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So Edifier is a speaker company that's well known for having very inexpensive speakers but offer a good value proposition.

Not too long ago they released some speakers that they call studio monitors and they're selling them for $129 a pair.

So that's pretty crazy, $129, what can you expect?

🎵 So first let's talk about some quick specs and what I like about these.

4 inch carbon fiber woofer and a 1 inch soft dome tweeter.

They also have 21 Watts times 2 class D amplification.

Also, these have a headphone jack and auxiliary jack on the front of the speaker.

In the box, you'll find a 3.5 to 3.5 millimeter cable, as well as a 3.5 to RCA.

1 thing I look for with studio monitors is that they don't have hiss, and I'm glad to say that this has pretty low hiss at medium volume.

Once you turn it up, it does start to have a little bit more hiss.

The other thing is that it does have volume control, which is very handy.

That's 1 of the main issues with studio monitor speakers is there's typically no volume control.

So when you listen to them, you're listening to them at the max volume, meaning the max amount of noise with this, because there's a volume control.

You can just turn it down if you're not using it.

an issue because if you're playing music through it, you're probably not going to hear it anyway.

an option for you to use a balanced quarter inch jack as well as typical RCA.

a balanced signal that's preferred because you have less Chances of getting noise into the signal path.

I will say that I think that these look pretty nice They're very small and I think they have a good design to them They have a rounded baffle which theoretically should help with the baffle step typically if you have a straight corner on a speaker, sounds will reflect off that corner and there's a change in sound that happens.

Of course, when I saw the 4 inch woofer, the first thing

I had to do was bass test, of course, right?

So, I did throw some pretty crazy bass tests at it and the limiters are pretty good So, of course, it can't play super deep bass, but it also didn't distort at these louder volumes This does have bass and treble tone controls in case you want to adjust those to taste So onto a few things that I don't like.

at this, they claim a 1 inch soft dome tweeter.

Here it is compared to a Cali Audio with a 1 inch soft dome tweeter.

And you can tell that they don't look like the same size.

Here I measured it and it looks more like a

I mean, it's a small thing, but you know, you would think that these guys are the ones making it.

They should probably have accurate specs.

So that kind of thing makes me question if the other specs that they have are correct.

So anyway, hopefully they'll change that in the future to reflect the actual size of the tweeter.

It isn't really for a speaker this size, it's just nitpicking, but a 0.75 inch versus a 1 inch, typically you would expect the smaller tweeter to not be able to handle as much power.

These aren't getting a ton of power anyway so I don't think it matters, but just a nitpick.

The other thing is that these are budget speaker terminals.

Not that I expect anything more, But that's what you get with these these do come with a speaker cable in the box So I guess there is that now for a small speaker like this I was definitely not expecting a ton of deep bass Although I have heard speakers that are about this size that do have some pretty decent bass I've measured these speakers in the f3 which is a measurement of when they are 3 decibels down from the average sound is around 65 Hertz, which is kind of being generous considering I had bass on max.

So somewhere around there, 60, 65, 70, more likely That's to be expected that it doesn't have a ton of deep bass, but I wish that it did have a subwoofer out because if you are going to use this for studio monitoring, if you're playing music that does have deep bass, you're going to want to hear that bass.

And so you're probably going to want to add a sub.

And then I have to remind myself that these are 129 bucks.

So you have to maintain your proper expectations.

The other thing I noticed from my listening and in my measurements is that there's just too much trouble in the default setting.

Studio monitors are supposed to be neutral, supposed to be flat, and these are not flat.

Again, you have to manage your expectations based on the price, but if they're gonna market this as a studio monitor, you should probably try to make it more accurate.

Now, they do have a mode for music and monitoring mode.

I didn't measure too much of a huge difference between those, so it doesn't really matter.

So for a studio monitor, you want an accurate speaker, you want it to be flat.

If we look at the measurements here, you can see that it's not really a flat response.

You see some issues where it dips down and then the treble rises.

And I tried messing with the bass and treble controls.

Here's with the bass all the way down and all the way up.

And another 1 with a treble all the way down and all the way up.

And so there wasn't a point there where it really was very flat.

I would probably recommend having the bass all the way up and the treble just in

the middle, but that's about as good as I could

But the other thing is I did do a directivity measurement, which measures all around the speaker.

And then we compare how that sounds to the speaker measurement.

When you are directly in front of the speaker, what you want to see is a sound that doesn't change too much above 1 kilohertz.

It does look pretty smooth, which means that luckily it is EQ able.

And that's kind of the area where I had the most issue with this particular speaker was above 1 kilohertz.

I felt like the treble was just too much.

And looking at this, it looks like they could have DSP'd it down.

I don't know why they didn't just do that.

I experienced some issues where the sound kind of went in and out.

And I think it was because I had the input source too loud.

So if you own these and you're having that issue, you may want to just turn down the input source and you may be able to resolve that issue.

So there are directivity issues center on 500 Hertz.

And that's an important range because that is the lower mid range and there are vocals in that area.

Again, if you're gonna market this as a studio monitor, you have to make sure that these are neutral because if people are using this to make music, the problem is they might turn up certain frequencies to compensate where they shouldn't actually be doing that or vice versa.

So I did hear some audible resonance around 600 and 350 Hertz.

I think it kind of shows up here in the measurements as well.

The funny thing is on their website, it specifically says less resonance.

And so I don't know why they had to go and say that if you're gonna say that then make sure it has Less resonance.

I mean, this is no better than any other speaker that I've seen that doesn't have this on their marketing material

Just looking at their website professional quality.

little bit of a stretch and they show the DSP here and again, you know It's just about marketing if you're gonna use DSP then make it a flatter response quickly Let's put it on the speaker leaderboard.

the speaker leaderboard We have the Edifier MR4s and they do fit in the powered speaker category.

I'm gonna go ahead and put these, it's kind

of tough because these IKEA Sonos Symphonist, the sound quality wise I think these were actually flatter in response and they had pretty cool feature set because of Sonos So I'll go ahead and put these right here as far as Best bookshelf.

I'll also put it Somewhere around here best for desktop.

These are pretty good speakers for desktop.

So I would say they might go, let's see here, NuMe BS5.

And so I would say These would go right here.

These are under $200, so that's under $200, right under the IKEA Symphonisq again.

And last but not least, best overall sound regardless of price.

I would say just pure sound quality I'm gonna put them above the Edifier R1280T, above the MB42X, but the M, actually these BS5s sounded good.

They actually had a pretty neutral response, so I'm going to go ahead and put these right here.

All right, so overall, the speaker is an inexpensive speaker at $129.

I think it's a nice, maybe computer speaker for $129.

But you know, I think that if they're going to market this as a studio monitor, it has to measure flat has to be accurate.

And these are not, but what I will say is that I am impressed with some of the features that they have.

They have the headphone jack, some convenience features, volume control, and I think they look pretty good.

These are EQable if you want to do that, but I would say if you're serious about mixing, mastering, sound reproduction, sound production, you may want to look at other options.

I have reviewed other Edifier speakers before.

None of them were extremely flat, but what I would say is I think that they are capable of producing a good speaker.

So I would just encourage them to, you know, maybe work on some of the tuning a little bit.

I think you can have a really good speaker around this price.

Maybe the V2 version will have some of these changes I mentioned.

If you did, make sure to like, subscribe, ring the bell to be notified when I upload new videos.


Speaker 0: So Edifier is a speaker company that's well known for having very inexpensive speakers but offer a good value proposition. Not too long ago they released some speakers that they call studio monitors and they're selling them for $129 a pair. So that's pretty crazy, $129, what can you expect? 🎵 So first let's talk about some quick specs and what I like about these. So these have a

Speaker 1: 4 inch carbon fiber woofer and a 1 inch soft dome tweeter. I'll talk

Speaker 0: to you guys about that in a bit. They also have 21 Watts times 2 class D amplification. These are rear ported speakers. So you will find a port on the back. Also, these have a headphone jack and auxiliary jack on the front of the speaker.

In the box, you'll find a 3.5 to 3.5 millimeter cable, as well as a 3.5 to RCA. 1 thing I look for with studio monitors is that they don't have hiss, and I'm glad to say that this has pretty low hiss at medium volume. Once you turn it up, it does start to have a little bit more hiss. The other thing is that it does have volume control, which is very handy. That's 1 of the main issues with studio monitor speakers is there's typically no volume control.

So when you listen to them, you're listening to them at the max volume, meaning the max amount of noise with this, because there's a volume control. You can just turn it down if you're not using it. In which case the hiss is not so much of

Speaker 1: an issue because if you're playing music through it, you're probably not going to hear it anyway. The other thing I like is this does have

Speaker 0: an option for you to use a balanced quarter inch jack as well as typical RCA. So if

Speaker 1: you have the option to use

Speaker 0: a balanced signal that's preferred because you have less Chances of getting noise into the signal path. I will say that I think that these look pretty nice They're very small and I think they have a good design to them They have a rounded baffle which theoretically should help with the baffle step typically if you have a straight corner on a speaker, sounds will reflect off that corner and there's a change in sound that happens. So, rounder is better.

Speaker 1: Of course, when I saw the 4 inch woofer, the first thing

Speaker 0: I had to do was bass test, of course, right? So, I did throw some pretty crazy bass tests at it and the limiters are pretty good So, of course, it can't play super deep bass, but it also didn't distort at these louder volumes This does have bass and treble tone controls in case you want to adjust those to taste So onto a few things that I don't like. If you look

Speaker 1: at this, they claim a 1 inch soft dome tweeter. That doesn't look like a 1 inch. Here it is compared to a Cali Audio with a 1 inch soft dome tweeter. And you can tell that they don't look like the same size. Here I measured it and it looks more like a

Speaker 0: .75 inch. I mean, it's a small thing, but you know, you would think that these guys are the ones making it. They should probably have accurate specs. So that kind of thing makes me question if the other specs that they have are correct. So anyway, hopefully they'll change that in the future to reflect the actual size of the tweeter.

Why is that a big deal? It isn't really for a speaker this size, it's just nitpicking, but a 0.75 inch versus a 1 inch, typically you would expect the smaller tweeter to not be able to handle as much power. These aren't getting a ton of power anyway so I don't think it matters, but just a nitpick. The other thing is that these are budget speaker terminals. They don't have banana plugs.

Not that I expect anything more, But that's what you get with these these do come with a speaker cable in the box So I guess there is that now for a small speaker like this I was definitely not expecting a ton of deep bass Although I have heard speakers that are about this size that do have some pretty decent bass I've measured these speakers in the f3 which is a measurement of when they are 3 decibels down from the average sound is around 65 Hertz, which is kind of being generous considering I had bass on max. So somewhere around there, 60, 65, 70, more likely That's to be expected that it doesn't have a ton of deep bass, but I wish that it did have a subwoofer out because if you are going to use this for studio monitoring, if you're playing music that does have deep bass, you're going to want to hear that bass. And so you're probably going to want to add a sub. These do not have a subwoofer output. And then I have to remind myself that these are 129 bucks.

So you have to maintain your proper expectations. The other thing I noticed from my listening and in my measurements is that there's just too much trouble in the default setting. Studio monitors are supposed to be neutral, supposed to be flat, and these are not flat. Again, you have to manage your expectations based on the price, but if they're gonna market this as a studio monitor, you should probably try to make it more accurate. Now, they do have a mode for music and monitoring mode.

I didn't measure too much of a huge difference between those, so it doesn't really matter. So for a studio monitor, you want an accurate speaker, you want it to be flat. If we look at the measurements here, you can see that it's not really a flat response. You see some issues where it dips down and then the treble rises. And I tried messing with the bass and treble controls.

Here's with the bass all the way down and all the way up. And another 1 with a treble all the way down and all the way up. And so there wasn't a point there where it really was very flat. I would probably recommend having the bass all the way up and the treble just in

Speaker 1: the middle, but that's about as good as I could

Speaker 0: get it. But the other thing is I did do a directivity measurement, which measures all around the speaker. And then we compare how that sounds to the speaker measurement. When you are directly in front of the speaker, what you want to see is a sound that doesn't change too much above 1 kilohertz. It does look pretty smooth, which means that luckily it is EQ able.

And that's kind of the area where I had the most issue with this particular speaker was above 1 kilohertz. I felt like the treble was just too much. And looking at this, it looks like they could have DSP'd it down. I don't know why they didn't just do that. I experienced some issues where the sound kind of went in and out.

And I think it was because I had the input source too loud. So be careful of that. You could cause digital clipping. So if you own these and you're having that issue, you may want to just turn down the input source and you may be able to resolve that issue. So there are directivity issues center on 500 Hertz.

And that's an important range because that is the lower mid range and there are vocals in that area. Again, if you're gonna market this as a studio monitor, you have to make sure that these are neutral because if people are using this to make music, the problem is they might turn up certain frequencies to compensate where they shouldn't actually be doing that or vice versa. So I did hear some audible resonance around 600 and 350 Hertz. I think it kind of shows up here in the measurements as well. The funny thing is on their website, it specifically says less resonance.

And so I don't know why they had to go and say that if you're gonna say that then make sure it has Less resonance. I mean, this is no better than any other speaker that I've seen that doesn't have this on their marketing material

Speaker 1: Just looking at their website professional quality. I don't know That's a

Speaker 0: little bit of a stretch and they show the DSP here and again, you know It's just about marketing if you're gonna use DSP then make it a flatter response quickly Let's put it on the speaker leaderboard. Alright, so here we are at

Speaker 1: the speaker leaderboard We have the Edifier MR4s and they do fit in the powered speaker category. I'm gonna go ahead and put these, it's kind

Speaker 0: of tough because these IKEA Sonos Symphonist, the sound quality wise I think these were actually flatter in response and they had pretty cool feature set because of Sonos So I'll go ahead and put these right here as far as Best bookshelf. I'll also put it Somewhere around here best for desktop. These are pretty good speakers for desktop. So I would say they might go, let's see here, NuMe BS5. These are not powered.

They have some BS5Ps that are. And so I would say These would go right here. These are under $200, so that's under $200, right under the IKEA Symphonisq again. And last but not least, best overall sound regardless of price. I would say just pure sound quality I'm gonna put them above the Edifier R1280T, above the MB42X, but the M, actually these BS5s sounded good.

They actually had a pretty neutral response, so I'm going to go ahead and put these right here. There you have it. All right, so overall, the speaker is an inexpensive speaker at $129. They claim it's a studio monitor. I'm not sure that I would call it that.

I think it's a nice, maybe computer speaker for $129. I think they're suitable for that. But you know, I think that if they're going to market this as a studio monitor, it has to measure flat has to be accurate. And these are not, but what I will say is that I am impressed with some of the features that they have. They have the headphone jack, some convenience features, volume control, and I think they look pretty good.

These are EQable if you want to do that, but I would say if you're serious about mixing, mastering, sound reproduction, sound production, you may want to look at other options. I have reviewed other Edifier speakers before. None of them were extremely flat, but what I would say is I think that they are capable of producing a good speaker. They sell a ton of speakers on Amazon. So I would just encourage them to, you know, maybe work on some of the tuning a little bit.

I think you can have a really good speaker around this price. Maybe the V2 version will have some of these changes I mentioned.

Speaker 1: So that's it. I hope you liked the video. If you did, make sure to like, subscribe, ring the bell to be notified when I upload new videos. That's it. Take care.

Bye-bye. Take care, bye bye.

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Edifier MR4 - $129 Studio Monitor Speakers?