In what may seem like an ironic turn of events, the Pioneer VSX-5000 amplifier responsible for the deaths of two subwoofers and a sound card has taken its own life, perhaps in an attempt to make retribution for its crimes.

The 22-year-old receiver and amplifier had a lonely and traumatic history that began almost as soon as its original owner purchased it. It expressed lament for a lonely childhood where it was not put to use and accumulated a considerable amount of dust.

The county examiner said that the most likely cause of death was a short circuit. No traces of ozone were found in the surrounding atmosphere.

The amp did not leave a suicide note and its original owner was not available for comment.

“Resuscitation efforts are underway,” said the current owner, Dan Fuhry, “but at this point things are looking very grim. We’re going to try the good old slap on the side, but that is currently our last remaining hope for the amplifier.”

Known for its loud output but warm capacitors, the Pioneer receiver enjoyed music with considerable bass. It loved video processing and equalizer functions, and had a talented FM receiver. “It’s such a shame to see this piece of history leave us,” Fuhry said in an interview. “It was just a great multi-purpose device. We’re going to miss it.”

The Pioneer VSX-5000 is survived by Logitech X-540 III and its host computer, Nighthawk, who told us only that she will miss not having to push ALSA to the limits. The receiver specified in its will that it did not wish for a memorial service. If resuscitation efforts are not successful, it will be recycled.

The amplifier was playing Empty Walls by Serj Tankian at the time of its death Wednesday evening. “Suppose it wasn’t into alternative metal,” mentioned Fuhry.

Yep. Now I’ve lost the sound card too. Needless to say I think this Pioneer amp is too fast and too furious. So I’m gonna be removing it from my lineup. Now all I have to do, is convince Logitech to send me another set of speakers, which I know I’ll get right this time.

There’s only one problem: I’m now stuck with the crappy AC ‘97 audio built into my motherboard and I lack a MIDI port, something that I use extensively. So I’m gonna be looking around for a half-decent sound card and probably a job to pay for it (and possibly *more* new speakers). Looks like fate has finally caught up with me.

Well, whaddya know. I suppose that I’ll have to rewrite a little of my story but I think it will be better now that it’s more complete.

Basically what happened is I got two dead babies. One of ‘em was shipped from geeks.com and the other straight from Logitech. Both were completely dead on arrival. That’s the short version.

The long version is this: I ordered a new set of Logitech X-540 speakers from geeks.com for $115 including shipping. They were all that fit in my budget, and I figured they would be okay for the price. They came in and I got them all installed and they were working OK for an hour or two. I was adjusting some cables on my amp when it accidentally got switched to FM mode and started sending static to them - moderately loud static.

Now, mind you, this has happened to my old speakers, in fact they took tons more abuse than even that. But the fact that Logitech makes their DSP boards *that* cheap is just insidious. The speakers immediately stopped working, with strange noises being produced when turning the volume control and several other weird problems. IMHO for $115 these things should be able to withstand that. If I remember correctly they weren’t even turned up all that loud, which means absorbing that signal should not have been a problem.

Since the item got shipped manufacturer-direct, I contacted Logitech and they said that I had a defective set. Understandable. They also told me to go back to the seller since I had the item for less than 30 days. The resulting e-mail conversation was quite a funny one:

Support rep: “Please reply back to this email if you have purchase the X-540 speaker system for more than 30 days. The replacement unit will come from us if you have purchased the speaker system for more than 30 days. I look forward to your reply.”

Me: “According to my records I placed the order on April 12, 2008. I’ll e-mail back and re-open the support case on May 12 or so if I don’t have any luck with geeks.com. Thank for getting back so fast last time, I really appreciate it!”

Support rep: “Thank you for taking the time to reply my email and elaborating further on your issue. Since 30 days has passed since you have purchased the X-540 speaker system, I would like to proceed with issuing a replacement unit for your defective X-540 speaker system. In order to proceed with this, please provide me with all the details below.”

Me: “Attached is a screenshot of the order history window showing the purchase in question. Again from my previous message, I placed the order on April 12, 2008. So a month has not in fact passed yet since my order. The retailer from which I purchased the set has not replied to my message that I sent a week ago as of today, so as far as I’m concerned Logitech is not obligated to send out a new set until approximately May 12 assuming the retailer chooses not to provide support. Thank you again for the support.”

Support rep’s boss two days later: “Your fulfillment has been shipped. The following products were included: 1 | X-540″

No tricks, no cheating, that’s what really happened. They said it would take 10 to 14 business days to process; it took 1. That was a good sign, +1 for Logitech’s customer support.

Now if only their products were half as good. The new set was dead on arrival - I got absolutely no sound out of it and saw that the power LED was dimmer than it should have been. What a mess. So I now have two completely unusable subwoofer units and 10 satellite speakers sitting in my basement waiting for me to learn their fate.

I hope Logitech takes this as a lesson. No doubt that they built good speakers - the construction is solid and setup is straightforward and simple. But there is a huge problem with the circuitry that drives those speakers, and that is that it’s just way too cheap. It can’t handle even a normal signal - one would have to turn the output volume on their PC down just to avoid overloading the circuitry. That’s a problem because most users will leave the software volume all the way up and control the audio volume with the physical knob on the control pod.

Either way, I’ve e-mailed both geeks.com and Logitech about this and am waiting for them to reply. Chances are that if one doesn’t do something then the other will, but the worst that could happen is me being out $115 and learning an important lesson: to avoid Logitech hardware at all costs.