So far haven't had any noise with my Edifiers...
If you lose the remote you still can control volume, treble/bass and source switching. But you lose the ability to change EQ setting. And the default setting after power up has a bit more treble and bass compared to normal.
Bass, better than average for the price. And what also helps is that they tend not to have overly-loud treble.
Luckily, no auto standby except for T5.
Well, above is my general experience after reviewing 4 or 5 Edifiers. I don't have experience with the S880DB. But it's $277 now on Lazada so why not. It seems to perform pretty decently for a small speaker. Not as good bass quantity as R1850DB but that's reasonable due to smaller size and rear port.
The metal tweeter seems to roll off too early tho, I saw the same issue with S350DB which has the same tweeter.
First glance the R1850DB seems to have the performance advantage but you're paying more money into S880DB since it is more technologically advanced: Smaller size, with USB input and better bluetooth (aptx)