Edifier G2000 review

Our Verdict

74%

Compact, affordable, sonically impressive and packed with plenty of features. It’s just a shame about the silly ‘gamer’ additions.

Affordable, compact desktop PC speakers that still have decent quality are hard to find these days, with the market having essentially divided into cheap rubbish or pricey premium options. The Edifier G2000 bucks that trend, offering solid sound quality and a decent feature set for $110 / £70.

These speakers are small and dense. They each stand just 128mm tall, 104mm deep and 105mm wide, though their angled stance means they take up a little more desk space overall (roughly 125mm). With the left speaker weighing 622g and the right one weighing 722g, they’re markedly heavier than most similarly-sized budget speakers.

Their stretched hexagonal shape is fetching enough, as is the simple exposed-driver front and plain black finish, even if it’s a bit plasticky-looking. However, the addition of RGB lighting around the rear of the speakers adds little, especially as the lighting can’t be synced with any standard RGB-controlling apps. You can cycle through various colour and effect options but the choices are limited. If the plain black look is a bit dull for you, the G2000 is also available in white and pink.

The Edifier G2000 inputs consist of a 3.5mm stereo jack input and a USB audio connection, plus there’s also Bluetooth and a subwoofer jack, enabling conversion of these stereo speakers into a 2.1 configuration. Edifier offers a whole host of its own subwoofers, or any other standard analog sub will work.

On the left side of the right speaker are the controls, which consist of a button for power (hold down) and input selection (tap), while below this is an up/down toggle volume control that we found to be rather unresponsive. Below this is a button for cycling through the sound profiles (tap) and the lighting effects (hold down).

As with Edifier’s larger G5000 speakers, powering on, input selection and sound profile selection (music, movie, gaming) are greeted by obnoxious voice prompts or revving engine noises, which significantly detract from the appeal of using these speakers day to day.

The left and right speakers are also tethered by a fixed 1.8m cable, which is sufficiently long for most purposes but is less convenient to handle than a removable cable and harder to replace if it gets damaged. Another small issue is that there’s no headphone socket.

The speakers use a 12V power input, with a small power adapter included in the box, along with a USB cable for connecting to your PC and a 3.5mm jack cable for auxiliary inputs.

Setting up the G2000 is easy, with Windows instantly recognizing the speakers as a USB audio output. However, the low height of the speakers means they benefit considerably from being raised up slightly (ideally via small speaker stands) to reduce sound reflection off the surface of your desk.

Edifier G2000 sound quality

A single 2.75″ driver and rear bass port is housed in each speaker, while the amplifiers provide 8W RMS to each speaker. That doesn’t sound like the greatest recipe for sonic power, and sure enough, these speakers can’t compete with larger units for bass depth, frequency range and volume. However, the sound is impressive for their size.

Overall volume is more than ample for home office listening and can easily stretch to kitchen party duties, while the addition of a subwoofer would make these adequate for even larger occasions. Top-end detail is plentiful, if a little forced at times, and there’s mid-range warmth and surprising power to upper bass frequencies. Sub-bass frequencies are understandably lacking, though.

Edifier G2000 pros and cons

Pros

• Surprising amount of power
• Good price
• Small footprint

Cons

• Irritating ‘gamer’ additions
• No headphone output
• Speakers linked by fixed cable

Edifier G2000 specs

The Edifier G2000 specs list is:

Edifier G2000 price

The Edifier G2000 price is just over $110, meaning these aren’t the cheapest desktop speakers but they offer a lot of features and quality for their price.

Price: $110 / £70

Edifier G2000 review conclusion

With surprising sonic power from their compact package, and plenty of features on tap, the G2000 is a decent speaker set for its price. The volume control is a bit fiddly, though, and the RGB additions and silly voice/noise prompts are downright annoying, so it’s not a perfect package.

For more computer speaker recommendations, check out our best computer speakers guide. Meanwhile, if you own a set of the Edifier G2000 or are tempted to buy some, let us know your thoughts and questions via the Custom PC Facebook page, Twitter page, or by joining our 400,000+ member Custom PC and Gaming Setup Facebook group.