Edifier R1280T Powered Bookshelf Speakers – 2.0 Active Near Field Monitors – Studio Monitor Speaker – Wooden Enclosure – 42 Watts RMS

These speakers are incredible and for the price, they give more expensive monitors competition.
These speakers are simply incredible for the price, literally if i never would have seen or known about them first after doing research and then did a proper demo of them playing mastertapes, i would think they would cost around 250-275 dollars for how they sound. The tweeter is certainly one of the highlights of these speakers, it appears to be a silk mylar type, for a speaker in this price range it shouldn’t be anywhere close to as articulated or detaild as it is, it only uses a single 3.3uf bipolar electrolytic capacitor, i do wish they used a polypropylene capacitor to cross the tweeter over instead as that would be a decent improvement over the cap thats inside, but i understand they have to cut costs somewhere. I’d recommend if you do anything at all to these speakers, changing the 3.3uf cap out in each speaker with a 3.3uf 250v pmpc dayton audio polypropylene capacitor would be a good improvement, for a nice bit extra detail in the highend. When you switch it out make sure to attach the cap to the positive of the tweeter and to the positive amplfier wire going to the tweeter wire. Reguardless, the tweeter was a pleasant suprise indeed. The woofer is also fantastic featuring a decent rubber santoprene surround and finely pressed treated paper cone. The lower end extension is around 55 to 60hz plus or minus 10db, which is what id expect for a design such as this, everything from 55 to 60 and up is beautiful for the most part, the mids are fairly accurate as well, even the upper mids are pleasent. The can be a bit more forward sounding at times, but not over baringly so, i think it’s a decent characteristic of the sound if you really wanted to go ham with these speakers, plugging in a mini dsp would make these already great speakers shine even further beyound their price tag they already do. Overall the woofers are great for what they are. The magnets and baskets on both drivers are well made. The amplifier section is a single full range class d unit, i believe it was a texas instrument’s ic, one of their newer truepath hd chips, edifier implemented it perfectly in these speakers. Everything is driven by a smps power supply which appears to be good enough. The cabinets are made of excessively dense and thick mdf so there is little to no resonance inside the cabnet, the ports for each speaker are perfectly smooth on the insides and they are also flared to reduce port noise, that was a nice touch. The speakers look nice with the grills, they fit very snugly onto the fronts of the speakers, even they do not feel cheap. THE speakers look great with both the grills on or the grills off. The finish looks pleasing to the eye. The wire that comes with it to attach the other speaker appears to be 20 gauge which is enough for the length it is as well as the power it carries. The only 4 things i could see that would make these speakers better for mabey 5 to 15 bucks more “stuff gets cheaper when you buy parts in bulk” Would be for them to use all nichicon capacitors inside the powersupply and main board instead of the no name Chinese caps that are inside currently and also use a polypropylene 1 to 5% tolerance capacitor for the tweeter, and then also use 18 gauge ofc wire for the speakers internal wiring and also for the external speaker wire and its internal wire instead of that cca 20 gauge wire. The last thing would be to include better rca cables, as they do not fit very tightly around the connectors, if those 4 things would be improved, even if that would mean the speakers would be 10 to 15 bucks more, I’d buy it in 321. These edifier speakers still represent a great value for the cost, they won’t get super loud, but they will sound really good, especially if you’re using a decent source and not a terrible integrated computer soundcard.or a cheap cd player… these should be hooked up to a steinburg ur 12 daw or a mini dsp at the very least with music being streamed from foobar with the latest plug – ins, if you try to drive these with integrated sound or a phone, tablet, mp3 player playing lossy mp3’s…That’s exactly the sound you will get from them, you’re really limiting what these can do if that’s the case. If you use a terrible source with poorly mastered cd’s or even a cd player with a terrible design, you won’t hear what they can really do, go for a decent dac and lossless audio formats that are correctly mastered, you’ll see for yourself. If not, and you think they sound terrible, i guarantee you’re doing something wrong.

Llevo aproximadamente 3 años con estas bocinas modelo R1280T. En si, el material de construcción de la caja asi como su cono de 4 pulgadas y su twitter son de excelente calidad, los cables son de buena calidad y creo que en lo unico que me quejaria es en el control remoto que para alguien como yo que tiene sus bocinas en el nivel adecuado y las uso en mi ordenador, no es un problema, pero si lo consideras importante puede ser un punto en contra. Tambien es importante destacar que el modelo que es T y no TS, es porque a diferencia del modelo con la letra “S” al final, estas no tienen salida para un subwoofer.Finalmente en la cuestión del sonido. Estas son bocinas amplificadas que no necesitan de un amplificador, pero son hechas para lugares de espacios pequeños a medianos, ya que son bocinas de fidelidad y no sonideras, por lo que no te esperes que hagan ruido hasta la esquina de tu cuadra. Las bocinas en general tienen un sonido base bastante plano, lo que es muy bueno y que podemos jugar con los dB de los agudos y los graves que se encuentran en la bocina que tiene el amplificador. Esto hara que cambie bastante la manera en la que suenan. En cuanto a los agudos, tienen unos agudos muy controlados, que no llegan a molestarte inclusive en niveles altos de sonido, los medios sin lugar a dudas se desempeñan excelente, tienen una cercania en las voces muy buena, y en cuanto a los graves, son graves que se desempeñaran bien para aquel que no quiere que retumbe su casa, no se acartonan inclusive en frecuencias de 40hz, pero no tienen tanta expansión ya que tenemos un driver de 4 pulgadas, que en ocasiones puede viciarse con las frecuencias medias bajas y haga que el sonido se sature.Estas bocinas donde mas brillan es cuando las acompañamos con un crossover o tarjeta de audio que nos permita acompañarlas con un subwoofer y si es necesario para tu oido, ecualizar. Yo las tengo conectadas a mi PC con una tarjeta de sonido dedicada soundblaster ZSE, donde tengo configurado un sistema 2.1, osea 2 bocinas y 1 subwoofer con el punto de corte de las frecuencias graves en 80Hz hacia abajo para el subwoofer. De esta forma las bocinas ya no se viciaran con esas frecuencias graves y las medias bajas, dando un sonido mas uniforme y de mucha mejor calidad. Ademas de que en el software tengo ligeramente elevadas las frecuencias agudas y graves para mi odio.Sin lugar a dudas cuando las bocinas estan acompañadas por un subwoofer y podemos hacer el crossover se vuelven mucho mejores que solas. Si te consideras una persona mas exigente definitivamente te recomiendo hacer esta configuración, si no lo eres creeme que el sonido de ambas bocinas solo, cumplira totalmente tus expectativas

Purchased these after a lot of deliberation between these and the R1700BT. For my kind of liking, I preferred the more spatial sound of the 1280s. I saw a lot of one to one sound reviews on youtube but each time ended preferring these. These are tiny in size but powerful and more than big in sound for their size and use them as my desk top speakes. Being powered, these are plug and play and would form an ideal desktop companion to your pc’s. I am amazed at the clarity. I own a bigger set up of Bose 301 + Norge Concert Gold amp. But… But I love these little darlings more due tothe clarity. Unfortunately the bose and norge combination is harsh on the treble and over emphasizes the bass. I am also amazed at the consistency of the frequencies both at low and high volumes. Even at full volumes the bass is tight and treble is crystal clear. What hooked me to these speakers was the ability to throw out spatial sound. I use them as a stereo pair and am amazed at their sound stage and presence in my 12×15 ft room. I use logitech bt adapater on one of the RC plugs and have the other for my radio. The pc is hooked via bt to the logitech. There is no need of any switches to switch the inputs. One can play both sources simultaneously. If you are looking for a near field speaker with emphasis on clarity then these suit this need pretty well. You will be amazed at the way these small speakers produce such clear notes which are in the range of around 80% to the notes from speakers around 3-5 times the price of these. That is why these are compared with some of the best bookshelf speakers, although not really in their range. These can pretty well be used for a small home party too as they can get just that loud too. The remote is quiet handy if you use them as TV speakers and sit away from them. The only cons are not related to the sound but the smell these emanate out of the box, the radio interference they have on my radio fm reception, but with an external antenna the problem is solved.If you are confused and ask my opinion between these and the 1700s I will suggest go for the 1280 due to their very high sound to price index.Edit on 4-june-2019- they work fine even today. However I am not sure if it is my ears or what but they sound harsh as they reproduce notes clearly and at near field my ears ache please note.