Review: Edifier R1600T Plus

[joppetie]

Approximately half a year ago I felt that the time was right to buy a new speaker set, since I was always using my Sennheiser HD 598 headphones when on my PC. Don't get me wrong, the headphones are great, but when watching movies or playing my favourite gsmes I still like to have a nice set of speakers.

With headphones like these you get some amazing sound and clarity, but the "table-shaking" bass simply cannot be achieved with headphones.

So I went looking for a good set of speakers for a reasonable price (€75 - €150). I didn't want to spend too much, since they would be for on my desk and not in the living room. At first I didn't really know what to look for. I thought that a 5.1 set from Logitech would be a good option, but I didn't really want so many speaker on my desk, especially because of the cable mess and the hassle of installing it all. Also, most of these sets are not quality-made and are almost entirely made of plastic.

A 2.0 or 2.1 set, then. I had been looking around a bit for an active set. (obviously) Unfortunately, there aren't many active 2.0 sets on the market.

Most of them are 2.1 with two tiny satellite speakers for on the desk and a massive sub woofer. Though, for a price like this, it's hard to find a set with reasonable build quality.

Luckily, I came across this set from Edifier. I had never heard of the brand, but I seemed that the internet was mostly positive about them,

so I just went ahead and bought the pair.

Quality

The speakers are made of wood and are very well finished. The build quality is truly exceptional for the price.

They have a decent weight, which gives the feeling of a well built product. Both drivers are magnetically shielded,

to prevent any unnecessary distortion.

Looks

Out of the box there is a piece of cloth on the the speakers, which gives the set a simple, yet elegant look. This way, it's just a set of bookshelf speakers.

If you take the cloth off, which is quite easy to do, the speakers look a lot more bad-ass and rough. The metal around the drivers is nicely finished and it's been Edifier's goal to make the speakers look good either way, awesome. On the bottom of the speakers you can find four rubber feet. These are there to prevent the speakers from moving around and they also help isolating noise and vibrations from passing to the surface they're standing on.

Knobs

On the right side of the right speaker there are three knobs. One for treble, one for bass and one for volume regulation. De knobs feel well-made and are not too easy to move. They're just right. The finish on the piece of plastic surrounding the knobs is of decent quality and the surface almost perfectly connects to the wood.

Connections

All the connections are to be found on the back of the right speaker. There's one permanently attached power cord, an on-off switch and two RCA connections. One RCA to 3.5mm jack conversion cable comes in the box and is about 1m long. This means that the speakers can be connected to just about anything. There are two connections, so you can, for example, hook up a desktop and a laptop at the same time, without having to switch cables all the time. Of course there's a cable included to connect the left speaker to the right one. This cable is definitely long enough for any desk, since it's quite long.

Performance

Even though they might look great in a living room, I wouldn't put them there to be honest. Because the right speaker houses a 32W amplifier,

both channels only have 16W to work with. This means that you can't blow up the drivers, which is nice, but it also means that the pair won't go house-shakingly loud. For on a desk it's more than far too much, much as it is in most other spaces, but they're just not loud enough to watch a movie and expect the bass to be very impressive in a large living room. (Sitting more than 4 feet from the TV, I would estimate.)

-- I'd like to emphasize that they're not quiet by any strech of the imagination. They are loud. Just don't expect to host parties with these speakers alone. --

Sound Quality

De audio quality is very good. The 18mm tweater produces very clean, sharp highs and the 120mm woofer produces excellent mids. The bass is fine,

but obviously not as extreme as you'd get with a subwoofer. If you turn the bass dial all the way to the right, you will feel the table shaking, a lot.

This set might not be the perfect fit for someone who only listens to 'bass-heavy' music and who thinks bass is all that matters, but for most music listening, I feel that the combination of the woofer and the tweater is really good and it suits nearly every music style extremely well. If you'd like to get the most bass, you should face the back of the speakers, where the bass-port is, to a wall or corner.

Conclusion

All in all I have to say that I'm incredibly impressed by these speakers. The looks really appeal to me, with or without the piece of cloth.

The sound quality is amazing, but might lack some bass for very few people, who really can't go without annoying the neighbours. It's a shame that they won't go loud enough to 'feel' the music in a large room, otherwise I'd definitely pick up a second set for next to the TV.

Technical Specifications

- Professional low-noise amplifier coupled with high performance crossover.

- 4.5inch bass driver - designed using a composite cone structure for a balanced acoustic.

- Silk diaphragm 18 mm tweeter with aluminum phase plug.

- Side mounted rotary volume, bass and treble controls.

- All wood enclosure.

- Power Output: RMS 2 × 16W

- Signal to noise ratio: 85 dBA

- Distortion: 0.1%

- Bass unit: 5 inch (120mm), magnetically shielded, 6ohm

- Tweeter unit: 18mm silk dome tweeter, magnetically shielded, 4 ohm

- Input impedance: 10K ohm

- Input sensitivity: 550 mV ± 50 mV.

- What's in the box:

- 1 x Active speaker

- 1 x Passive speaker

- 1 x 3.5mm to RCA connector cable

- Audio connecting cable

- User manual

- Dimensions: 152(W) x 252(H) x 228(D) (mm)

Used in combination with

- FiiO Olympus E10 (DAC) hooked up to my PC

- MP3 and FLAC audio files, played with Foobar2000

- Youtube videos

- iPod Touch 3G

- LG G2

- iPhone 5

- HTC One Mini

- My subjective ears

Where to buy

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Edifier-Studio-R1600T-Professional-Speakers/dp/B0038JULWW

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SP-003-ER

NL: https://www.4launch.nl/shop/product/129816/-speakerset-r1600t-plus-2-0--32w--donkergrijs-/tweakers

DE: http://www.amazon.de/EDIFIER-R1600T-Plus-Lautsprechersystem-Watt/dp/B0038JULWW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398685229&sr=8-1&keywords=r1600t

http://www.shop.weismantel-it-solutions.de/shop/details.php?art=96005&artname=Aktivboxen+Edifier+R1600T-Plus+2.0+schwarz+retail

Benelux: http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/301454/edifier-studio-r1600t-plus-20-(zwart).html

CA: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Edifier-Studio-R1600T-Plus-Professional-2-0-Speakers-/111312600593?pt=UK_AudioVideoElectronics_HomeAudioHiFi_HiFiSpeakers&hash=item19eabf7e11

[ZetZet]

Edifier is quite well known in Europe  :mellow:

You got the small ones though. 

If you want ones for your living room get Edifier Studio 7(R2700) or 8(R2800). They are nuts.

[joppetie]

Edifier is quite well known in Europe  :mellow:

You got the small ones though. 

If you want ones for your living room get Edifier Studio 7(R2700) or 8(R2800). They are nuts.

Might be, but I already have a proper stereo for that, these are for on the desk. 

And for "small ones", they get pretty loud and the bass is very good.