I recently purchased a Logitech Z Cinema 2.1 speaker system for an HTPC in my bedroom. Even though it was on sale at a great price, I took the time and still went over many details on if these were the right speakers for me. For the most part they absolutely seemed like the best option available, but after buying I came across what might be a little hitch in my plans for these, so hopefully some of you can inform me on what my options are here.

So my bedroom is fairly small, I have a double sized bed in the center with a HT setup consisting of a 30" CRT HDTV, cable STB, and of course the HTPC all on a stand facing the bed against the wall. My plan involves using the HTPC as more of a surfing/casual PC for when I'm in my room just goofing off. This is because the laptop that I normally surf from is old, slow, and not much fun to use anymore (although I'm excited about throwing a Lunix distro on it in the near future) but I digress. The HTPC is not hooked up to the HDTV, I have a 20" LCD for that simply because it looked better, was more accessible, and I just liked being spoiled in having a laptop to surf on while playing a movie on the HTPC and watching some kind of sport on the HDTV.

My plan is this.. I have a general work desk next to my bed facing the same direction as the HDTV/LCD. For now my laptop sits there and if I want to surf and watch TV/movies I just sit it on my bed (on top of a laptop cooler, of course) and I'm able to easily turn my head to watch whatever while surfing. Now, I want to move the LCD of my HTPC on to the desk via a long-ass DVI cable, coupled with a wireless keyboard and mouse I'm planning on having it work just like a desktop-centric laptop. Even though my room is small I'd still like to run the wires as discretely as possible, so that would involve a DVI cable of about 25ft. for the display, which is long but obviously doable. But my issue, and the main reason I'm posting this thread is this..

The Cinema Z speakers I just got have an internal soundcard and use USB wires to connect to the computer. That sounded pretty cool to me at first, little did I know it may be a huge problem in my case. Another part of my plan was to run the wires for both speakers along with the DVI cable around my room so I could setup a soundstage where my display would be obviously. However, with USB the cable length is restricted to something like ~15ft, which means unless I use an extender or USB hub, I'd have to run wires under the carpet if I wanted to be able to setup the speakers where my HTPC display will be, and even then it might not be enough.

So, finally, my question is this. Would extending the USB speaker wires via hub or simple extension cable, degrade or even desync the sound? My plan was to literally mount the speakers onto the LCD for convenience, and now that I'm sure they won't reach where I want them too out of the box, what are my options here? Should I just scrap using this setup all together and go with normal copper-connected speakers like the z-2300's? I'm probably going overboard with the explanations here, but I've had so many issues with sound and speaker setups in the past, and for an audiophile like me it kills me to setup something to my liking then have to return it because I consider it of poor quality after a week or so of use.

So please, for those who actually read my short story and can inform me on viable options, what do you think? TIA

Simple, go with USB repeater cable. Do not get a usb hub or simple extension cable, it will not work reliably at 25ft. Goto Newegg and get one or two of item #N82E16812224004. I just got four of these for work and it works for a USB webcam. Audiosync is not an issue - treat USB as if it were s/pdif interface.