GoGroove SonaVerse O2i

Pros Low price. Small size. No clunky AC adapter. Blue LED light rings, if you like that sort of thing.

Cons Harsh treble. Distorts heavily on deep bass tracks. Cheap-feeling controls. Requires a USB port and a 3.5mm headphone jack, which looks messy on a laptop. Useless LED light dial. Bottom Line The GoGroove SonaVerse O2i is a functional little pair of desktop speakers for just $30, but don't expect quality audio.

By Jamie Lendino

Plenty of bargain-basement PC speakers litter the shelves of electronics stores, but the question is whether any are good enough for the price. The USB-powered GoGroove SonaVerse O2i ($39.99 direct) tries to deliver actual bass response in a portable design, thanks to dual passive radiators on the sides of each enclosure. Unfortunately, the main cone drivers just aren't high enough quality, and sound too harsh to listen to for extended periods of time.

Design
The SonaVerse O2i consists of a pair of white plastic speakers with prominent blue LED lighting surrounding each front-facing black grille. Each enclosure measures 5.8 by 4.4 by 2.7 inches (HWD), and the set weighs 2.5 pounds. The black plastic grilles are roughly textured, and a single front-loaded 2-inch paper cone driver peaks out from behind each one. The passive radiators are also made of paper, but have some serious excursion, which hints at decent bass response. The left speaker has a GoGroove logo, while the right speaker has a SonaVerse O2i logo; at least it's easy to tell which is left and which is right.

A 5-foot combination USB and audio cable runs from the back of the left speaker; there's also a hardware volume knob on the back. The USB cable is a good idea, as it means you don't need a bulky AC adapter, and don't have to plug the system into a wall. If you don't want to lose a USB port on your laptop, you can always buy a USB-compatible AC adapter. That said, the USB port isn't a digital audio connection, like it is on more expensive speakers; in this case it's just for power. So you still need to plug in the 3.5mm wire. And if your laptop is like mine, the USB ports and headphone jack are on opposite sides, which looked pretty terrible once I plugged in the O2i's two cables.

The two speakers are connected by a thin, 3-foot cable with an inline hardware dial for the blue LED grille borders. At the beginning of the dial's travel, it turns on the LED lighting, which is bright and extremely noticeable, like you'd find on an inexpensive no-name PC case. The rest of the dial's travel does, well, nothing. You would think it's a brightness control, but it appears the dial is completely unnecessary and could have just been an on/off switch.

Performance
Sonically, I didn't expect much for 40 bucks; these speakers shouldn't compete with $100 and $200 models. Really, I was just hoping for something reasonably pleasant to listen to, maybe with a bit of kick and the ability to turn it up on occasion. The O2i delivers most of that, except the most crucial thing: The biggest issue with the O2i is its harsh-sounding treble. A single 2-inch paper cone driver isn't going to do all that well with high frequencies.

Tracks like Rage Against the Machine's "Fistful of Steel," which is very smoothly recorded for a hard rock/metal track, sounded tinny and brash. When I turned up the volume, I heard a reasonably punchy kick drum, but I winced at each and every cymbal hit. It's just not a pleasant sound. Warmer sounding recordings, like Depeche Mode's "Suffer Well," fared better, but just about any singer-songwriter, electronic, or rock track I tried was simply too harsh to listen to for long. Our standard bass test track, The Knife's "Silent Shout," threatened to obliterate the tiny drivers in the O2i; the distortion was palpable at medium volumes, and as I turned them up I feared for their lives.

The thing is, I wish I could recommend the O2i, because the world needs decent-quality, low-cost speakers. As laptops get smaller and smaller, there's less and less room for proper drivers, which means anemic bass response and tinny highs without an external boost of some kind. GoGroove's larger SonaVerse Ti system costs $5 less and is arguably more attractive, but that one doesn't sound all that great either. The Xmi X-Mini Max deliver clear, detailed sound for $20 more, and are much more portable, but their tiny size precludes any bass punch whatsoever. The Edifier Exclaim e10 remains our favorite low-cost stereo PC speaker system, but at $100 it's more than twice the price of the O2i. The problem is, even despite its low price and convenient design, the O2i simply isn't pleasant to listen to—regardless of how you may feel about the blue light rings.

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GoGroove SonaVerse Ti

Pros Low price. Slim form factor. USB-powered. Appear to float, thanks to cool blue LED lighting.

Cons Mediocre sound. Distorts heavily at high volumes with deep bass tracks. Combination USB power and 3.5mm headphone cable looks messy with laptop PCs. Bottom Line The GoGroove SonaVerse Ti is a very low-end pair of desktop PC speakers that get the job done, but nothing more.

By Jamie Lendino

The GoGroove SonaVerse Ti ($34.99 direct) does its best to banish the poor reputation of inexpensive PC speakers. It sports slim enclosures, nifty blue LED lighting, and the ability to be powered by a USB connection instead of a bulky wall-wart-style AC adapter. That said, they just don't sound all that great. If you only have $35 to spend and your laptop has anemic speakers, this pair will sound better to you, but you'll need to spend a bit more for quality audio.

Design
The SonaVerse Ti measures 9.1 by 2.7 by 3.8 inches (HWD); both speakers together weigh just 1.8 pounds, which doesn't bode well for the size of the driver magnets inside. The speakers themselves are made of black injection-molded plastic, with a glossy top and base shaped like an upside-down shield. A GoGroove logo is affixed to the left speaker, while a SonaVerse Ti logo sits on the right speaker grille.

A short 2.5-foot wire connects the two speakers to each other, which is just enough to surround a 24-inch widescreen desktop monitor with little slack. Blue LED lighting emits from the base of each speaker, and makes the SonaVerse Ti system appear to float slightly; it's a pretty cool effect as long as you like LED lighting.

The cabling amounts to a plus and a minus. A 5-foot combination USB and 3.5mm cable is permanently attached to the left speaker. You must plug both connections into your PC for the SonaVerse Ti to work; the USB only acts as power, and doesn't mean you're getting a sonically pure digital connection like it does on more expensive PC speakers. That said, the SonaVerse Ti's design means you won't need a separate, bulky wall-wart-style AC adapter, which can be a plus.

Performance
Each speaker contains two tiny 1.5-inch paper cone drivers and a 5.5-watt amplifier. Accessory Power says there's also a "passive bass woofer" inside, but I couldn't see it; the enclosures aren't vented, and there's no visible passive radiator, so it must be inside and just as small as the main drivers.

The company rates the frequency response at 135Hz to 20kHz, which is unusually honest, as there really isn't much bass response here. While you'll hear more of an electric or acoustic bass than you'll hear over, say, MacBook Air speakers, you still won't get any real sense of kick drum punch.

Our testing with actual music tracks bore that prediction out. Flunk's "Indian Rope Trick" sounded harsh, and the synthesized deep bass was completely missing from the recording during playback. Our standard bass test track, The Knife's "Silent Shout," distorted heavily as I turned up the volume. Depeche Mode's "Suffer Well" sounded flat, with little image projection from all of the various electronic bleeps and bloops behind Dave Gahan's voice. Rage Against the Machine's "Fistful of Steel" was simply too bright, and not pleasant to listen to.

In the end, the SonaVerse Ti doesn't deliver on one of my goals, which is to find and recommend a low-cost pair of PC speakers for music fans on a really tight budget. GoGroove's own SonaVerse O2i is even smaller, but that system is $5 more and has similarly harsh sound. The Xmi X-Mini Max sound clear and detailed for $20 more, and are much more portable, but their tiny size precludes any bass punch whatsoever. The Edifier Exclaim e10 remains our favorite low-cost stereo PC speaker system, but at $100, it's more than twice the price of the SonaVerse Ti.

If your standards are modest and you find these at a discount to replace a blown-out or worn-out pair of desktop speakers, or just need something to make music audible for background listening, the SonaVerse Ti will do the trick. But anyone who enjoys quality audio should keep looking. 

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