At a look
Expert’s Ranking
Mavens
- Stunning audio
- Bass remains tender at greater volumes
- Bodily knobs for bass and treble modifications
- Able to loud quantity
Cons
- Audio distortion at greater volumes
- Default audio profile lets in bass to weigh down mids and highs
Our Verdict
Yow will stumble on low-cost audio system that create well, but paying extra most regularly finally ends up in a richer audio journey. Such is the case with these Edifier audio system.
For total audio, cheap isn’t constantly gruesome—a pair of $25 computer audio system can present first rate playback. Exhaust the Artistic Pebble, our fresh top salvage for funds audio system, which comes in at $20 and could per chance per chance stand toe to toe with some items twice its cost.
But cheap audio system comprise physical obstacles. You most regularly can’t obtain the same sound as extra costly choices with much less costly materials and a smaller footprint. As you hurry up in worth and size, you ought to aloof demand a richer audio journey. And the Edifier R1280T, which sits at the high cease of the funds worth spectrum at $100, largely delivers that.
These 42W bookshelf audio system aren’t computer audio system by invent—they join to every person other with conventional speaker wires and require an RCA-to-3.5mm cable to scamper them into a PC. (One is incorporated in the sphere.) Down the road, that you just can well join these to a well suited receiver as portion of a broader audio setup, when you so desire.
But you don’t need anything else beyond these audio system, since they’ve a pre-amplifier constructed-in. You can pull the R1280T fair correct out of the sphere, scamper it into your PC and an outlet, and straight away hear the profit of utilizing audio system four cases the scale of the Artistic Pebble. Bass is solid and tender on these at greater volumes, something smaller audio system can’t pull off.
And these audio system can hurry loud. The R1280T without concerns fills a bed room at reasonable loud quantity and could per chance per chance aloof push additional. They’re no longer proof in opposition to distortion—when you like to blast your music or you’ve obtained a penchant for tiny house events, these won’t be up to the duty. But as computer audio system positioned within two or three toes of you, that you just can well crank them up rather high without disaster.
Edifier
As for the usual of the audio by these audio system, every little thing will get a fuller, warm function, including voices in video calls. On default settings, the balance between the lows, mids, and highs isn’t as even as I desire—the bass a little of overwhelms the mids and highs. In songs with loads occurring, no longer every component comes by crisply. Fortuitously, that you just can well adjust the treble and bass one at a time with the 2 adjustable knobs on the aspect of the nice speaker. With some fiddling, I became once ready to declare the mids and highs extra to the foreground without compromising these graceful lows.
Performance for the R1280T moreover is reckoning on where the audio system are positioned at your desk. For the most easy journey, you desire them at ear stage. When they’re below that (that will happen whenever you put them straight away on the desk), sound popping out of them becomes hole and thin. It could per chance well defend cease a little bit of belief to need out where they ought to aloof hurry, then again. They soak up an extraordinarily good amount of room, with every speaker measuring 5.8 (W) x 9.2 (H) x 7.7 (D) inches, they sometimes’re moreover weighty. I completed up positioning them in the aid of my track, stacked on ragged books so that they cleared the head of the screen screen. (You can decide as an more than a few for a house of speaker stands for a cleaner, tidier look, however the books gave me extra take care of an eye on over the accurate top.)
Talking of looks, the Edifier R1280T comes in three finishes: sunless, white, and pretend picket. Our unit became once the faux picket variant, which I most well-appreciated over the extra sterile appearances of the white and the sunless. (But that’s of direction a subject of taste.)
Base line
For $100, you ought to aloof demand audio system that don’t sound love you’re on funds. Edifier delivers that with the R1280T, but its out-of-the-field sound profile and distortion at greater volumes retains it from being a fingers-down winner. If you happen to don’t need the flexibleness that its RCA connectors offer, that you just can well are desirous to connect in mind the Sound BlasterX Kratos S3, which charges $20 much less, comes with a devoted subwoofer, and takes much less feature on your desk. But you won’t hurry gruesome selecting these audio system.
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Alaina Yee is PCWorld’s resident bargain hunter—when she’s no longer covering PC building, computer parts, mini-PCs, and extra, she’s scouring for the most easy tech deals. Beforehand her work has looked in PC Gamer, IGN, Most PC, and Decent Xbox Magazine. Yow will stumble on her on Twitter at @morphingball.