unit to make the control pod cable longer. so i know i could cut the cable in half then solder in a second female connector to plug into the second set of speakers. it would work in terms of getting power to everything BUT will i kill my control pod due to to much voltage or amps?

i know if you have the same voltage on 2 different wires you can put them together and nothing will happen since there is no potential difference. the same reason why you get 7v from using a 12v and 5v wire for fans.

i'm worried about the amps though.

i would basically be making a Y connection.

so do any of you see any problems with this?

Possibilities:

1 Yes,

2 Yes but it'll sound like you're killing a goat

3 No

4 (insert electrical fire sound here)


I wouldn't try it.
 
are you trying a 10.1 system???? and its not very safe, the z5500 uses loads of power. mine gets hot without playing anything
 
lol, i just need more bass... haha i'm a bass freak so to speak. i don't care if the other sounds get drowned out as long as there is bass that you feel.


so sounds like i shouldn't try it. not worth breaking it as i wouldn't be able to RMA it.

are you trying a 10.1 system???? and its not very safe, the z5500 uses loads of power. mine gets hot without playing anything
you mean 10.2 :) i would be fine with 5.2 though.


thanks for the replies so far, anyone else?
 
the bass on the z5500 is amazing,a'int it? i usually shove a tennis ball in the exhaust and play something bass heavy and watch it fly out
 
haha, good idea tennis ball launcher. its good don't get me wrong, but if 1 is good then 2 should be great!.
 
Not if you are splliting the power between them.

Still stereo subs might be interesting if you have weak ones...

what do you mean splitting the power? each sub plugs into the wall and the control unit just basically takes the source input and feeds it to the speakers. the amp in each sub has its own power source.
 
I did this sucessfully with a set of z-5300's. (Only using the second sub, not all other speakers, but in theory you could)

All I did was make a Y cable splitting the cable to go from the control pod to each sub. The only thing I can recall having issues with was when using headphones plugged into the control pod. Sometimes the sound would screw up. Other than that, it worked great.

When I did it, I lived in a house with a very large livingroom, so it made for a nice room filling (read: shaking) bass. But we moved to a house with a much smaller livingroom and I ended up selling the second sub because it was too much bass! I can only imagine how much the increase would be with dual z-5500 subs. yikes!

So yeah, I just bought 3 DB-15 housings, and then used CAT5 for the wiring. Worked great on the z5300s


EDIT: oh yeah, and there isn't any major power going through there, it's just a connection to the subs amplifier, so you don't have to worry about splitting the power or anything like that.

It IS possible though that the z-5500 control pod may have issues since it is more advanced than the z5300 pod. There could possibly be issues with communication when splitting it. But the only way to know for sure is to try :) DB15 housings are cheap, and I'm sure you can find a few feet of cable needed to make it work. Give it a shot and post back here! Pics are required! :)
 
hmm, that makes me think it should work i have all the cables , i just need to trace the wires and solder them all up. i wish i had a DB meter but ahwell.
 
what do you mean splitting the power? each sub plugs into the wall and the control unit just basically takes the source input and feeds it to the speakers. the amp in each sub has its own power source.

Oh cool. I do not know the speakers which you were referring, I was under the assumption you were pairing them off from the amp.

Well then I suppose you would get a bit of dB/chest-feeling increase :)
 
well it worked and it didn't. there was a bunch of crackling and poping coming from the satellites. the bass was there and i think it doubled up but i can't test that yet since there are people sleeping right now. i wasted 3 hours to this, ohwell. at least the control pod still works. i will post the pictures i took tomorrow.


i think the main problem is none of the wires are shielded in any way and its just not a clean (i think thats the right word) source.
 
UPDATE:

i got it working for a little bit after shielding the cables. so i was looking for a song to play with lots of bass and while i was i had both subs shut off, connected with the Y connectors but plugged into the wall. and while i was looking i sort of heard a faint bass but thought nothing of it and then i started smelling burnt electronics. so i ripped the Y out and tested both subs, thank god they still work but that puts a END to this whole test.


so to answer my question "Connecting 2 Logitech Z 5500's to 1 control pod?"

NO! DO NOT TRY!


here are the pictures, not that it matters but ohwell.

IMG_0100.jpg


IMG_0101.jpg


IMG_0102.jpg


IMG_0103.jpg


IMG_0104.jpg
 
Maybe this will help you

I happened to come across some dude who wrote this on CNET forums. Maybe you can try out what he is saying.

Control Pod
by Computer_Man93 - 10/14/08 6:20 PM In reply to: Logitech Z-5500 Speaker Control Pod by SwissBoy

Im asuming that you have 1 full system and a "headless system". If so you can run both systems off of one control pod. All you must do is make a 15 pin Dsub splitter. A standard VGA splitter (powered or not) will not work. You must have all 15 wires. You must go to radio shack, buy 2 female, and 1 male 15 pin D-sub connectors. Than solder 15 wires (the largest guage you can fit) than split those wires in to 2 wires, making a Y connector. Than using an ohms meter to trace wires, tape and number each wire. than on the 30 wire ( 15 split into 2) solder wire 1 onto pin one of both female plugs, continue to do this to all 30 wires. once you get done let a glue gun get really hot and squirt glue into wires soldered onto plugs to help them hold on. The reason this works is because there is 18+ volts being sent and recieved amoung the amp and pod. You must have both systems plugged in, this will still allow the same amount of volts to be sent and recieved. This is time consuming, but it works Great! you will have 1000 watts of sub!! The volume doest get worse, there is no power issues like many claim.

George

P.S. this isnt hard im 15 years old and figured it out!
 
Yeah, I think it IS possible that the cables that the OP was using didn't have all the physical connections in them... I would recommend trying what I did which is to get ends and MAKE the cables. Then you know exactly what you have.
 
I know this is an old thread but I feel like I should post to inform people of my story on a splitter. The splitter DID work for me with one exception. Due to the way the speakers are made, the control pod is "paired" up somehow with the sub so when using a digital input only one system will play but when using an analog input both systems will play.

So what I did is I bought the 3 connectors, some 22 gauge wire and solder. I soldered 15 wires onto each connector then I connected all 3 sets of wires together in the middle so it looks just like a Y. I had to tin/solder 135 points which took me about 3 hours. I have used this splitter for over 6 months now and have not had any issues at all.

Here is a youtube video of the 2 subs.
 
Making a controller work for two systems like this is bloody stupid when you could just take the analogue output and turn on pin from the controller and split those. I'm quite sure this would avoid any signalling issues between the systems.
 
I'm not read up on how Logitech makes these things, but I'm quite sure that there are a bunch of analogue signals running from the controller unit straight to a fixed-gain amplifier in the speakers. It's just to find the pinout for the remote, hook up the turn on pins for the speakers in parallel, as well as the audio out signals. I'd be surprised if there's anything more advanced to it.
 
Correct me if I am wrong but I believe that the amp is actually in the subwoofer. Therefore, if you could duplicate the signal from the control pod, you should be able to "mirror" the second set of speakers?
 
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