As you set up your brand-new glowing, pulsating RGB-heavy PC, you’ll likely realise there’s something missing: RGB-heavy speakers to light up your ears with sound! While I’m not sure of the medical or auditory accuracy of that, Edifier seem committed to the cause, with the new version of the Hecate G2000 Pro their latest stereo speaker kit, decked out with some extremely bright neon lights. If you’re into RGB, they might just be the perfect addition to your setup.
The Hecate G2000 Pro are, in line with the brand’s visual design language, shaped as a stretched-out hexagon, with our review unit coming with white speaker facades. Central to each of these is the speaker driver, its black surface contrasted by a silver centre emblazoned with the Hecate logo. The rear of each speaker unit is made from clear plastic, exposing the white and silver housing within, and they look smart and futuristic. They are definitely aimed at gamers though, and where you could easily see the Edifier QR65 in a variety of different houses, these feel targeted at someone who wants a particularly flashy gaming setup.
There’s a range of support for different platforms, with the G2000 Pro certified for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S via USB-A, alongside Bluetooth connections, and you can also pump audio in via a 3.5mm connection, all of which means you can use them with pretty much any audio device out there. In the box, you’ll find the Hecate G2000 Pro, a power adaptor, as well as a USB-A cable and a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable in the box too, so you won’t be searching around for things to complete your setup.
The right-hand speaker features a control panel across the top edge, with four buttons giving you access to input selection, Bluetooth pairing, volume, EQ and lighting controls. This is, as with some of their previous speakers, the weakest element, as the input selection simply works its way through a series of clicks, rather than voicing what input they’re connected to, and at various points through our testing I became very confused about why I didn’t have any output from my PC, only to find that the input had changed.
The G button runs you through the different EQ settings, with each represented amusingly by audio prompts, so a short musical trill means you’re in music mode, what sounds like a chugging engine is aimed at movies (I think it’s supposed to be a cinema reel turning), and a click and clunk of a gun reloading is for gaming. This all takes a little unnecessary parsing out, and I can’t help but think things would have been a lot clearer with a simple spoken instruction.
Once you’re in the correct mode though, the next thing to consider is lighting. You can turn this off and on via the G button, and alter the brightness and setup via the control buttons, but for the sake of ease you’ll need to download the Hecate Gaming App. As apps go, this has to be amongst the most basic I’ve seen in recent years, and it’s disappointing to find that you can only choose between six colours, or a rainbow effect that scrolls through them. If you have an orange light setup – which is what I have – you can forget matching the Hecate G2000 Pro to it, which seems very very odd.
The Hecate G2000 Pro redeem themselves somewhat by sounding much better than their app would suggest. There’s a heap of power here, and a pleasingly airy soundstage that adds depth and space to whatever you’re pumping through them. I’ve been checking out President’s King of Terrors EP – that’s definitely Charlie Simpson isn’t it? – and the mix of electronic and rock instrumentation sounded fantastic via the Music EQ setting, with plenty of detail and well controlled bass tones. If you don’t like how this EQ sounds, there’s no option of tweaking or changing it, so you’ll have to search out other EQ options, the availability of which will depend greatly on what platform you’ve got them attached to.
Shifting over to gaming, I put the bespoke EQ through its paces with Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and its suitably epic Japanese-infused soundtrack, and the G2000 Pro definitely helped to immerse me even further into Naoe and Yasuke’s adventures. Dialogue was clear and carried well above the delicate audio, while the interstitial sound effects helped to round out the world further.
Bluetooth audio sounded solid, though the Hecate G2000 Pro is only capable of dealing with the standard SBC codec, so you’re not getting lossless playback or even AAC, and there was a difference in clarity between the USB connection from my PC and the lossy Bluetooth one. That’s not surprising, but I was disappointed to find there was no higher quality codec support when Edifier have put a lot of emphasis on this with their other recent products.