Corsair SP2200 2.1 PC Speaker Review

By charles April 13, 2011

Sound Quality Impressions & Final Thoughts

Corsair Gaming Audio Series SP2200 2.1 PC Speaker System Setup

The Corsair SP2200 system is a very nice system. It comes in at $84.99 shipped at the time of writing with a longer warranty than most speaker systems designed for PCs or in its price bracket (2 years vs 1 year.) Though it’s not without some flaws; holding onto old standards of having cables permanently attached to the system is definitely a drawback.

Corsair does shine where they promised to: sound quality. The SP2200 system definitely sounds better than most other systems in this price bracket. Even some of the really popular 5.1 systems I couldn’t recommend against this speaker system just for the clarity difference.

I’ll try to break this down as best I can, so it’s easily understood.

Corsair SP2200 Bass Response

Bass Response on the SP2200 is definitely a shining moment for these speakers. Without a doubt they sound much better than most other “Gaming” or “PC” systems as Corsair has bass sent to the sub and it only handles the low end of the sound spectrum. Although, the sub is not without its flaws. It’s not a perfect system and being a bass player I can definitely tell when the kick drum in some songs is being muffled in with the bass guitar.

For a $90 system though, bass response is very good. If you want perfect, you’d better be ready to pay for it. On the other hand, the Corsair SP2200 System gives a great bass response for the price.

The Subwoofer does not make a muddy or muffled sound; it’s pretty accurate. It also has a good enough range for most music and definitely for games.

Corsair SP2200 Satellite Mid & High reproduction

Here’s another point of disappointment for me; the Satellites feature “mid-woofers” which are designed to reproduce the middle spectrum of a sound wave while a “tweeter” is designed for the high end, and a “sub-woofer” is designed for the low end.

These Satellites, unfortunately, lack Tweeters so the high end sounds very bright and is not nearly as detailed as the mid range is. They also lack the general clarity that you would get from a high pitched singing voice. With the lack of tweeters, some high frequency sounds can level off as well and cause the mood to become more bland.

With that said; the mid-frequency sound reproduction is very good. It is detailed, with good volume, and is not distorted even if you crank the volume fully. Most of the time you will not notice the high end lacking so much as the satellites do a very good job at reproducing the range of most songs.

I personally didn’t really catch onto it until I was listening to Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, which came to a pleasant surprise for me. While, yes, it did lack the ability to reproduce that high end, it was only in such an extreme situation that I didn’t notice while using these speakers in most other applications.

Corsair SP2200 Directional (Gaming) Performance

I put this in the best terms I could for those not familiar with audio terms, but this is what most would normally call “sound staging.” It’s a judgment based on when you close your eyes, can you tell where the sound is coming from.

Corsair’s offerings being “Gaming” speakers, this is a very important part of their design and I can say with all of my pride that they did an amazing job at this. I can say that gamers are going to be happy. Even compared to a normal 5.1 system, these speakers are a better value in my mind. I could close my eyes during a nature scene in the movie Avatar and feel like I’m surrounded by the Pandora jungle.

If I was playing a game like Counter Strike or Battlefield Bad Company 2, I could tell when those footsteps were directly behind me or when they were to my right or left.

While this was not the world’s best sound staging, it was definitely a big step above the competition.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion:

Overall, I really liked the SP2200 system. It was definitely designed for gamers, though. What I mean by that is that for the price bracket Corsair had to make choices. Would they rather have larger satellites to instead make a better Mid to High range or would they rather have a powered sub with the system to give Gamers that boom they want when they are playing the latest and greatest first person shooter?

In this case, they chose to go with the sub and then cut back on the satellites. Do not get me wrong, though; these speakers sound great and they offer a very nice range. Overall, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them.

Though with the effort Corsair is putting into their sound department, I would love to see them develop a system that is for us who really enjoy our music and movies. A smaller subwoofer with bookshelf speakers would make me very happy.

When all is said and done, though, Corsair brought a solid speaker system to the market with great features and only one true flaw in the cable design. With a price tag of $84.99 shipped it costs more than the $30-$50 speaker systems that have saturated the market, but you get much more power and better sound.

Legit Bottom Line: The Corsair SP2200 system is probably the best value system to get for most people looking at accurate sound reproduction with a powerful bass setup.

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