Edifier R1280DB Powered Bluetooth Bookshelf Speakers - Optical Input - Wireless Studio Monitors - 4 Inch Near Field Speaker - 42W RMS - Wood Grain (Black)

You can find Bluetooth bookshelf speakers for a lower price: don't. The Edifier R1280DB's are well worth $150. I tried a couple of cheaper speaker sets. There seems to be some sort of "bass fetish" currently in vogue. All the speakers I tired had a good deal of bass -- and nothing else. I like solid bass as much as the next guy, but I also like good treble and midrange -- kind of hard to hear things like vocals, guitars, violins, etc. without that upper part of the spectrum. The 1280DB's have good bass; they also have good mid- and upper range response. No, they're not going to sound like JBL K2 S9900's, but if you can afford those you're probably not shopping on Amazon anyway. For $150, the sound is great: solid bass, clear vocals, and some "life" in the upper range that I found lacking in cheaper speakers. * Volume won't knock your fillings out, but for a small set of bookshelf speakers it is more than adequate. Certainly blows rings around anything you can get directly out of most laptops or TVs. * Speaker/amplifier is very quiet in operation. I could detect no background hiss or other noise when between program material. * Bluetooth worked flawlessly. Paired instantly with every device I tried with it, did not drop connections, and latency was virtually unnoticeable. * One big plus of these speakers is that they actually have tone controls: treble and bass. A lot of Bluetooth speakers lack these, and they let you tailor the sound to your taste. * And this speaker pair can also be hard-wired to your stereo, computer, or TV, should you wish to go that route, rather than Bluetooth. * I could wish for a better (more sturdy) remote, and being able to remotely activate the tone controls would be handy, although not absolutely necessary. All in all, very happy with these. Recommended.

If sound had a personality, these speakers would be the life of the party—smooth, stylish, and always on point. The Edifier R1280DB doesn’t just play music; it curates an experience. With their classic wood finish and modern Bluetooth magic, they look like they belong in a cozy library but sound like they’re ready for a rooftop jam session. The audio? Crisp highs, warm mids, and bass that says, “I’m here, but I’m not trying to knock your pictures off the wall.” They’re the perfect balance—like a good friend who knows when to turn up and when to chill. Setup is a breeze, and the remote control means you can feel like a DJ without leaving the couch. Whether you’re streaming your favorite playlist or binge-watching shows, these speakers make everything sound better—because life’s too short for bad audio.

I have a set of R1850DB's that I have been using for many years now, and seeing as I have updated my gaming and typing desk setup, I wanted some new bookshelf speakers so that I could use the existing set for the living room TV. I wanted Edifier speakers again, since the previous set worked so well, sounded so good, and lasted a long time. These are sexy, simple, and one major plus is that the controls on the right speaker are on the side, instead of the back. No more having to stand up and reach behind the speaker to operate the controls. I know they have a remote but I prefer using the knobs and buttons... Now I can adjust what I need much easier (even though these come with a remote too :p) I think these sound great, and even though I am not an audiophile, I can find happiness in even a mediocre sound system (my car >,>.) At my desk, when I am watching videos, movies, and shows; or when I am gaming, I do enjoy a nice, premium sound, especially for the price. The main difference is the way the speakers connect. The previous set had a cable, this set has the speaker wire that has exposed copper to feed into the pinchy things that clamp down and secure them. I don't mind the wire that the set came with, but I wanted something prettier, so I bought some 16AWG speaker wire that looks nicer and cut it to length, which means I wont have excess either! I will be getting the T5 Edifier sub as well, that will be coming in this week. It is in no way a reflection of how I feel about the sound and depth of these speakers, I think they sound awesome as they are. I have never had a sub though, and adding the sub to my new setup is a way to try something more immersive especially for multimedia consumption and gaming! Overall, I can easily recommend these speakers. They look and sound awesome, and can get really loud and deeply heavy for bookshelf speakers. Nice, clear sound, and easy to use controls. I know that particularly in audio, there is such a wide range of preferences. Audio is highly subjective. It can also be extremely convoluted and confusing, regarding function, form, sound, connectivity and compatibility between different platforms, etc... In regards to this set of speakers and my limited knowledge of audio equipment, I can definitely say with confidence that they are extremely worth the price, and I would argue that most people would be perfectly happy with them! :)

Others have complained about these speakers and I'll address those complaints first. Bluetooth works well with my ~4 year old Moto X Pure Android phone. My only complaint about Bluetooth on these speakers is that I wish that it was "always on" and would auto-switch to the BT input whenever something connected, and would switch back to the last input when disconnected. Instead, you have to manually select the input on the chintzy little remote. I am not sure about the specs but it may support aptX because latencies were very low when watching things on my phone. I have had no problem with low gain. I control the volume to my TV's audio line output using my TV remote, and it's easy to adjust both the speaker audio level and the TV line out to be quite loud without getting anywhere near the maximum setting of either, leaving a lot of headroom if I want the speakers to be exceptionally loud and easily avoiding any sort of clipping or distortion. I cannot possibly imagine a normal and compact soundbar of similar price would sound any better. Those tend to have even smaller loudspeakers in them, and you can't really gang up parallel speakers without causing nasty interference patterns. The different frequency ranges seem reasonable in accuracy. If you want a "colorful" speaker, get a Bose or one of the other countless brands that try to impress people with accentuated mid or low ranges. Personally I respect a speaker with a relatively flat response. I'm also not shocked that these have poor bass reproduction. The woofer is small and has to drive a wide frequency range. If you buy these expecting a lot of bass, you are delusional. If you are desperate for tons of bass, get a big and more expensive 3-way speaker or a supplemental subwoofer. I have never once in my life desired a remote-controlled bass/treble control. The fact that these speakers have convenient knobs for both on this price class is pretty good to begin with. Generally, I find a setting I like (usually in the center or near to it) and leave it there forever. Yes, these are not powerful overall. They are loud enough for my family room. They are much more than adequate for a computer system. If you are looking for a booming home stereo system, why are you buying bookshelf monitors? As for my own pros/cons, I'd say that they don't sound amazing. They sound quite good, much better than the built-in speakers on my TV, and much better than an old 2.1 Altec Lansing system I still had from the early 2000s. They do not sound as good as my giant Denon amp combined with a nice and big 3-way passive speaker setup. I can't put my finger on where the deficiency is in their quality is, but it's just a little off somehow. It probably has to do with the smallish woofer having to reproduce so many frequencies at once. But again, it's pretty good, and these are inexpensive for a pair of powered monitors. They are compact and attractive. I am sick of having passive speakers with a separate amp/receiver, so just being able to route the TV directly to the speakers and have that be the end of it is very enticing. It saves a lot of space and look nice and neat. The remote is tiny and feels like it's going to break apart in my hand. The input jacks are not really recessed so if you are planning on placing the speakers on a ledge against a wall, you may want to get L-shaped connectors or else the right speaker will need to sit an inch or more forward from the wall. The analog and digital inputs are nice and it's easy to switch between them with the remote, assuming you don't lose it. Thus far, it's about what I expected for the price, which was about $130 at the time of this writing. With this feature set, form factor and price point, I feel like there isn't much to complain about. If they break down, or blow out, or feature stop working, or anything like that, I'll come back to amend my review.

These speakers are a fantastic size, with great build quality and sound! They JAM for real! I love these little things. I have them paired with my living room TV, and the output is so powerful you'd swear there is a hidden subwoofer connected somewhere! Seriously, I’m pretty sure the guy next door can finally hear "The Voice" in glorious stereo—he should thank me. We mainly use the headphone RCA hookup for our TV output in stereo, and it works great. But these babies do magic stuff like Bluetooth and even come with a little remote. If you want amazing, deep sound without the clutter of a complicated system, these Edifiers are the best—they sound like they cost triple what I paid! You won't find better sound for this size and price.

The sound quality is exceptional for the cost. They look sleek and have a removable cover if you want to see the speakers. There are clear distinctions between the lows, mids, and highs. The clarity is beautiful. Everything is super crisp. They have a good weight to them which speaks to the build quality of the enclosure and the speakers themselves. I like that there are multiple connectivity options. I feel the best sound I got through them was via optical connection. I was able to connect my phone via bluetooth without any issues. I wanted to test limits so I turned everything up all the way, (bass, treble, and volume), and did not hear any distortion. They didn't blow my roof off but they were loud enough my roommate asked me to turn them down as he could feel the bass from 30' away in his room. The only thing I wish was better is the remote. It feels a little cheap and it's tiny. I feel that at some point it's inevitable that I will misplace it. It's a very minor thing though. I only mention it because there's literally nothing else to complain about. Side note: If you're using them for TV, you may want to turn the treble down a little. I noticed that some older shows and movies have a slight hiss that I couldn't hear through my tv speakers. It's important to note that isn't a fault of the new speakers. They're simply playing flaws in the audio recording themselves.

Edifier was a company I'd never heard about till running into their products on Amazon about a month ago. In business for 20+ years, their goal was simply to create the best-sounding/audiophile monitors and headphones you can have for little money. Taking a chance on the many positive reviews about this Bluetooth set, I simply had to order me a pair. And I'll tell you why. My laptop is a 10 year old HP 8530w. As such, the audio outputs from both the 3.5mm and USB jacks were sorely lacking in clarity and detail. Hell, they were so noisy that they rendered professional recordings useless. The analog jack was just too bassy, hissy and distorted and the USB connection was unstable and, when it did work, gave out quite a loud hum. So my last resort (instead of spending $1000 on a new laptop) was to give these Bluetooth monitors a looksee. After all, given Amazon's generous return policy, it would've been worth a try anyway. As it turned out, these heavy monitors sound fantastic. EQ'd flat, in my living room, caused the highs to roll off; luckily, the smooth treble control helps make up for this discrepancy. (I leave the bass control flat and boost the treble to around one o'clock. That helps bring back the sizzle of high hats and *S's" in vocals. For comparison purposes, i hooked up the 3.5mm jack of my laptop as well as the Bluetooth. Both connections sound fine, albeit, with one caveat: there was a noticeable lag with the Bluetooth connection. My old computer is outfitted with Bluetooth version 2.0+EDR. It's decent for transmitting good quality audio but not near the fidelity of 4.0 and above. Still, since I don't blast my monitors, I hear no noise from them when playing CD's and MP3's. Playing a MIDI keyboard hooked up to my computer was problematic, though. The lag is much more noticeable. Already, using ASIO for Cubase I was getting a latency of about 12ms. With these monitors, I imagine they've added about 20ms more, thus a 30-40ms latency is quite noticeable when playing a MIDI keyboard. If this "annoyance" becomes more unbearable in the future, I'll then have no choice but to either invest in a newer, faster computer or at least just use the 3.5mm audio out for recording midi. Edifier has a winner on their hands. To be fair, these speakers are not JBL's, Tannoy's or Adam's, but they are worth their weight in gold, or at least what you paid for them.

Overall for the price, appearance, quality, ease of setup and use these speakers are well worth the money! I purchased the Edifier R1280DB Powered Bluetooth Bookshelf Speakers to pair with the ION Audio Premier turntable. The speakers are very well constructed and look very nice. The speaker cabinets have a wood grain finish and RCA cables, speaker wire, optical wire and remote is included. The powered speaker has a volume, bass and treble controls on the side. Installation is very simple. RCA cables from the back of the turntable to the powered speaker, then connect the standard speaker wire to the second speaker. Note: There are two RCA line inputs on the back of the powered speaker. Bluetooth pairing was fast and painless and I have never had an issue. Several reviews have commented about the quality of the remote. It would have been great if they would have put a little more quality detail into it but overall the remote does its job and never fails to complete the task. In my opinion, it is a non issue. Another issue mentioned was the power button being on the back of the speaker. Again, to me this is a non issue. I leave the hard switch set to On and use the remote. Overall for the price, appearance, quality, ease of setup and use these speakers are well worth the money! You won't be disappointed.