Installing:

When powered on, the blue LED will light up giving you reassurance that the speakers are indeed on. We guess the sound coming from the speakers is not good enough? Oh well, we happen to like the color blue so the LED is just a little added bonus for us, but for some it may be a nuisance. Installing a headset is very easy, you will just need to plug in your jack for the headset and if it came with a microphone, you can plug that one in as well like we did in the picture above.

Installing everything is very easy, because if you can match red with red and white with white, you are good to go. If not, you can also match the “Left” and “Right” markings on the speakers and the back of the control box. (Editor: And if not again…you can put the speakers back in the box and stare at the wall instead.)

Sound Tests:

For our sound testing, we hooked our Genius SW-G2.1 1250 speaker system up to our HT Omega Striker 7.1 sound card. We will be testing the SW-G2.1 1250 with several genres of music: rap, country and classical. We will also be watching a movie, Rambo, as well as playing Bad Company 2 to round out the testing.

To start our testing, we headed straight for the subwoofer and turned on our, albeit small, rap collection to test it out. Once we started the rap music, we heard the true beauty of the subwoofer. It was very deep and rich sounding at all levels  that we put it on with the control box. The speakers produced crisp, clear, and balanced vocals from the singers in the low and mid ranges. When we started with the country music portion of our testing, we were testing how the satellite speakers reproduced the vocals and guitar sounds. Of course, the bass was as deep and rich as ever, but we went after the speakers more on this test. The speakers portrayed clear, crisp vocals when they hit their highs and lows during the song. The guitars sounded great and were crisp sounding with no distortion when hitting the high notes. To bring it all together, we listened to some classical music to get to hear the best of everything from the orchestra. Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture brings in all the elements with the strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments. The subwoofer sounded great when the basses hit, with a very deep bass sound, while the brass and strings came through crystal clear in the speakers without any distortion at all in the mid to low ranges.

Moving on to our movie watching test with Rambo, the 2009 version, which we feel covers most everything you will see in movies. It has a lot of quiet to normal dialog with action scenes, explosions and surround sound. However,  with the 2.1 speakers we are not expecting much from that perspective as this is not a true surround sound setup. Getting into the movie, we experienced the normal conversations with great clarity overall in the low to mid ranges. We could hear everything they were saying as though we were there with them. During gun battles,  the speakers portrayed the action as well as possible for a 2.1 system. They were not exact in producing the correct areas from where the noise was coming, but did an average job. We cannot hold it against the speakers, as they were not made for this.  Once we finished with the other tests, we got to move on to the most anticipated part of the testing, the .50 Cal final battle scene. When Rambo mans the .50 Cal gun on the back of the truck, we got our wall-rattling good sounds. The .50 Cal sounds amazing with the subwoofer,  and the solid bass it provides will make it an enjoyable scene for every guy. The satellite speakers did a good job with the .50 Cal and AK-47 fire, the grenade explosions and the bullet sounds.  The speakers kept everything distinct from each other making it all crystal clear.

For our last test, we move on to the game,  Bad Company 2, to test out the SW-G2.1 1250 system. Once we got into the thick of the action,  we started to miss our surround sound in a hurry. We could hear people perfectly, but as to where they were, we could only guess a general direction, left or right. These speakers were not aimed at the FPS genre of gaming, so we cannot criticize  them too harshly about this. The game sounds great with the gun fire and guys yelling.  It was distinct and crisp. With this outcome,  we decided to toss in one more game to get a better idea about the speakers. We started up the racing game Grid to see how well this speaker system performed with that. We found out that the speakers performed very well in this game and sounded great. The crashes were nice and crisp, with the engines roaring and creating the deep bass we all love. Grid let the speakers be what they were made to be, a great sounding 2.1 system usable with most games.

In our testing however, we found that around the 92dB mark, the speakers became distorted and for anything above 95-97dB was unbearable to listen to with the distortion. We had the volume knob turned up only to about 70% when we ran into the distortion. We now see why they say on the site, “Full mid-range and well balanced sound.” We could not agree more with this statement! The mid and low ranges sound great, but don’t think you will be able to blast this system, because it falls apart once you start hitting the 90dB range. Even though 90dB is loud enough for most people, we just wanted you to be aware in case you wanted to use speakers to their fullest during movie time or a long gaming session.

Below we attached a decibel chart to help you better understand what we are talking about with decibels.

Conclusion:

Overall, the Genius SW-G2.1 1250 is a very good system. As we mentioned above, the mid and low ranges are distinct and crisp. The color scheme looks great with the red and black mix on the speakers and control box. The speaker system was very easy to hook up and it took us longer to think about where to put everything than to actually connect it. The control box was a nice addition to the system and was easy to use to control the volume and the bass. Having the option to plug-in a headset on the front was another great idea from Genius, saving you the hassle of unplugging speaker wires and plugging in your headset direct to the sound card.

However, with all of the great things coming from the the SW-G2.1 1250 speaker system, there is just one blaring issue that we could not dismiss. The distortion starting in the range of 90dB was a bit of a disappointment to us. We were hoping to get at least in the middle or upper 90′s decibel level for the highs before we hit distortion, but alas we were unsuccessful.

With a suggested MSRP of $69.99 (but an actual going rate closer to $45), the SW-G2.1 1250 speakers are good performer for their price point. We cannot expect something in that price range to excel at everything like we would a $200-$300 speaker system. Just know going in that these will not produce theater quality volume, but will impress you at the low and mid ranges.

The Genius SW-G2.1 1250 receives the TechREACTION.net Silver Silicon Award!

You can purchase the at various online retailers, including Amazon! For more information on the Genius SW-G2.1 and other products from Genius, please visit their website.

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