We should never forget the humble PC speaker. While a gaming headset is the ideal way to pump audio directly into your ear canal, sometimes you just want to have audio blasted straight at your face instead. Edifier are a Chinese company who has been doing exciting work in the audio product space for a while now, and the G2000 are their brand new mid-range PC speaker offering. With 16W of power, RGB lighting, Bluetooth and a host of other features, it’s obvious from the moment you power them up that your ears (and eyes) are in for something of a treat.
Another thing that happens when you switch them on for the first time they make a sound that’s half engine rev and half-alien spaceship preparing to take off. My five-year-old thought it was the most exciting thing he’d heard all day, but I’m not sure that my wife was quite as impressed. It’s not a thing that’s big, or clever, and this is coming from a man with a variety of multicoloured RGB fans spinning around in his PC.
If you like lights, then the G2000 will please you. Fitted with RGB lights across the rear of each speaker unit, the G2000 will illuminate the back of your workspace in a lovely variety of colours. It can even cycle through them all if you want more than a little hint of bias lighting. This is controlled directly from the unit itself, the EQ button pulling double duty with a long press cycling through a batch of pre-determined hues, or turning them off entirely.
I really appreciate not having to install yet another piece of software to manage this, but if you’re the sort of person that chooses very specific lighting configurations then you’re going to be disappointed by the small number of preset options and the lack of customisation. If you just like pretty lights, you’re all set, and if you actually just want a pair of speakers you can turn the lighting off all together.
The controls are set across the left speaker unit, with a pair of digital buttons and a rocker for the volume control that’s similar to a Guitar Hero guitar pick. They’re all suitably precise and feel extremely well-made, but being positioned on the side wasn’t as intuitive as the front-facing controls on my regular Creative pair of speakers. While you can power the unit off and on, you can also cycle through the specific EQ settings for games, music and movies, or switch inputs between USB, Aux and Bluetooth.
The casing is fashioned from black plastic, with the rear switching to a silver finish. You’re then treated to the exposed speaker – who doesn’t love to see the actual drivers? – and all in all the G2000 are a sleek and professional looking pair of speakers. Even the RGB strips at the back of each unit are relatively restrained.
There’s a number of connections on the rear of the left speaker, including a DC socket for power, a USB connection for audio, and a 3.5mm Aux-In as an alternative. The final option is a Sub-Out for boosting your bass performance. You’re going to need a powered bin as it doesn’t work with a passive one, so that’s worth considering when you’re putting your setup together.
There’s a real heft to each of the speakers, and that’s a great indication of the size of the magnets they’ve used in the speaker drivers. While that’s no guarantee of exceptional audio output, in the case of the G2000 it is absolutely the case. The G2000 offers one of the crispest and clearest audio experiences I’ve found while testing PC audio equipment, and that’s even more remarkable for a speaker set that costs less than £100.
Testing them out with WRC 10, the engine noises roared to life, while the ambient sound and menu music was pin-perfect. Shifting over to Final Fantasy XV, which is still my go-to for its superb collection of Final Fantasy music, the epic RPG score was glorious, benefitting from the little details the G2000 was able to pick out.
Music and movies are similarly well presented, and thanks to the specific EQ settings you can make sure the G2000 is finding exactly the right setup for your content. Whether it’s the nu-metal of Papa Roach or the synthwave vibes of Gunship, I loved the fact that I could hear the small details that you normally need a decent pair of headphones to pick up, while the RGB light mostly made me realise I haven’t been to a gig in two years.
The only downside to not having a sub as part of the package is that there’s a real sense that you’re missing out on some truly enveloping bass. There’s a reassuring amount of depth to the G2000 as standard, but I definitely wanted more. Disappointingly Edifier don’t have a standalone subwoofer available as part of their gaming line-up, and you have to hop up to the £200+ G7000 to find one that’s included as part of the package.
