Onkyo GX-30ARC review

Did you know that Dolph Lundgren, the blonde-haired, muscle-bound antagonist from Rocky IV and one of the many macho members of the Expendables crew, is a former Kyokushin Karate champ? He’s also the proud holder of a Master’s degree in chemical engineering, speaks more than five languages, and has the sort of jawline that could cut a diamond at twenty paces.

It’s similar levels of multifaceted prowess which the Onkyo GX-30ARC speakers are aiming to emulate. Ostensibly a pair of compact Bluetooth desktop speakers at an affordable outlay, the Creator Series GX-30ARCs’ broad spectrum of physical inputs, including a moving-magnet phono stage and HDMI ARC, mean they could be so much more than a set of desk-bound sentinels tasked with giving YouTube videos a bit more oomph.

All of those potential use cases for just £339 / $299 / AU$649 look tempting on paper. Can the GX-30ARC make good on their polymathic promises, or have they stretched themselves too thin in a bid to cover as many bases as possible?

Build & design

As befits their primary use case as a pair of well-priced desktop speakers, the Onkyos are neat, compact little boxes which stand about as tall as a large paperback book. They are nicely made and simple to operate, sporting a clean, minimalist design that allows them to blend subtly into the background. Given that their main task may well be as a pair of speakers flanking your laptop or desktop PC, that feels entirely fitting.

As you’ll find with their more costly Ruark MR1 Mk3 rivals (£399 / $579 / AU$899), the powered GX-30ARC comprise a master and slave configuration, with one speaker housing the amplification, DAC and inputs, with a wired cable connection to its passive companion. That master speaker also features a front-facing LED, which changes colour in accordance with the input selected.

The GX-30ARC are equipped with a rather dapper pair of magnetically attachable grilles. While you will get the best sound possible with fully exposed drive units, keeping the grilles attached at all times doesn’t elicit a disastrous drop off in performance.

A pair of upward-angled stands are also provided – handy if you’re using the speakers as purely desktop units and want their sound directed somewhere close to your ears rather than into your chest. They feel a little cheap and plasticky, but to look at, they blend nicely with the Onkyos’ clean, utilitarian aesthetic.

Plus, you get an included remote control from which you can switch inputs, adjust volume and manage music playback via track switching and play/pause buttons. Make sure to keep your remote safe – most of the on-unit controls are a little awkwardly housed around the back of the main speaker.

Inside, there is a total of 50 watts of power with dedicated Class D amplifiers for each drive unit. Each box packs a 19mm tweeter alongside a 10.6cm cone woofer in pursuit of what Onkyo describes as a “clear, smooth sound”. Bass performance, meanwhile, is tuned by a slotted port on the rear panel.

Features

Thanks to their extensive connectivity suite, the Onkyo GX-30ARC are capable of going beyond the expected remit of a pair of powered desktop speakers. Yes, we envisage that most users may simply plonk the Onkyos onto a desk and then hook them up to their laptop or PC; but the generous array of connections on offer means that the GX-30ARC are capable of a good deal more.

Bluetooth is the only way you’ll get a wireless connection going, so don’t expect the sort of clever wi-fi streaming that you might find in costlier, all-in-one stereo systems. The GX-30ARCs’ Bluetooth 5.3 capabilities offer a stable, steady connection throughout our test time, although if we were being picky, we might have hoped for more extensive codec support beyond basic SBC. No hi-res aptX HD or aptX Adaptive here, sadly.

Flip the speakers around and on the master unit, you’ll find the lion’s share of your physical connections. A pair of RCA stereo inputs is joined by optical and 3.5mm auxiliary inputs, as well as a USB-C connection for directly plugging in sources such as laptops or smartphones.

We’re not done there. Rather pleasingly for a pair of speakers at this level, the GX-30ARC offers a moving-magnet phono stage if you want to establish a neat little turntable system, while an HDMI ARC input is on hand for giving your TV’s sound a sonic boost.

Sound

Bluetooth powers are a big part of the affordable Onyko’s appeal, and so Bluetooth streaming is where we start our testing, with the speakers placed on a standard office desk. Rick James’s Give It To Me Baby playing from Tidal is where we start, granting the speakers a chance to showcase their crisp, measured delivery as they dispatch James’s funky workout in a controlled, even-handed manner.

There aren’t many rivals capable of delivering a decent performance at this affordable level, yet it’s hard to ignore the considerable talents the GX-30ARC speakers deliver, with their poise and cohesion lending tracks a wholly balanced feel. That grants the Onkyos an air of measured maturity, and no matter the tunes we play, we’re conscious that they are keen to get out of the way and let the music do the talking.

Give It To Me Baby isn’t an easy track for speakers of this price to handle. While we’d like the GX-30ARC to unearth the dirty, impetuous nature of the subject matter with more grit and enthusiasm, we are impressed with how neatly and cohesively everything hangs together while the Onykos are streaming via Bluetooth and mounted on their provided plinths.

Clarity and textural detail are further plus points, and even if the GX-30ARC aren’t on the same level as the Award-winning Ruark MR1 Mk3, they do a fine job in their own regard – these are speakers costing a good chunk less, let’s not forget. What concerns us more is that the Onkyos aren’t quite as engaging as we’d like, with Nick Cave’s melancholic Song For Bob not quite striking the emotional chord. The Onykos are poised and controlled, but are they a little too dispassionate?

Perhaps; but as we delve deeper into their impressive array of connections, we realise that the GX-30ARC are more likely to be revealing the limitations of Bluetooth as they are their own fundamental flaws. Connecting to the Cyrus CDi CD player via the RCA inputs demonstrates a clear ability to stretch to a far more capable source player, whereas switching to the optical input demonstrates the speakers’ own internal DAC is capable of holding its own.

Connected to better sources and mounted on a set of decent speaker stands (the Custom Design FS104 Signature, to be precise), they sound far more expressive and engaging, deftly holding together Hans Zimmer’s Like A Dog Chasing Cars while bringing out the track’s dynamic crescendos with far more dramatic intent. The Onkyos sound far more alive; rather than merely going through the motions, they seem now to be firing on all cylinders and giving us a proper demonstration of what they can really do.

That internal DAC is clearly a good one. We use the provided USB-C connection to see how the speakers handle both music and movies, with the closing Live Aid performance from Bohemian Rhapsody acting as the perfect bridge between these two worlds. The GX-30ARC ably communicate the heady atmosphere of Queen’s iconic 1985 set, all while infusing Mercury/Malek’s virtuosic vocal performance with that signature boisterous élan.

Things improve further when we connect the Rega Planar 3 RS Edition turntable in a bid to uncover the capabilities of that internal phono stage. We are deeply impressed by how clear, punchy and dynamically engaging the Onkyo speakers sound for the price, and while they aren’t the biggest boxes in the world, they make a great fist of making Lukas Graham’s Happy Home sound appropriately stirring.

Verdict

The GX-30ARC is a serious proposition at this price. For what is still a reasonably budget outlay, we are impressed with the number of features and connectivity options on offer, with the Onkyo speakers showcasing admirable versatility across a range of sources and use cases.

Sonically, it’s hard to ask for more. These speakers won’t perform at their absolute best when playing via Bluetooth, but pair them with a quality source and the Onkyo GX-30ARC pairing are more than capable of showcasing their considerable talents. As a compact, versatile and easy to use pair of affordable, powered speakers, this is a very fine effort indeed.

Review published: 29th January 2026

SCORES:

• Sound 4
• Build 5
• Features 5

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