We all love a Temptation-level pair of speakers. But with the ongoing cost of living crisis, these aren’t an option for most of us. Which is why myself and the wider team at What Hi-Fi? have long championed the need for more small, affordable but great sounding speakers.
Despite this, there’s still woefully few options available. If you add the “small” element to our messaging and look at our best bookshelf speaker and best speaker buying guides, the only truly small, affordable model you’ll consistently see recommended are the £279 / $379 Ruark Audio MR1 Mk2.
The only other small speakers in a similar category that we’ve tested that sound good and meet our “small” criteria are the KEF LSX II LT. But, sadly their £899 / $999 / AU$1695 price means they don’t tick the “affordable” checkbox.
Which is why I was so glad to see not one but three dinky, affordable speakers arrive at CES 2025.
Two of these come from Onkyo which unveiled its new Creator Series of powered speakers alongside its Icon Series of hi-fi separates at CES 2025.
The Creator series is being pitched by the brand as bespoke-designed for “modern listeners, musicians, creators and gaming fanatics”, and currently consists of two desktop models, the GX10DB and GX30ARC.
Why am I excited? First, because they’re the first proper audio hardware we’ve seen from Onkyo for a while. Despite its strong legacy with AV receivers, the brand went quiet after filing for bankruptcy in and then being bought by Premium Audio Company (the parent company of Pioneer, Klipsch, Sharp and others). If you follow its X handle you’ll see it’s been talking about gin as much as audio hardware for a while now…
The speakers also look fairly swish and come with some decent specifications considering their affordable focus. Both feature Class D amplification – 34W of total power in the GX10DB and 50W in the GX30ARC – and come with a speaker stand/base that can be adjusted to match your sitting position.
Then finally there’s Kanto Audio’s UKI desktop speakers. While these initially caught my eye as I thought they look a little like Minions from Despicable Me – just imagine them with a yellow top and blue bottom and you’ll see what I mean – they target the exact same market as Onkyo’s new speakers.
Measuring in at just 6.5 inches/16.5cm in height and 4.3 inches/11cm in width, the speakers are even smaller than the five-star Ruark MR1 Mk2 and again feature reasonable specifications considering their target audience. We’re waiting on clarification for their amplification power rating, but we do know the tiny units feature a 1/4-inch (6.35mm) silk dome tweeter and a 3-inch (7.6cm) concave cone mid/bass driver and fit our affordable criteria, being set to retail for just £199 / $199.
To be clear, we haven’t heard any of the speakers, and they will very much have to sound good to have any hope of a recommendation from our reviewers. But I can’t help but feel a little relieved to already see more speakers at least try to deliver the holy trinity we’ve been looking for so early in 2025. Hopefully it’ll continue and we’ll see the gaping hole in this end of the market finally filled this year.
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