Corsair SP2500 2.1 232W Audio Speaker Kit Review

The Satellite Speakers and Subwoofer

The SP2500 subwoofer and satellite speaker cabinets are plain, but Corsair has always put function before style. The satellite cabinets are fabricated from ABS plastic, but the sound from them is amazing. Each satellite has a pair of drivers inside that are bi-amplified by four discrete Class D amplifiers inside the main subwoofer cabinet. The 1-inch silk dome, ferrofluid-cooled tweeters are pushed by 16 Watts, while the blue 3-inch treated-paper midrange drivers get 40 Watts each. Corsair told us that 100 percent of the SP2500’s volume range is usable and that we shouldn’t have to worry about distorted sound or fear damaging the drivers for decent periods of time. We evacuated the animals and gave some ear plugs to our neighbors and tested this claim. We were able to crank the speakers all the way up and the satellites were amazing. Regardless of the music that was being played the clarity of the output was unaffected. These speakers get loud and you don’t want to be sitting in front of them at full blast, so when it comes to audio quality from the satellites you won’t be let down. We switched between the Corsair SP2500 and a Logitech Z-5300 audio setup and there was no doubt that the Corsair SP2500 was a superior product at normal audio levels, but when you cranked up the volume the SP2500 was in a league of its own.

When we first saw the color coded ATX4 connectors on the speakers we didn’t think much of it, but once we set up the speaker system on our office desk we found that the wires were not long enough as we wanted to have the sub on one side of the desk and the speakers on each side of an AMD Eyefinity triple monitor setup. We asked Corsair if they had some longer cables for us to use, but they don’t right now. Corsair plans on making longer cables and offering them on their website, but for now there is nothing you can do unless you want to splice into these ATX4 connectors and make them longer. These cable connectors are what you normally would see on a power supply! We asked Corsair why they would use such a cable and Dylan Rhodes, Director of Marketing for Audio, had this to say:

“The ATX connectors are due to the amount of power sent to the satellites; they’re driven by amplifiers generating 56 watts for each satellite (40 to the midrange, 16 to the tweeter). The usual suspects — RCA, 3.5mm, etc. — aren’t rated to safely handle that much power. We did consider using standard speaker wire, but since the satellites are bi-amplified, they would have required two paired cables per satellite. The extra installation time and the look of all that silvery speaker wire made us rule it out. ATX 12V connectors provided an elegant solution — it’s a four-wire cable with one-click connection.

We’re preparing extended length kits for those customers for whom six feet from sat to sub isn’t enough. I’m sorry we didn’t have them ready at launch, but they’ll be available soon.”

Corsair includes a pair of optional satellite stands that help allow you to direct the audio up or down by a set degree. For use on our desk we found that we preferred using the stands to direct the audio up. We’ve used many speaker kits in the past that didn’t include any angle adjustment, but after trying out the stands we are sold on them.

The subwoofer that Corsair uses on the SP2500 consists of an 8-inch long-throw paper driver housed in an MDF cabinet. The subs large size is dictated by Corsairs decision to build a fourth-order band-pass design: The bass driver, which is powered by two bridged 60-watt Class D amps, is enclosed in a sealed chamber and fires into a separate chamber containing a fluted port. The subwoofer didn’t have the thump that we had with the Logitech Z-5300, but we were able to tell the bass the SP2500 was putting out was well-defined bass. We’ve been using the Corsair SP2500 system for over a month now and the audio on both the subwoofer and satellites sounds just as good as the first time we plugged them in.

Speaking of plugging things in, the connections on the subwoofer are very easy to do and installation/setup of the Corsair SP2500 took just minutes to complete. We were able to run one wire straight to our motherboard’s front audio line out and that was it. We also tried it out on a couple laptops without any issues.