Edifier R1280DBs (sub-out) + T5 review

[wwenze]

For the first time the delivery is not in a 20kg box, that's refreshing.

Oh hey it says Bluetooth 5.0 on the box.

Unboxing

Spoiler

Spoiler

The bag tells you to keep it away from babies. This is a grown man's speaker.

Spoiler

The double-layer of wrapping is what we've gotten used to seeing from Edifier

Spoiler

...as is the abundance of included cables that are higher-quality than eBay stuff. That's 20% of the price of the entire box, right there.

And that remote control... oh wait...

Wow...

This makes R2000DB's remote look cheap in comparison.

It even has a model number... I wonder if it works on other speakers too, hmm...

Continuing with the more boring photos, the side and the knobs are what you already know.

Spoiler

The cost-optimization starts to become apparent. Dried glue here and there, the knob is off-center...

The back, which is pretty normal. Being a cheaper speaker, there is no bi-amping this time, so the simple red-black spring terminals. Two line-in, coaxial and optical, which now has a built-in cover which I like because I hate having to care about the cover, and a sub-out

Wait what...

A sub out?

Is that what the "s" in R1280DBs means?

Or does the s stand for the new Soundfield Spacializer which I used for 2 seconds and never used again?

Or does the s just stand for "second edition"? Oh wait, they like to use "MKII" for that.

Whatever the case, this thing has a sub out. And a pretty smart one too:

When connected the sub-out automatically detects the subwoofer and activates the digital crossover.

We'll see what it does with measurements later.

Subjective listening 1

For a quick and dirty setup, I just placed them where space was available. And used BT from my phone. 16-bit 48kHz with SBC codec, because aptX costs money to include and now we also know it doesn't necessarily sound better. I forgot to measure latency.

I've stopped using this placement for direct comparison, because the upper speaker does not benefit from table bounce and usually ends up sounding worse than the lower speaker.

But R1280DBs sounds pretty good out of the box like that. That's a good start already. So far majority of speakers sounded poor in that position, so if R1280DBs sounds good there, it will also sound good in the living room, or on a shelf, or basically anywhere where table bounce / floor bounce is not as available. And this is achieved while being just a 4-incher, too.

When I say sounds pretty good, I'm referring to the overall feeling. Sufficient bass (Actually very good bass for the size + price, as we will soon confirm with measurements later), no bloatedness, no ear-bleeding, nothing really stands out. Until I noticed, "Where's the treble?" It's not totally muffled like many tweeterless speakers, in which case the treble is totally missing. With R1280DBs though, the treble is still there, but lower in volume. Measurements both confirms and finds something interesting tho, so this is going to make the testing less straightforward. I'll cut the needless chatter - The grille interferes with the treble. And not by a small amount either.

 

[wwenze]

Measurements

So, this is not exactly Edifier's highest-end speaker. Some cost-optimizations need to be done, and from teardowns done by others, we know that the crossover of R1280DB is rudimentary at best, if it can even be called a crossover at all.

Whatever the cause and whatever the effect, we know the frequency response looks like:

I'm using 1/48 octave smoothing this time, while it makes the room modes really tall, there are some aspects of the measured performance that can only be shown clearly with less smoothing. And that dip in 2kHz is one such thing.

Yea, pretty rough. And even if we apply smoothing, we are still bouncing 5dB worth of up and down in treble, with or without the peak at 9kHz. This explains the reduced perceived treble, and also how something just does not feel right, despite an overall pleasing tonality - At 1/6 octave smoothing we are still at maybe 8dB (or ±4dB) of variation in treble so that's not *too* bad. I mean, at this price point, be glad the overall trend is still flat-ish instead of curving up or down.

Spoiler: 1/6 octave smoothing

Close-mic measurements reveal, or rather, reconfirm what we already know about the crossover - There is no crossover, unless you count the capacitor that prevents the tweeter from frying due to DC or LF AC.

I have two measurements for the tweeter. Because there is some kind of bowl blocking the direct front of the tweeter, so I also measured at slightly above the tweeter where it is not blocked by the... thing. Interestingly, the center of tweeter actually produces the louder treble above 10kHz, while the off-center produces the quieter measurement. I think in actual use we would hear the quieter treble, since we won't be exactly on the vertical axis.

That woofer is really having a lot of fun. It goes all the way up until 5kHz, until breakup occurs but even after that it's still just 10-20dB lower. The tweeter goes amazingly low too (for a 0.5"). A lot of things happen at 2kHz which probably explains that dip. Oh btw that port is LOUD, and it's front-ported too. Now you know where it's getting the LF extension from. In my normal listening position, it sounds decently usable down to 50Hz. That's on-par with good 5-inchers out there and better than the bad ones.

It also has a lot of spare power, enough for me to turn on the +13dB bass boost for moar baass, although it doesn't really need that much boost since that value was optimized for my Usher S-520. And that boost doesn't change the fact that the bass starts rolling off past 50Hz.

This reminds me of Amir's experience with his R1280T. Lots of spare power, crap-ish measurements yet subjectively recommended. Although he had too much treble while I had too little. And I wonder if that tweeter cover-thing and the lack of crossover for the woofer may have caused the Klippel NFS to behave weird. Or maybe time has passed and this speaker has the frequency response reoptimized, who knows.

 

[wwenze]

Subjective listening 2

I simply reused the current room correction I changed my mind, I'm going to do a quick one in REW

Top: Listening position, mic using 0 degree cal, pointed at right speaker
Bottom: REW auto correction

Note that this is still with grille on, but this time the treble peak at 10kHz is there. We have some inconsistency here. Things like this (directional variation) is why I don't EQ treble.

So yea, without EQ it does reach around 55Hz flat-ish-ly in the room, ignoring the 137Hz room peak which I need to do something about. While this is not the absolute best for size (That title goes to iLoud which achieves the same or slight better from a 3-inch driver, and anechoically), when you consider the price this is pretty good. I know people who would consider this sufficient. In fact this amount of extension is about the same as R2000DB, and even that one is considered good for the size. R1280DBs's bass does have a bit of extra volume at 100Hz~200Hz, or maybe this could be viewed as a deficiency in 500Hz~800Hz.

Anyway, this time listening there is more treble. Maybe my ears have gotten used to it. Maybe the EQ reduced the amount of bass.

While the tonal balance is good, the higher treble where all the percussions lie, while being more or less the correct quantity, doesn't feel quite right. Feels like it's all high frequency tinny without enough body, or perhaps messy. So let's try another REW auto EQ, this time covering the whole audible frequencies.
Result: Oh god the phase is all messed up. This doesn't work. Got a bit of extra body from the lower treble but now the treble apart from sounding too loud and dry has audible phase issues.

Verdict

It's a good sound that sounds good on the whole but is flawed in the details. It is definitely enjoyable if you're not picky, and at this price point, considering what alternatives you have, you can't be picky, in fact you are lucky enough if you can even find something that sounds proper, like this

...is what I would have loved to say with full confidence, but the current price I see is around SGD$150, which is a bit higher than R1280DB. If it was a bit closer to the $100 mark like the R1280DB I would have felt more comfortable saying it, but at $150 we have to look at... Edifier's own alternative the R1850DB which is currently a bit higher than $200. Or maybe even R1700BT which is even cheaper hence even closer priced to R1280DBs. R1700BT doesn't have digital inputs, but it still retains the BT and for that extra little money over R1280DBs you get bi-amp and with it a proper crossover, and also a bigger tweeter which together hopefully gives it better performance.

Yea, the enemy is thyself. I mean, look at other alternatives you can get for $150. 2.1 systems from Logitech or Creative? Lol. I mean, you can already get 55Hz from these stereo bookshelves, why would you need to do that using a 2.1 form factor. Even if I give all the handicap, let's say, to fight against the z623 since we have seen z623 go for very low prices during Lazada sales before. That one... has a decent subwoofer which works down to very low Hz, I'll admit that. But the treble... and hence the overall product, I will take the R1280DBs without question. I guess if space is a concern and 2.1 is your only solution, then fair enough.

The only fight is from Swan, but even M10Plus is asking for $179 these days... speaker prices are going up*. Swan does have a D1100 selling for $149 on Lazada and spec-wise it does look superior with the bigger tweeter and (from the looks) bi-amp, but specs aren't everything and proper design can still allow older/cheaper parts to outperform newer/more expensive parts, so this is still an unknown until somebody confirms D1100's performance. FWIW, Edifier lists 51Hz for the bass, while Swan lists 60Hz under free-space condition.

If you somehow can't pay any more dollars for speakers and must cap your spending at SGD$150, then yea, this is a good choice. You don't really have much of a choice. What else gives you 55Hz bass from stereo speakers, and still has a somewhat useable tweeter, and an overall good tonality. You probably won't notice the problems if your previous speakers are worse, and if your previous speakers are better you would likely still find the sound acceptable for a cheap secondary or backup system.

*Even KURZWEIL KS40A is selling for $185 now, for those of you who remember this used to be selling at around $100

 

[YouHeypiCanLiao]

So your recommendation is still R2000db? Thanks for the review

 

[wwenze]

When connected the sub-out automatically detects the subwoofer and activates the digital crossover.

Turns out it does not detect the subwoofer, it just detects whether a cable is connected to the 3.5mm. The other side can be connected to nothing.

What, were you expecting otherwise?

When the sub-out is connected, the bass of the R1280DBs becomes rolled off. I'm too dumb to figure out how to use the difference function of REW, so I EQ the bass to flat, and then connected the sub-out.

BTW ignore the treble, I just placed it close mic close to the woofer randomly on the table, so everything is expected to be messed up.

As for what is coming out from the sub-out, it is also filtered:

Please don't ask why I have to resort to such ghetto methods to get this frequency response. Good enough to see the curve, right? White noise signal sent to speaker, sub-out connected to my soundcard. A lot of 50Hz noise because of old cable problems and such.

 

[wwenze]

So your recommendation is still R2000db? Thanks for the review

Hard to answer this question. Edifier has speakers at every price point and their performance scales with the price. I can say R2000DB is better but if somebody is looking at $150 he may not want to increase his budget by 80%.

R2000DB's treble is definitely wayyyyy better tho. Bass quantity of both are similar, but R2000DB feels less messy. You need room EQ for both, anyway, or your room will be the main source of messiness.

I had R2000DB sitting on my table for quite a while and was lazy to change back, I don't mind using it if I had constraints like space or money or just convenience, it definitely works as a respectable main speaker. I still changed back anyway because I needed more bass. S2000MKIII, that one sat on my table for months, lol. Just plug and play and you get good sound from it, and better bass than R2000DB out of the box. Unfortunately after I knew how to squeeze 40Hz from my passive speakers, the passive speakers went back onto my table. S350DB was somewhat like R2000DB, I don't mind using it if I was forced to use it due to space issues, although EQ of the treble is highly recommended. Gives the sound of bigger bookshelves from a package using small satellites.

As for R1280DBs, yea, it's good if you reeeeeeeeeally have monetary constraints. But it is probably not staying on my table for long. Because while it sounds okay, after you've listened to better speakers, it just sounds like... not enough. The ASMR I listen to while sleeping, the vocals are just not good enough.

And here is props to Edifier for their design decision. As price goes lower, you have to sacrifice more things that make up a proper speaker, yea? Edifier choose to focus on getting the overall tonality right, and that means making sure there is enough bass and also enough treble (hence the tweeter, even if it's a 0.5" one). Because tonality is what we hear the most.

 

[lxXXxl]

@wwenze
You'll have a separate review on the T5?

 

[wwenze]

T5 review will be continued in this thread.

So far only using R1280DBs alone.

 

[wwenze]

BTW thought some might find distortion graphs interesting

Yea, not very good in the middle.

In comparison, here's R2000DB

S350DB

S2000MKIII

Bose Companion 2

I like seeing less than 30dB from the middle frequencies and up. R1280DBs doesn't provide that.
S350DB is also not ideal.

 

[wwenze]

R1280DBs + T5, pre-measurement listening:

Using R1280DBs sub-out

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........

Not impressed. Totally.

Without using any EQ, the bass extension is no better than a good 5-inch bookshelves. It's better than the R1280DBs definitely, but only around on-par with S2000MKIII. My boosted Usher S-520 can hit lower.

(Either that or I've been playing with too many good bookshelves that I stopped being considerate to users of crappier bookshelves that can't go low)

Even with a low-Q peak boost of 9dB @ 30Hz, I can only squeeze some decent usability out of 40Hz. Note that being in a different position in the room, the positioning of the room modes will be different from the speakers on the table, So if I had for example a 45Hz peak on the table, I may have a 45Hz dip on the floor, which can interfere with the result. I'll need close-mic measurements to really see how low it goes.

On the plus side, the volume knob on the subwoofer is set to a very low level and it already matches the loudness from the speaker. So if you want to ignore proper frequency response and just want to go wub wub, you can do it. Think there's a large group of consumers who buy subwoofers for that purpose.

 

[wwenze]

T5 measurements

Woofer close-mic

Port close-mic

In-room, 1/6 octave smoothing, measured at different points in the room

Output vs crossover setting, 1/6 octave smoothing

For the most part the crossover seems to work, until you see the lowest orange graph which looks weird. This is with the crossover at minimum setting or close to minimum setting.

Crossover at minimum setting, no smoothing.

This is close mic, so even without smoothing I can get a pretty good-looking graph. I have no idea what is happening here.

In any case, this is abnormal, the crossover circuit cannot be considered working properly when the frequency is set too low.

So, the purple graph below is the lowest somewhat-functional crossover frequency I can get after multiple blind tries

It does give us a kind-of useable 30Hz, however this is still non-ideal, because there is insufficient attenuation in the stopband. You can see lots of spikes above 50Hz that are not too much softer than the passband. If we are to increase the volume so we can hear the 30Hz, all these other frequencies will also be amplified too.

Hence, the realistically practical useable crossover setting would be the orange graph above. Note that this is close-mic of the woofer, so the port's contribution is not included here. Though from the in-room measurements we can see the port does not contribute too much anyway.

 

[lxXXxl]

Wow... Seems like the T5 has nothing much below 45hz. Is it worse than the s350db sub? Or they're the same?

 

[lxXXxl]

@wwenze
You should post this on ASR too btw

 

[MoyoCase]

Thanks for the review . Very good points here . Any edifier speaker use HDMI?

 

[wwenze]

Don't think so.

 

[cre8ate]

Hi guys I was initially thinking of getting an audioengine a2+ for my desktop. But now I am considering between r1280, r1850 and r2000 since they can be had for much less than the a2+.

Space is a concern for me as my table is not huge. Personally think the r1280 size is pretty good. Between the 3 edifier models, is there large jump in sound quality? I have only heard the r1280 which I found the bass to be slightly muddy. I think my desk can accommodate the r1850. But would the sound quality be a lot better if I jump to the r2000? Thanks!

 

[wwenze]

From the measurements in previous page, R1280DBs bass actually has less distortion than R2000DB, and roughly the same bass amount and extension. At least with sine waves, I don't see anything muddy about it.

Funnily enough, Edifier specs the bass extension of R1280DB as 55Hz, R1850DB as 60Hz, and R2000DB as 55Hz. So it is likely R1850DB is going to have a bit less bass.

The key difference between R1280DB and the more expensive cousins in R1850DB and R2000DB is in the treble performance. R1280DB's treble frequency response varies a lot and has high distortion due to lack of a proper crossover. (And also I don't trust any tweeter below 0.75-inch.) R1850DB onwards get a proper DSP and crossover.

Large jump in sound quality is relative. For me the problematic treble in R1280DBs is enough to get me to want to get something better, like R2000DB. (Any good design bookshelf should have negligible treble distortion.) But then R2000DB is bigger and double the price of R1280DB.

 

[m3 th3 last]

Thanks for the amazing review i had gotten the RB2000 as TV speaker as backup to my Swan MkIII+, just felt that it's a very good speaker against the like of Creative T3 which was my former speaker. But yet it felt so far as compared to the Swan sounding. It's like you know the gap is may 10-15% difference at max but the price is double as much.

 

[MoyoCase]

Subjective listening 2

I simply reused the current room correction I changed my mind, I'm going to do a quick one in REW

Top: Listening position, mic using 0 degree cal, pointed at right speaker
Bottom: REW auto correction

Note that this is still with grille on, but this time the treble peak at 10kHz is there. We have some inconsistency here. Things like this (directional variation) is why I don't EQ treble.

So yea, without EQ it does reach around 55Hz flat-ish-ly in the room, ignoring the 137Hz room peak which I need to do something about. While this is not the absolute best for size (That title goes to iLoud which achieves the same or slight better from a 3-inch driver, and anechoically), when you consider the price this is pretty good. I know people who would consider this sufficient. In fact this amount of extension is about the same as R2000DB, and even that one is considered good for the size. R1280DBs's bass does have a bit of extra volume at 100Hz~200Hz, or maybe this could be viewed as a deficiency in 500Hz~800Hz.

Anyway, this time listening there is more treble. Maybe my ears have gotten used to it. Maybe the EQ reduced the amount of bass.

While the tonal balance is good, the higher treble where all the percussions lie, while being more or less the correct quantity, doesn't feel quite right. Feels like it's all high frequency tinny without enough body, or perhaps messy. So let's try another REW auto EQ, this time covering the whole audible frequencies.
Result: Oh god the phase is all messed up. This doesn't work. Got a bit of extra body from the lower treble but now the treble apart from sounding too loud and dry has audible phase issues.

Verdict

It's a good sound that sounds good on the whole but is flawed in the details. It is definitely enjoyable if you're not picky, and at this price point, considering what alternatives you have, you can't be picky, in fact you are lucky enough if you can even find something that sounds proper, like this

...is what I would have loved to say with full confidence, but the current price I see is around SGD$150, which is a bit higher than R1280DB. If it was a bit closer to the $100 mark like the R1280DB I would have felt more comfortable saying it, but at $150 we have to look at... Edifier's own alternative the R1850DB which is currently a bit higher than $200. Or maybe even R1700BT which is even cheaper hence even closer priced to R1280DBs. R1700BT doesn't have digital inputs, but it still retains the BT and for that extra little money over R1280DBs you get bi-amp and with it a proper crossover, and also a bigger tweeter which together hopefully gives it better performance.

Yea, the enemy is thyself. I mean, look at other alternatives you can get for $150. 2.1 systems from Logitech or Creative? Lol. I mean, you can already get 55Hz from these stereo bookshelves, why would you need to do that using a 2.1 form factor. Even if I give all the handicap, let's say, to fight against the z623 since we have seen z623 go for very low prices during Lazada sales before. That one... has a decent subwoofer which works down to very low Hz, I'll admit that. But the treble... and hence the overall product, I will take the R1280DBs without question. I guess if space is a concern and 2.1 is your only solution, then fair enough.

The only fight is from Swan, but even M10Plus is asking for $179 these days... speaker prices are going up*. Swan does have a D1100 selling for $149 on Lazada and spec-wise it does look superior with the bigger tweeter and (from the looks) bi-amp, but specs aren't everything and proper design can still allow older/cheaper parts to outperform newer/more expensive parts, so this is still an unknown until somebody confirms D1100's performance. FWIW, Edifier lists 51Hz for the bass, while Swan lists 60Hz under free-space condition.

If you somehow can't pay any more dollars for speakers and must cap your spending at SGD$150, then yea, this is a good choice. You don't really have much of a choice. What else gives you 55Hz bass from stereo speakers, and still has a somewhat useable tweeter, and an overall good tonality. You probably won't notice the problems if your previous speakers are worse, and if your previous speakers are better you would likely still find the sound acceptable for a cheap secondary or backup system.

*Even KURZWEIL KS40A is selling for $185 now, for those of you who remember this used to be selling at around $100

I have creative stage v2. Is this edifier better than that ?

 

[wwenze]

But I don't have stage v2

A proper woofer and tweeter will sound way better than a single... tweeter-woofer thingy used in small speakers including the stage.