You don’t always hear about mid-grade equipment, regardless of whether it’s audio, video, or a game controller for the simple reason that there are only so many ways one can say "this product offers acceptable performance but isn’t top-notch and its price reflects that fact." Such is the case with the Hercules XPS 2.1 40 Slim speaker and subwoofer set, but it has one interesting trait that sets it apart from some of its peers: It maintains a very narrow profile without losing all that much in the sound quality department. Thus the MSRP $60 ($59.99 to be totally correct, I suppose) will purchase a set of two speakers and a matching subwoofer, built to be easy to fit into your entertainment center or on your desk.
The speakers are roughly 2 & 1/8 inches wide, 9 inches tall, and measure 3 inches deep. Like the pictures suggest, this makes the speakers rather tall, thin rectangles instead of a more typical blocky design. The subwoofer follows a similar motif, measuring just under 7 inches wide, 9 & 1/2 inches tall, and just over 8 inches deep (not including protruding wires and knobs). This allows them to offer something pretty close in quality to other mid-grade speakers while being easy to fit into your environment, and this is probably the product’s biggest selling point. I should admit my tape measurer is rather faded and hard to read, so the previous measurements are approximate and mostly serve to confirm the manufacturer’s specs are likely accurate. My results were close to theirs and either way this is a pretty compact product, but you should go by their numbers if you need exact clearance in your entertainment center.
Wiring is fairly simple if you know what you’re in for; the power cord goes into the back of the subwoofer, as does its single jack into your audio source (you may need some adapters, sold separately). From there you inspect the bottom of each speaker to find their L and R labels, put them in their appropriate spots, and use their included wires to plug into the back of the subwoofer. This was admittedly very easy for me to do since I was replacing one 2.1 setup (some very old Altec Lansing ACS340 speakers and their matching subwoofer, if you’re curious) with another, so it was pretty much a case of removing the old components, keeping my original wiring, and putting in the Hercules equipment. Your mileage may vary, but nothing about this seems too complex if you follow the manual.
There’s only so much to say about the sound quality since these are ’consumer grade’ speakers that offer adequate but not top-end sound, and they’re priced accordingly. The subwoofer produces adequate bass, but it’s not about to shake your room. Likewise the speakers offer acceptable sound quality and are a step up from the built-in speakers on most TVs and similar devices, and you shouldn’t expect much more than that for the price. They’re certainly an improvement from what I was using, but ’what I was using’ was pretty old and abused by the time I bought them third-hand, so what represented a welcome upgrade for me may be no huge deal to you. Still, the Hercules XPS 2.1 40 Slim speakers and subwoofer do their jobs just fine for the price, and I have no real complaints about their sound quality and bass output.
The controls are simple enough, though the power button is in an odd position. Your primary control is a volume puck that can rest atop the subwoofer itself, or you can use the cord length to put it somewhere else nearby, and turn the knob as needed to adjust the volume. This puck also has headphone ports and a Line In port (useful for MP3 players and the like), while the subwoofer’s bass is controlled by a knob on the front of the subwoofer itself. That all works just fine, and I have only one complaint: The power button is on the back of the subwoofer. It’s not a big problem with my office’s layout, but I can easily see this being one for other users. This is in fact the only serious flaw with the product’s design that I can see.
Hercules’ specs indicate these speakers are shielded to prevent interference, and I tested that both ways; the speakers currently reside next to my monitor, a Playstation 2, Wii, my work PC, and a Xbox 360. There has been no sign of interference to those devices over several days, though this is no surprise. I also left my cell phone next to one of the speakers for a while and had no problems worth noting; the speakers didn’t produce any audio glitches, nor did they interfere with making calls to my cell phone’s voice mail. I’m not exactly impressed by this since most good consumer electronics will play nice with one another regardless, but at least it seems to live up to its claim.
It should be noted that the speakers seem to be reasonably durable. A visitor to my office inadvertently knocked one of them over and sent it on a four foot drop to the ground, but all I had to do was dust it off and put it back where it was. There was no damage to speak of and the sound quality didn’t decrease, so these speakers should be able to survive an occasional mishap.
Ultimately, the Hercules XPS 2.1 40 Slim speaker and subwoofer kit is a workhorse product meant to do a job at an acceptable price. It won’t win any awards for top-notch audio quality, but you shouldn’t expect that given its price (approx. $60, though online bargain hunting can find it for far less). The combination of acceptable sound quality, durability, and a thin yet tall design at a basically sane price offer a reasonable step up from the built-in speakers on most TVs and similar devices. So long as you go in with realistic expectations, these speakers will do their job at a mostly fair price and are worth considering if you want something better than TV speakers while still keeping a narrow profile.
