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

I bought these speakers to downsize from older, larger floor speakers connected to an amplifier and my audio-technica lp 120 turntable. Just wanted to make the overall footprint in my room smaller, and I was never 100% happy with the sound through the amp and floor speakers. The all-in-one design of the Edifier R1280T speakers appealed to me. Amp and speakers in a nice, compact package. I owned the larger, more expensive speakers for years but figured these new Edifier speakers would probably match or exceed them simply because speaker and amp technology has gotten better and more sophisticated over the years. And, for $100, I figured what the heck. I can always use them somewhere else in the house if I didn’t like they way they sounded with my turntable.The speakers were delivered within a day because of my Prime membership. They were securely boxed by Edifier so they wouldn’t get damaged during transit. When I removed them from the box the first thing I noticed was how well built and good looking they are. Quite compact (perfect for bookshelves) and absolutely look and feel more expensive than I would expect from a hundred dollar pair of speakers. Setup was super easy. Took only about 5 minutes. The remote is simple, but that it was I like about it. Volume up and down and mute. If you want to tweak treble and bass you simply turn dials on the side of one of the speakers. The on/off switch is also on a speaker. Easy enough to deal with.I held my breath when I put the first record on my turntable. At first the speakers just didn’t sound right. Did a little trouble shooting and realized I didn’t hook up the wires to the back of the speakers properly. They are color coded for positive/negative polarity but I just didn’t pay attention or read the small instruction manual that came with the speakers. Once I fixed the wire polarity and replayed the record, I could feel a smile come across my face. Yes! Exactly what I hoped for, nice clean sound, with decent treble and bass. Adjusted both to my liking and walla, totally enjoyed the music.After being satisfied with the basic sound I cranked up the volume to see if the speakers could handle high volume without distortion. Again, the answer was yes. Plenty loud for me, and I do like to crank it up once in a while. Never did put it to full volume. Just wasn’t neccessary.I know there are better speakers out there, and these are not Bluetooth or WiFi ready. But that is not what I was looking for. These are dedicated to my phonograph and for me they are perfect. From the great reviews they receive on Amazon, it is obvious many people feel the same as I do. In fact, this is supposedly Amazon’s best selling speakers. In that regard, I want to thank all of the other Amazon reviewers who wrote about these speakers. They definitely influenced my purchase decision because I for one do rely on the star ratings products receive on Amazon.The bottom line on these Edifier speakers is that I highly recommend them, specifically because of their excellent price, beauty and sound. In my humble opinion I don’t think you will find a better value out there today in speakers at this price range or even slightly higher.

These were expensive with great quality for the price.easy to set up. Moderate bass but sufficient. Good range. Voices a little muddy at times. Not as distinct as my klipsch speakers but third the price. I use them in my bedroom where they are sharp sounding and attractive

I originally bought some Alesis M1 speakers because I had a set of their higher end monitors and was very pleased with them. I was looking for nearfield monitors that were less on the thud side and more on the midrange side of town, since I’m using them for production. I wrote a review about the Alesis. Alesis are a great company, but those speakers were absolutely dreadful. I spent $91 on those used. Unlistenable.I was resigned to having to shell out the bigger bucks to get some NS10’s.. which of course do the job better than anything, but are hard to listen to for long periods of time. I wanted something that was accurate, small and musical.So I started listening to tests on youtube through my Sony MDRV6 headphones (5hz-35khz!) of every monitor I could find that might fit the bill for what I was looking for.I had not heard of Edifier, but my research started with discovering the 1280db’s, which sound great, really. But in another test I listened to 1280db against the 1280T that made me opt instead for the 1280T. The 1280T’s were more balanced to my ears.Then I listened to every single other test I could find of the 1280T’s against a paragon of great speaker manufacturers., JBL, Genius, Behringer, Alesis, Pioneer.. even a few Bose models, the bookshelf and multimedia speakers specifically (NEVER use Bose for monitoring).I did the test in HD with my eyes closed so that I could truly determine which sounded not just better, but that seemed to offer a response you’d expect from nearfield monitors rather than loudspeakers. I’m not looking for thudders – I’m looking for lots of detail and accuracy in the midrange.The 1280T’s kept taking the proverbial cake. They have a very musical characteristic about them without coloration. There is no wonk on these speakers. I think what these guys really got right was the balance. Even against higher Edifier models, this one really was more pleasing to my ears, again looking for detailed midrange response and to be used as near field monitors.They sound way more expensive than they are. (I owned a few $300-$600 monitors including Alesis and JBL). I paid $79. Unreal. I feel like a bandit.The balance as I say is really exquisite. Someone really gave a damn about how these things sound. I was already impressed with the 1280db, but these are more balanced in the 200hz-400hz range. The detail in the midrange is really superb. The bass response, going AB between these, some Rockit 5’s, car speakers and a Yamaha stereo system with a sub, is pretty accurate, leaning slightly on over emphasis. So I went back to the speaker, dialed the bass response down 1 click, and voila! Accurate (or as accurate as you could hope for $79) bass response. The treble response is accurate with no compensation required on the speaker. The treble balance is very musical. Well blended. These speakers sing like one unit, not like 2 woofers and 2 tweeters. I also gave the Treble and Bass a good push to 10 and the speakers just got sweeter and beefier. Really pleasant, although I plan to keep the speakers flat. I think the boost and cut is set at 6db each way.. but I’m guessing. Again I have no real need for those but it was nice to hear these things really kick. You can make them thud if you want. 75hz-18khz is where they’re rated and more than enough for my purposes.They look nice to me (they don’t look cheap anyway.). The construction appears to be quite solid. The grills are straightforward and aesthetically, while not the sexiest looking piece of gear, makes up for it with unassuming awesomeness. My friends had no idea the speakers sound that good from looking at them. They look a bit vintage even. I’m down with that.I’ve read some negative comments about the dials on the speakers. I didn’t mind them at all. The Bass and Treble have a nice click for the 12 o’clock setting so you don’t have to eyeball it and the Volume knob is infinite. Doesn’t stop rolling in either direction, which is fine. I set it and leave it there. I did give them a good crank (listenably loud) and they handled it no problem. No audible distortion or clipping. For near field monitors, these things have a TON of power. WAAAY louder than I’d ever need them to be. The company rates them at 42W (21 a side). These speakers have no bluetooth connectivity, which I could care less about since I would never use that feature when working on music production. You’ve got an Aux input and a “PC” input and that’s IT. Both are RCA. A USB connection or a SPDF connection might be nice, but if they omitted those to keep the price down while focusing on giving you a great sounding speaker, then I’m all for it because they succeeded in that regard.One of the best purchases I’ve made this year. Will definitely look Edify up first next time I want to buy some speakers. I hope they maintain their emphasis on simplicity and quality. Unreal value for $79.. AWESOME!!

If you’re looking for a set of speakers for your computer, this is the set to buy. For $100 you will not find a better performing set of speakers.I was tired of having a 2.1 setup with a boxy subwoofer on the floor, and multiple cables for R/L speaker, connection to the computer, and power. I was using Creative Z623 (discontinued but the current model Z625 can be had at Logitech for $170) which are 200W THX certified speakers. They sounded good, the bass was great. The main issue I had was I wanted to regain floor space. With a midtower desktop case and the subwoofer, I was losing around 4sqft next to my desk. Enter Edifier R1280T (Note I have no need to use these with Bluetooth devices, they will be dedicated to my PC).Easy setup -1. Speaker wire (included) connects left speaker to the right (which has the amp and controls)2. RCA to 3.5mm cable (included) connects right speaker to your PC. Note here that the included cable is 6ft, which may or may not be long enough if your PC is on the left of your desk (like mine) and you want to spread out the speakers a bit. I ordered a longer (and better quality) cable on amazon for $10.3. Plug in power cord from right speakerAlmost mandatory adjustments for maximum performance:1. These speakers have volume control. Windows has volume control. That means there’s a bit of trial and error determining how high you want to set the speaker volume vs master volume in Windows. I set Windows volume to 50%, then I set the speaker volume to it’s maximum. Then I can use windows to make it even louder, and no it didn’t clip the sound or distort. Now a comfortable sound level for me is around 30%. It’s freaking loud at 70%. Loud enough that I think I may be annoying my neighbors. However at 2% I can still hear it (albeit faint). So Your mileage may vary, but you can play with these two volume controls to get the sweet spot for how you like to listen with plenty of headroom.2. EQ – a MUST.Out of the box I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. With the speaker bass/treble knobs set at 0, and windows playing a flat EQ, the speakers were fairly disappointing. Especially considering I was coming from a 2.1 system with a subwoofer that banged. There was just no real low end punch with the Edifiers under this setup. In addition, I initially tested these without doing the volume setup mentioned above and the speakers were fairly low (in terms of Dbs) even at max volume in Windows.I have an MSI motherboard which uses Realtek HD Audio Manager drivers. This is located in Control Panel. When I open this app it lets me change the speaker configuration, default format, as well as “sound effects.” By the way, these settings are also found in Windows Sound Control Panel, but I liked the RealTek interface better, plus, there is no way to adjust the EQ manually in Windows’ panel.From the Sound Effects I was able to create an EQ that sounded pretty good. Then I used the control knobs on the right speaker to punch up the bass and dial back the treble a little.After making these changes I was totally blown away. What a difference this makes in the performance of the speakers. If you’re not getting a great sound from your set, adjust your EQ. I now have a reasonably good replacement to my 2.1 system. Does the bass hit like a sub? no it doesn’t. But these are small bookshelf speakers. It sounds great, and gets so loud that I want to immediately turn them down.Coming back to the price for a second, you may find fault in the performance, but compared to what? I challenge you to find any speakers for $100 that can do what these do. Go ahead, I’ll wait.Just buy them, you won’t regret it. They are still small enough to not take over your desk, but are big enough that you’ll actually want to listen to them (unlike smaller “computer speakers”).

Listen, speakers for the computer is the WAY TO GO. From gaming, to streaming the sound quality is noticeable from the JUMP if you’re used to using cheap speakers like I was. Do yourself a favor, spoil yourself with this. You deserve it