Edifier MR4 Review (Budget Monitor)

[L5730]

These are pretty OK speakers for the price vs. performance and at the size they are.

Digital amp, so run at less than 3 watts measured at the wall (240v 50Hz).
I've ReplayGain set to default (-18 LUFS) and am running off of an HP laptop/notebook with Linux Mint XFCE.
With the volume on the speaker/amp set to just over half it's ok, but one click more and there is obvious distortion. Certainly enough to fill a room to a bit too loud to talk in, but if you want to 'party' they don't go THAT loud without sounding gritty and harsh, then quickly flab out altogether.

Using Monitor mode (red LED) with Amir's EQ tweaked by eye in Foobar2000's GEQ, the sound is rather pleasant. Sure the bottom doesn't go down really deep, but does a good job for speakers of this size, the sound is pleasant. Tonality is clean, not shrill and fatiguing. Fairly neutral.
The Music mode (green LED) seems to make the bass a bit lumpy and just screws with things. Without EQing monitor mode, there is a question over which is the better mode, with EQ it's obvious, just stick to monitor mode.

At £90 these are good value for money.
Sure, there are lots of better speakers out there, but they are bigger, heavier and cost more and use more electric.
If the size and money is tight, I'd hazard to guess these are unlikely to be beaten - at least from everything I've read. The PreSonus aren't favourable, and I didn't like the sound of the other similar Edifier alternatives in reviews. I'd rather closer to neutral tonality.

Did buy these for the kitchen. Put up close near the ceiling helps boost more bottom, and the EQ knobs help tame that. They seemed a bit too good so have replaced aging JBL Duet desktop PC speakers from the laptop in the living room. May get some brackets and a pair of these for the kitchen after all... a good buy!

 

[AnalogSteph]

Digital amp, so run at less than 3 watts measured at the wall (240v 50Hz).

Nitpick: All you can imply from this is Class D with a SMPS, which has nothing to do with digital per se. Could be using fully digital amps but that's not a given.

Using Monitor mode (red LED) with Amir's EQ tweaked by eye in Foobar2000's GEQ, the sound is rather pleasant.

I hope you're using foo_dsp_xgeq, not the nasty thing it ships with that creates steps in the frequency response with audible ringing once those exceed 2-3 dB if memory serves. A parametric would be even better, assuming including VSTs works.

The annoying thing about MR4s is that we've seen 3 sets of measurements for them which were all different. Without a measurement mic, you never truly know what you've got, and buying one of those kind of defeats the purpose of buying inexpensive monitors in the first place.

If your laptop still has the luxury of a separate (stereo) mic input, you could cobble together something like the following contraption:
Cheap measurement mic, e.g Behringer ECM8000 or Superlux ECM-999
XLR cable
Cheap phantom power adapter e.g. from Amazon
Female XLR to 1/4" TRS cable
Stereo 1/4" (female) to 3.5 mm (male) adapter, unless you can find a cable that's directly 1xXLR to 3.5mm TRS (kind of exotic).
+ Check "Virtual balanced input" in REW
+ obtain "typical" calibration (assume reduced accuracy at the edges)

Still ought to be cheaper than a UMIK-1 on this side of the pond, I think. It wouldn't be much noisier than some entry-level audio interfaces (*cough* Steinberg UR12 *cough*), and plenty good enough for acoustic response measurements. Select a +20/+24 dB preamp gain, depending on what the chip has.

There's also the DIY route as another option (e.g. this, or maybe this).

 

[komhst]

Using Monitor mode (red LED) with Amir's EQ tweaked by eye in Foobar2000's GEQ, the sound is rather pleasant. Sure the bottom doesn't go down really deep, but does a good job for speakers of this size, the sound is pleasant. Tonality is clean, not shrill and fatiguing. Fairly neutral.
The Music mode (green LED) seems to make the bass a bit lumpy and just screws with things. Without EQing monitor mode, there is a question over which is the better mode, with EQ it's obvious, just stick to monitor mode.

I use them in Monitor Mode (red LED) for critical listening always with equalization.
I use them in Music Mode (green LED) for relaxed listening with or without equalization.
For equalization I use MathAudio Headphone EQ for Foobar2000 which is by far the best EQ software I've found:

MathAudio Headphone EQ for Foobar2000

MathAudio Headphone EQ for Foobar2000

hydrogenaud.io

I apply the EQ corrections from Amir's measurements.

 

[panzershrek2]

We have this speaker currently on sale in our country brand new for approx. USD 65.00. I'm just concerned if it is still worth it in 2024 or if there are better options for budget speakers out there.

 

[Casimir101]

@

jtk9412​

hello jtk9412,
can you attach your MR4.txt for APO here. You created your own, right?
I don't find the settings that are constantly updated to be that melodious.

A question that, strangely enough, no one answers here in the forum. Which MODE do I set the MR4 in, i.e. GREEN or RED?

Thank you for any reply.

 

[jtk9412]

@

jtk9412​

hello jtk9412,
can you attach your MR4.txt for APO here. You created your own, right?
I don't find the settings that are constantly updated to be that melodious.

A question that, strangely enough, no one answers here in the forum. Which MODE do I set the MR4 in, i.e. GREEN or RED?

Thank you for any reply.

Feel free to use this: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pierreaubert/spinorama/develop/datas/eq/Edifier MR4/iir-autoeq.txt

For the mode, red is monitor, green is music mode. If you're going to use the speakers with EQ, always use red mode. If not, music can be used for better bass.

 

[Casimir101]

First of all, the speakers are absolutely amazing for listening to music! I have now adjusted my Eq myself. Here is a photo of the equalizer. I have the bass at -6 and the treble at 0, absolutely perfect. I have come from Yamaha HS4!!! and I can say that the MR4 are HAMMER AWESOME. I can hardly believe what's in these boxes or what comes out of them. It sounds so natural and lively without any smoke with great highs and great mids. I couldn't adjust the Yamaha HS4 that well. Of course I don't mean for listening to music, but for listening to music! Incredibly cheap for €100! I would say you would have to invest up to €300-400 to get better speakers. Awesome things!!!

 

[5ynth3t1k]

Hi, it's me again.

TLDR : Left speaker is OUT OF PHASE. ( !!!!!!! )

Long story:

Bad news...

I was faffing about with my MR4's, moving things around in the room etc and I took it upon myself to face the speakers at each other , almost touching.

OH DEAR. Signal attenuated significantly. What ?

I checked the speaker cable. Yes, it's right. Red to red, black to black. ... so...

Reverse the speaker cable into the left speaker and ... we are back in business.

So for n months I have been listening to the stereo OUT OF PHASE.

I checked the cable again an yes there is SOMETHING WRONG....

Now I am pretty sure I tested this when I set the speakers up. ( or did I dream it... )

I am concerned that the drivers are installed wrong or has the digital amps flipped their phase ???

CHECK YOUR PHASE !!!!!!!

CHECK YOUR PHASE !!!!!!!

CHECK YOUR PHASE !!!!!!!

Next gripe:

There seems to be a difference in sound, left speaker versus right speaker.... I have yet to open the boxes up to see in side but I bet you
there is a very short signal path to the RIGHT speaker and the long cable to the LEFT speaker... go figure. Left has less bass...

And:

I am pretty sure I have heard the speakers "pumping". Possibly due to setting the volume to 11.. and or overdriving the input gain structure ...


Last word:

So far so good. I like them. They have more balls than I thought they would have. But you have to manage them.
I tend to roll back the send and not run them past say 8 on the speaker volume.
For little bins they make a bit of fuss. But it's not tooooo loud. ( Drive them too hard and the driver starts flapping. Not ideal. )
Which is good. Just right for a small room.
What is interesting to me is they sound almost the same as my B&W P3 headphones... and they do not sound like my HD-25's ( thank the gods ! ) .
So I can switch from monitors to phones and there is no major sound change.

I gave up on the sub, just one more thing to fiddle with that may or may not be adding worth to the sound.

I'm doing a lot of music making and I think these have actually helped me tackle my "sound".
( My last speakers I think were giving me the wrong impression. )

Still good for the price !



:- )

 

[AnalogSteph]

TLDR : Left speaker is OUT OF PHASE. ( !!!!!!! )

Oops. We know that they're not exactly pure canned workmanship, so that tracks. (They are super-duper-duper cheap in China, apparently.)

Left has less bass...

Possibly an air leak. That can happen as a result of, you guessed it, sloppy assembly. Usually the speaker that doesn't have the electronics in it would have bigger internal volume so would tend to have more bass, not less. (Case in point, my EVE 203s.) You could try plugging the port and run some bass sweeps to possibly locate the culprit through its whistling. Typical problem areas would be woofer and terminal mounting.

It's a bit of a bummer that a measurement microphone with a decent calibration already is as much as a pair of these. I mean, if there's already an audio interface present I guess one could get an ECM8000 / ECM-999 and just send it, accuracy in the ca. 50 Hz to 2ish kHz range ought to be decent enough as-is.

 

[komhst]

There seems to be a difference in sound, left speaker versus right speaker.... I have yet to open the boxes up to see in side but I bet you
there is a very short signal path to the RIGHT speaker and the long cable to the LEFT speaker... go figure. Left has less bass...

This is not the case. If the left speaker sounds differently than the left one maybe there is a problem with the drivers, not the cable. Two meters of cable in the left speaker won't make any difference in sound at all!

 

[5ynth3t1k]

CORRECTION !!!!

I was WRONG ! ( I would edit the post to make it more obvious.... but I can't seem to... never mind. )

THIS !!!!

My outputs on the Focusrite USB sound box has BALANCED LINE and I had not plugged the fracking plug in all the way....

So that's on me. Yes. I messed up. Ugh... I am such a turbo dork...


THE MR4's ARE FINE !!!!!! Please shoot me now.

No phase issues and no loudness issues... and why am I so small all of a sudden...

The MR4's are still pumping. Been thrashing them to death. I love them.

What EDIFIRE needs to do is make a "next size up" version. Exactly the same but a bit larger. A bit more oomph.
and only a tad more cost. I would say these speakers are going to the those that people talk about in the future as being
really excellent bang per pangalactic credit.

Actually I really am quite sorry. Heck and darn.

I will see myself out...

 

[AnalogSteph]

Oops.

That's the classic case of problem between keyboard and chair...

 

[5ynth3t1k]

I'm buying another set.

$118 NZD. too fracking cool.

may have to ferry them home on my bicycle.

wish me luck.

R.

 

[komhst]

Those speakers are surprisingly good for the amount of money they ask.

 

[pathtonowhere]

I've found them at €86 ($90), shipping included, in Romania. In fact, it's a Bulgarian online shop with a branch in Romania. The lowest price I could find. Normally, it sells starting from €100 / $105 with most offers at about €110-130.

I didn't really need them that much, but I'm curious. I usually use headphones with my desktop, but I'd like to try some small speakers. I don't need low bass because it can create bad reverberations in my small bedroom, I use my living room for more serious music listening. I'm worried about the dip at 3kHz and the rising response at 8-9kHz, since I don't like to use EQ, but I hope it will be ok. I don't like bright speakers. I'll come back with an assessment after using them. Cheers!

 

[Arya]

I got moondrop dawn pro, could i use it for this speaker with 4.4mm to 2xTRS ?

 

[AnalogSteph]

Should work. Its maximum of 4 Vrms out is about +14 dBu, right in the middle of typical low-midrange audio interfaces (where +12 to +15.5 dBu max is a common sight).

That being said, you shouldn't have a problem with a 3.5 mm to RCA either, as the MR4s are IEC Class II and as such not prone to substantial ground loops.

 

[abyss11000]

Which is better for gaming and casual listening, the MR4 or the newer M60? Bluetooth isn't a major issue I have a Bluetooth DAC I can connect the MR4 if ever. I just want clear female vocals and good imaging

 

[somebodyelse]

Which is better for gaming and casual listening, the MR4 or the newer M60? Bluetooth isn't a major issue I have a Bluetooth DAC I can connect the MR4 if ever. I just want clear female vocals and good imaging

Hard to say. I haven't found any independent measurements of the M60, and Edifier don't publish any. Meanwhile the MR4 appears to have had at least 2 different DSP configurations over its production (or large variability which would be worse) so you need to measure before knowing which EQ to apply for best performance.

 

[pathtonowhere]

Ok, so I tested them in monitor mode.
First of all, I got them at $84 in Romania (from a Bulgarian online shop)
The finish is great for this price. Matte baffle, nice fit, they look discreet. The port is flared and curved at the ends. I've seen proper HiFi speakers with sharp edged ports and even with cardboard pipes inside.
The tweeter is 20mm instead of the usual 25mm, but this helps dispersion at the extreme end. There are even tower speakers with a 20mm tweeter, there's nothing to worry about, the woofer will give out long before the tweeter anyway.
The woofer is 9cm in diameter from the outer edges of the rubber suspension. So a proper 4 inch woofer. I've seen smaller ones sold as 4 inch.

+ The sound is very nice, warm but airy at the same time. Voices sound nice.
+ The dispersion is wide enough, but not extremely wide or highly variable, so it's perfect.
+ The bass is clean and strong.
+ Almost inaudible hiss even at max volume, I can only hear it from a distance closer than anybody would listen to them (Desktop PC, Asus Essence STX)

- No ON/OFF switch or button, I hope they don't draw too much when in idle
- Doesn't have a grille (they would have been forced to put a magnetic one, not to destroy the looks and functionality, and it would have driven the price a lot for this kind of speaker)
- The bass is absent under 60Hz. This isn't really a minus for me, personally, since I needed such a speaker because I have a nasty room mode at 52Hz in my bedroom, which most regular hi-fi bookshelf speakers would excite and wreak havoc
- The maximum level isn't very high, but again, they're nearfield desktop speakers

All in all, 10/10 considering the price, 9.5/10 if I were to compare them to some perfect desktop speakers that would be built cost-no-object.
It blows out of the water the Audioengine's, Presonuse's, Fiio's, some of them at half or quarter the price.
Not to say I've had expensive HiFi speakers that sounded atrocious in comparison (Monitor Audio Silver, B&W etc)