Everyone wants a powerful and crisp sounding speaker set as a complement to their computer or television, but not all of us can afford to shell out several hundred dollars. Enter the Genius brand of speakers, a subsidiary of the Taiwan-based KYE Systems. Genius has been a leading brand in Taiwan for a few decades, and they have recently been gaining market share in the USA. Since my current set of 2.1 speakers were getting old (going on 7 years of hard use), Genius was kind enough to send me a set of their SW-G2.1 1250 gaming speakers to review. As you can tell from the picture (and multiple comments I received), the speakers look really sharp. But most importantly, how do they sound?
I noticed right away the flashy design of the speakers when I opened the box. The mid-range satellites have a smooth piano finish with a touch of flash from the 3″ metallic red driver. The subwoofer is made of a solid 5.25″ driver tucked away neatly into its cube box. This is nice for easy transport to parties and such (the subwoofer on my old set, despite also being 5.25″, took up almost 2X more space. And spoiler alert – they sound the same, so no loss of acoustics with the more compacted case). The set also includes a separate control box from which both mid-ranges and subwoofer draws power from. Not all speaker sets have control boxes (my old set had the dials built in to the right mid-range), but this one seems to make it work just fine.
The sound of the Genius SW-G2.1 1250 speaker set blew me away for their price. The treble from the mid-range drivers was incredibly crisp, perhaps even a little too much so. The bass from the subwoofer packed a nice punch as well, though it did become a bit distorted at higher volumes. For the record, I played the speakers about 10 hours at mid-volume to “break” them in, after which I had them going at a high volume for the ultimate test – a party. Ideally, I probably should have played them a minimum of 10 more hours before using them at the party, but since I only received the speakers a day before the party, I had to do the best I could. Nevertheless, I received a lot of positive comments about the sound these speakers produced over my old set (which I had used for about 5-6 parties in the past two years), so that’s as good a compliment a product can get.
These speakers don’t get a perfect rating, however. Two issues I had include frequency balance and iPod compatibility. First, as I mentioned above, the treble was very crisp, but since at higher volumes the bass became a bit distorted, the overall sound quality diminished. I can’t complain too much since the speakers were playing at a volume I would only reach for parties, but this balance issue interestingly is not an issue with my older set of speakers despite being 7 years old. Second, I had major troubles with the dual input aux-in cable. I used the dual input cable with my iPod and it worked fine for about two hours, but after this time period the sound kept cutting out multiple times. I would readjust the connection, making sure it was pushed all the way in, and it still would cut out. The dual input is said to be compatible with MP3 players according to Genius’s website, so I have no idea what happened there. Thankfully, the single input aux-in cable worked fine, but I was disappointed to have so much trouble with the dual input cable.
All in all, despite a few problems, you likely won’t find a better sounding 2.1 system for the price, which at around $45 is an amazing value.
[Genius SW-G2.1 1250 4-piece Gaming Speaker System] – $44.99
Specs:
-38 watts; 3″ metallic mid-range drivers; 5.25″ subwoofer; microphone/headphone jacks; hook design for easy wall-mounting; single and dual input channels
