After a good deal of listening to the Edifier R1280DB speakers, I’m sitting down at my desk to write down my thoughts while still wearing my Edifier WH950NB headphones reviewed earlier and I gotta tell ya, for such an inexpensive set of straightforward bluetooth speakers, it’s going to be another big smile from me…
If you’re looking for wild frequency response tests and highly technical listening rooms setup for perfection, I’m afraid I’m not going to go down that path! I don’t get quite (anywhere near!) as technical as our friend Lachlan over at Passion For Sound does with the earlier iteration of the 1280DB, but rather, I’ll talk about how I think these powered wireless speakers, the latest released version with Bluetooth, RCA, Optical and Coaxial connections, will work for you in practical terms.
Let us get a little geekery out of the way before heading down the music path – but before I go on, I’ll just let you know that the headphones are off and the wireless speakers back on, Jaco Pastorius, Speak Like a Child is currently playing.
Unboxing the Edifier R1280DB: Cables and Connectivity
We’ll start here, the speakers, one powered, one slave (You can see in the photo above) as well as RCA to RCA and 3.5mm to RCA cables, you could use one between your CD player (remember those!) and your speakers, the other could be used to connect a device like an iPhone / Android with a headphone plug to the speakers. (Unless you have an annoying iPhone 17 like I do, and you don’t have a 3.5mm jack!) There is also a fiber optic cable in the box, so you have options and we all love options!
A quick one, the benefits of the optical cable are that you have a digital source all the way from the device you’re using as your source, to the DAC in the speakers, (Digital to Analog Converter) We won’t get into the quality of the DAC in the Edifier R1280DB, but from all reports, it ain’t half bad – but you have to consider other things like your listening environment, and to be completely honest, I don’t think that, if you’re spending $200 on wireless speakers, that the first thing on your mind is DAC quality – I may be wrong, but…
You also get a connector cable that joins the active and passive speakers together (only one has volume, tone and bass controls, along with the power switch and connection ports, that’s the active speaker) as well as a tiny cute, but handy, remote control and some user manuals. Before we move on, as well as power on/off and the regular volume and mute controls, you can also select your input and stop/play your music as well as change tracks. Basic, but functional.
Technical Specs: 42W RMS and Silk Dome Tweeters
The Edifier R1280DB are a ported two way speaker, they house a 4″ bass / mid driver and a 13mm silk dome tweeter (the ones that your kids typically push in when they’re bored! – that said, the speakers do come with some removable protective front grills… I’ve removed mine) with around 21W RMS power per side (into the stereo left and right) and are said to perform between 55Hz (the low bits) and 20KHz (The high parts) which for your average two-way wireless powered speaker is pretty standard.
Rather than head down the optical connection / best possible audio scenario road, I’ve kept it to a bluetooth connection as I figure that’s the most simple, straight up way that most people purchasing these little gems will use them, though, maybe if you’re connecting them to a television, I’d suggest cabling them, but more on that later! Bluetooth wireless connections are really simple these days, though in the last few months I’ve become accustomed to Bluetooth multipoint connections, and so going back to a single, solid BT connection that I have to manually disconnect if I’m reconnecting to another device, well, that’s a little frustrating, but honestly no big deal – In this case, I’d much rather have a convenient connection that holds on tight and doesn’t destroy my listening experience!
Real-World Bluetooth Performance: Mac and iPhone Testing
Using these now via Bluetooth on my Mac, it’s 11:35pm and though my office is at the other end of the house, I’m keeping it relatively quiet, the speakers are solid down at lower levels, no breaking up, no weird bluetooth artifacting that I sometimes get with a couple of my single bluetooth speakers… I’ve sat and listened to an entire John Mayer album (Battle Studies, 2009, heck of a listen) The 1280’s are easily detailed enough for a compelling listen in a medium-sized room filled with your regular furnishing (the stuff in the room can affect your sound don’t you know) Pino Palladino’s bass was tight and cracking along with Steve Jordan’s snare… Let’s not pretend, these aren’t going to out-perform my B&W 700 series, but they’re a perfectly acceptable listen and they’re easily portable and fit in in most places! Putting them on the kitchen bench for a BBQ, they’re not big, clunky and in the way, but if someone has one too many shandys and wants to do the caterpillar to ‘Groove is in the heart’ these will pretty easily keep up!
Twisting the bass dial for a listen to Iniko’s ‘Jericho’ I was pleasantly surprised for such a small pair of speakers, though at full-tilt they can start to get muddy. You can dial that out by being a bit more moderate on the bass dial. In my research before the speakers arrived, many people said they were surprised at the performance of the Edifier R1280DB and I’m the same – for a $199.99 set of speakers, they look great, sound really good and are packed with enough connectivity and control to do all I’d like them to do.
The Downsides: Bluetooth Pairing and Placement Quirks
I only have two very minor issues, the way my office is setup, the powered speaker needs to be to the left of my desk, but the powered speaker is designated stereo-right, I need to run extra power, but tbh that’s more of a me problem! The second issue I ran into, and again – more than likely a me problem! – I connected the Edifier R1280DB to my smart tv via bluetooth, they sounded great for general television watching, they were engaging and fun while my 12yo watched his episode of Stranger Things (which was Ep 4 of Season Four, so when Kate Bush came to life I was listening intently – I grew up on Kate, amongst other great musicians!) …I digress, what a shock! So after using the Edifier R1280DB connected via BT to the TV, I was cooking dinner and thought I’d listen to a podcast connect to the speakers, but they would NOT connect, I turned them off and on, tried to reset the bluetooth connection with my iPhone, tried to re-pair, they wouldn’t have it… I had to turn the TV on, manually disconnect the televisions bluetooth connection and THEN they sprang to life and connected to my phone – even though my television was off, and this may catch you out, too, the connection still remains active in the background. You can easily navigate this sort of scenario, just disconnect your device at the end of listening – it can get annoying, but that’s a device with a single solid bluetooth connection for you I guess!
Verdict: Who Should Buy the Edifier R1280DB?
Who are these for? Pretty much anyone that wants to make their Smart TV sound good, fill a modest sized room with quality stereo sound via their phone, add a cd player to the bbq out the back and rock out to land down under! The Edifier R1280DB are a great option and I can’t hesitate to recommend them as a great lower price point powered speaker.
