Up next in 10
A Beautiful Listen: The Onkyo Creator Series GX-30ARC Powered Monitors
157 views
May 29, 2025
The legendary audio brand Onkyo is back with some terrific desktop / bookshelf speakers, the Onkyo GX-30ARC Powered Monitors, part of its new Creator Series. Tech expert Dave Taylor got his hands on a pair pre-release and found them to have tons of input options and excellent sound. He shares his thoughts and impressions in this highly detailed review. Check it out at: https://www.Onkyo.com/ Visit Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ 0:00 Introduction 1:00 Intro to the GX-30ARC Speakers 2:10 Specs and Capabilities 3:11 4-Pin DIN Connector Cable 4:00 Back Panel: Input Tour 5:20 LED Lights and Remote Control 6:00 Demo of Playback Sound 7:25 Included Cables 8:18 Dimensions, Speaker Stand 9:44 Speaker Performance 11:13 Price & Conclusions #onkyo #speakers #bookshelfspeakers #desktopspeakers #computerspeakers #monitors #poweredmonitors #askdavetaylor
View Video Transcript
0:00
these little speakers have beautiful
0:01
music reproduction and tons of input
0:04
options let's check them
0:11
[Music]
0:12
out dave Taylor here and I want to talk
0:15
about desktop or bookcase speakers
0:18
because we have a world with lots and
0:22
lots of sound whether you're playing
0:24
games listening to music podcasts
0:27
audiobooks whatever it is you're doing
0:29
watching YouTube videos there's always
0:32
sound and that sound you really want to
0:34
have be as nice as possible so it's
0:38
always a good idea to upgrade your
0:40
speakers now there are lots of companies
0:43
that make really small speakers for like
0:45
computers that you just sit on opposite
0:47
sides of the monitor but being willing
0:50
to go up a little bit in size can give
0:53
you a significantly better audio
0:55
experience enter these these are the Ano
1:00
Creator Series
1:02
GX30 ARC powered monitors and as you can
1:06
see they're a little heftier than your
1:08
usual computer speakers but that's
1:11
because they can also work as TV
1:15
speakers so you can use these as the
1:18
whole sound system for your audio visual
1:20
system that they have inputs for
1:24
Bluetooth you can hook them up to a
1:26
phonograph it's really very flexible now
1:30
you might not have heard of Enko but
1:32
they go back a ways the company was
1:35
originally founded in
1:37
1946 as Osaka Denki Enko and they
1:41
launched their first speakers to great
1:44
acclaim back in the 1950s so it's really
1:48
a brand that's been around and really is
1:51
very wellnown they did hit the skids a
1:54
little bit during CO but they've been
1:56
purchased and relaunched by some new
1:59
owners and these are some of the very
2:01
first speakers that the new Eno 2 for
2:05
lack of a better name have launched and
2:07
these are really nice i will tell you
2:10
that let me pop off one of the speaker
2:12
grills and it's just a magnet easy
2:14
enough so it features 102mm woofer and
2:19
19 mm tweeter and they're 50 watts so
2:22
each speaker is pushing out 25 watts
2:25
which means that they are plenty good
2:28
enough for your living room for your
2:31
basement or den for your office for your
2:34
dorm room these would be amazing for a
2:35
dorm room or a small apartment cuz they
2:38
really do have a lot of sound and as you
2:41
can see in this closeup the back of the
2:43
speaker has a zillion inputs we'll get
2:46
back to that now tech-wise it also has
2:50
maximum sound pressure level of 115 dB
2:53
and what's really interesting is
2:55
internally there's two different amps so
2:58
it's a class D fully digital amp which
3:02
is a little bit confusing cuz class D
3:04
doesn't mean it's digital but these are
3:06
digital amps and it's a separate amp for
3:09
the tweeter and woofer and I'm going to
3:11
just unhook there's a pretty hefty cable
3:14
that connects the two speakers and you
3:16
can see here it's a four pin DIIN plug
3:20
so this is 2 m long so that tells you
3:23
the maximum width you can have them
3:25
separated unless you find a replacement
3:27
wire I suppose but as shipped by Enkio
3:31
it is 2 m of separation maximum which is
3:35
really just perfect that's really plenty
3:37
enough um has its own DSP or digital
3:41
signal processor has a very nice remote
3:44
control and one of the things I like
3:46
about the remote control is it doesn't
3:49
leave you with this mystery of I pushed
3:51
the input button which input am I on it
3:53
literally just labels each of the inputs
3:56
which gets us to the inputs so it has
3:59
and again I'm going to spin this around
4:01
so you see the back it has USBC
4:05
obviously for computers line or phono in
4:09
so if you have an old receiver or old CD
4:13
player or something it'll plug straight
4:15
in there and it has optical and HDMI ARC
4:21
so your better choice is always HDMI ARC
4:24
and it includes a high quality HDMI
4:27
cable if you want to do that to hook up
4:29
your television but if you don't have
4:31
ARC then you can drop down to an optical
4:34
connection and it does not include an
4:37
optical cable but I'll bet your TV did
4:40
so you can plug that in and again use
4:42
this as your sound system for your
4:45
television which will hugely improve
4:48
your experience versus just using the
4:51
speakers built into TVs i will tell you
4:53
TV manufacturers have speakers in their
4:56
TVs because they have to not because
4:59
they're going to sound really good and
5:00
they absolutely assume that the first
5:03
thing you're going to do is have an
5:04
external speaker system so optical HDMI
5:08
ARC 3.5 mm if you want to plug it into I
5:11
don't know an iPod or something like
5:13
that and what I really like it's
5:16
Bluetooth 5.3 low energy so you can just
5:20
hook this up and it's super easy to work
5:22
with now notice on here that there are
5:25
little colored lights now it's a little
5:27
awkward for me to do this from this
5:29
position but if I push buttons on the
5:33
remote that light changes color so I'm
5:38
going to go back to
5:39
Bluetooth and what those colors indicate
5:43
as you can see in this little cheat
5:44
sheet is hang on is what your input is
5:49
so there's a lot of color choices
5:51
probably you're going to just keep it on
5:53
one most of the time but it's also
5:55
printed on the back so it's handy if
5:57
you're looking at it and you're like
5:59
"Why is it pink what does that mean?"
6:01
Then you can look on the back and you
6:02
can say "Oh it's an RCA input." Okay
6:05
cool so I do have it paired with my
6:07
iPhone and let's just go ahead and
6:09
listen to a little bit of
6:12
music and I'll turn the volume up a
6:15
little
6:15
[Music]
6:19
bit and the speakers obviously aren't
6:22
facing me they're facing the camera but
6:24
I'll tell you it has really nice sound
6:27
and more bass than you would expect now
6:30
for stereo separation these are a little
6:32
bit closer than you want them to be but
6:34
I hope you can
6:35
hear it's a nice crisp sound and one of
6:40
the cool things on the remote is there's
6:42
a button that changes it from this EQ
6:47
to flat actually I might have been in
6:50
flat and now I'm in the full
6:53
EQ so you can sort of fiddle with that
6:57
and I will say hang
6:59
on it's loud um that I will say that um
7:06
they don't yet have a full EQ setting
7:09
you can use but I think that's coming
7:12
i'm not sure how they'll have you do
7:13
that input but it is on the product
7:15
notes that they are planning to give you
7:18
some ability to fine-tune what it
7:20
produces for your ear which is great so
7:25
what else can I tell you about it so it
7:27
comes with a USBA to USBC cable easy
7:31
enough for you to plug in your computer
7:34
and as I said it comes with the remote
7:36
the remote needs two AAA batteries not
7:39
included so you will want to make sure
7:41
you have a couple of batteries on hand
7:43
let's go ahead and put this back on easy
7:46
right i don't even have to see it's just
7:47
magnets for the win and it does have an
7:51
international power plug um a little
7:54
tricky for me to unplug it and show you
7:56
but so it has one of these transformers
7:59
and you can actually change it so it is
8:03
truly a global design so you can use
8:07
this in Europe in Japan obviously in the
8:10
United States so super easy to work with
8:13
i will plug it in again in a moment but
8:16
that's really everything um I want to
8:18
show you that there actually it includes
8:21
these stands and these are made out of a
8:24
high quality plastic but they're still
8:27
basically plastic so if you want you can
8:29
just put them straight on your surface
8:31
but I would recommend that you give them
8:33
a little bit of air space and it's just
8:35
easy enough and I'll give you a little
8:38
tip is when I was learning how the back
8:40
was all laid out and everything I
8:42
actually just had it backwards on the
8:45
stand to make it just a little easier to
8:48
see what was what and figure out what I
8:50
was plugging in and notice that there's
8:52
a switch so you can hook these up based
8:55
on the convenience and location of the
8:58
inputs and of the power plug and the
9:00
outlet and then you can decide is this
9:03
going to act as the right or the left
9:05
speaker that's a really nifty feature in
9:08
terms of dimensions they are 224 mm by
9:13
188 mm by 146 mm and 2.8 kg and if you
9:18
scratch your head when I say all those
9:20
numbers let's try again 8.8 in x 7.4 in
9:25
x 5.7 in and 6.2 lb each so they have
9:30
some heft to them and here's the reality
9:32
is that good speakers are heavy speakers
9:35
because they all rely on magnets and
9:38
magnets are a dense metal
9:41
so that's about everything I have to
9:43
tell you about these i will tell you I
9:45
really like the sound i went back and
9:47
was listening to some early Dave Breubck
9:50
quartet and honestly it sounded like I
9:53
was in the jazz club with Dave and his
9:57
musicians family it depends on what era
10:00
whether or not he had other family
10:01
members playing but it just was a really
10:04
nice sound and it was a very full sound
10:07
stage particularly given that there's no
10:09
subwoofer i can plug in a subwoofer to
10:12
get more of those low frequencies but
10:14
honestly these generate a lot of low
10:16
frequency sound those woofers are pretty
10:18
darn efficient so it really did a great
10:22
job of filling up my studio when I was
10:24
setting up for this shoot it was like
10:26
this is really nice i think I'll just
10:28
leave these jamming along so lots to
10:31
like here i really like the design the
10:34
materials are really good it has a
10:37
really they they feel like they're going
10:38
to last forever and of course the number
10:42
of inputs is just laughable it's just so
10:44
many different options if you have a
10:47
device and you can't figure out how to
10:48
hook it up with these speakers then I am
10:51
highly skeptical because there's so many
10:54
different choices from your TV to your
10:56
computer monitor to your old hi-fi
10:59
system to the most modern of devices all
11:03
of that super easy to work with really
11:06
lots lots to like here which means we
11:08
need to talk about the price but before
11:11
we get to the price I am going to ask
11:13
you to subscribe to my channel click or
11:15
tap on that subscribe button hit that
11:17
bell icon for notifications of my new
11:19
content and give me a thumbs up if you
11:22
found this of value and of course I hope
11:24
you did great these including remote
11:28
including all the wires and everything
11:30
are the Enko Creator Series GX30 ARC
11:35
powered monitors and they are 299 a pair
11:40
at
11:41
enko.com i will say if you're ready to
11:44
step up to the next level with your
11:46
audio experience whether it's with your
11:48
TV setup or just your computers or you
11:51
want to just put them in your bedroom
11:53
and just be able to listen to really
11:55
nice music at any point in time they're
11:59
pretty hard to beat really nice well
12:01
done Eno glad to see you back in the
12:04
industry that's what I got i'm going to
12:06
go back to Mr brewck so I'll catch you
12:09
in my next video heat heat
12:16
[Music]
#Audio Equipment