 "Corsair SP2500 - Colossal Chaos")
The desktop speaker market has been somewhat ignored over the last couple of years. The exciting days of large, powerful speakers specifically designed for the desktop PCs have long gone. Corsair’s new SP2500 are a 2.1 speaker set designed specifically at this market.
Corsair’s entrant in the PC speaker market - the SP2500
Now, Corsair has adding a few new product categories to their portfolio over the last few months. The SP2500 is one of the first speakers that Corsair makes. Entering an arena that is crowded with established speaker manufacturers with more than a decade of experience is a bold move.
Features and Design
The Corsair SP2500 are a 2.1 speaker set. The speaker set comes with a humongous subwoofer, slightly smaller than the woofer found on the Logitech Z-5500 and slightly larger than the Altec Lansing MX5021. The satellites in comparison are a lot smaller and have a mid-range driver and tweeter in them. The satellites connect to the woofer using snap-on 4-pin connectors like the ones found commonly on motherboards. Either way, they’re very simple to attach and seem reliably fastened to the speakers.
Raised woofer - not the ideal design
Corsair bundles a wired remote control that connects to the woofer. There are no controls whatsoever on the satellites and the woofer. All the controls are are placed on this remote control, that has a colour display, a central volume dial that is also used to change the volume of the satellites and also the woofer. It’s also used to change some of the other parameters such the EQ presets, the input and other settings for the remote itself.
Good remote but it could have been heavier
The remote unit has two 3.5mm analog connectors, one to connect to connect another input source and the other to connect headphones. The other connectors can be found on the woofer. There is another 3.5mm analog connector and a pair of RCA connectors present there.
Build quality
The woofer is large and heavy and is very well built. The satellites too have a very solid feel and build to them. They are made of plastic but have a strong metal net covering the main driver and the tweeter next to it. Although the woofer looks like a huge bring box, the satellites have a nice look to them. Quality of supplied cables is also good. The remote control itself is pretty light, so you’re bound to drag it off the table if you tug on it.
Comparatively smaller satellites
The interface on the remote control is simple to use. There are two buttons dedicated to the volume controls for the subwoofer and the satellites. Go through the menus and you can choose from EQ presets and effects. We weren’t terribly impressed by those effects so we stuck to the unadulterated Reference mode.
Performance
The size of the speakers give one the impression that these are a powerful set of speakers. Corsair rates the speakers at 232W RMS. The 120W woofer is powered by a 8-inch driver and the two satellites each are rated at 56W each. The total frequency range as per Corsair’s specifications is 35Hz to 20kHz.
Connectors for the satellites, audio inputs and remote control
The speakers are quite definitely loud. The woofer churns out very mellow bass and it also has the thump that you require for enjoying good rock and metal music. Gaming should be equally fun and so should be action movies even though these aren’t surround sound speakers.
Large mid-range driver powering the satellite
The speakers lose out on higher frequencies. The highs don’t sound as crisp as we’d like them. They are otherwise, a fairly neutral sounding speakers. The finest of details can’t be made out but they perform decently across different volume levels. Cranking up the volume to the maximum brings close to no distortion to the sound, which is a great thing to have in a speaker. These are definitely speakers for those who like to play it loud. For the more connoisseurs of good music and audio quality amongst us, you’ll be able to poke some holes in the SP2500’s performance as far as frequency range and detail rendition is concerned. Overall though, we’d rate them better than the majority of speakers in the market today.
Verdict
Corsair is selling the SP2500 for Rs. 12,200, which is a lot more than some of the popular 2.1 speakers such as the legendary Altec Lansing MX5021 for example. The MX5021 is hard to find these days, but with vey few good options in the market, this is one solid speaker that you can consider especially if you’re looking for colossal power and overall good performance. Corsair might have a winner on its hands but if they can tweak the price to under the Rs. 10,000 mark.
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