Edifier R1280T Powered Speaker Review

[_thelaughingman]

@Maiky76 Thank you for the EQ file. Been using it on my R1280' and the sound is so much better now than when i was listening without EQ>

 

[richard12511]

My main system speakers (Wharfedale) and desktop (Q-Acoustics) are good, quite "accurate" units, but my new bedroom speakers (Edifier R1280DB with Bluetooth) are not. But the Edifiers were cheap - and perfect for my needs. Setup was simple. I heven't used Bluetooth for many years, but when I turned Bluetooth on for my Lenovo Android tablet, it immediately saw the Edifier speakers. I tapped the icon and connection happened - I didn't even have to think about it.

The Edifier speakers are attractive, low-priced, have a basic remote control, and sound good enough for casual bedroom use - although I would like a balance control since I do not do my light therapy sessions in the center of my bed. It's nice to Have a bit of bass compared to my tiny old Yamaha NS325 speakers that had literally no bass (serious roll-off starting at about 150Hz). As Amir's testing showed, the Edifier 1280's are a bit thick and heavy in the mid bass, but they have a bass level control that backs that off nicely. And it's was nice to get rid of the extra cables associated with a line-level tablet>amp connection and one speaker wire. Treble? What treble. When you are 79 y/o, hearing treble past 8-10KHz is a thing of the past.

I only use the bedroom speakers for 15 minutes of very soft music when I go to sleep at night, and for 1-2 hours daily of spa music while doing red/infrared light therapy [LINK] with the $1,500 clinic-grade setup in the below photo. Hopefully, this therapy will help control - and hopefully reverse - my age-related (I am 79 y/o) non-specific nerve degeneration issues that had caused me to almost lost my ability to walk. I've actually improved a bit after 6 weeks - nerve regeneration it a slow process.

My go-to-sleep synthesizer music is so-called "no-beat space music", and I downloaded it years ago (stream-ripped to MP3 via WinAmp for legal "time-shifting") from the Cryosleep page of the old Bluemars website, which is now inactive. Fortunately, but the music stream was archived and is still available at the EchoesOfBluemars.org website via a clunky old streaming method.

For my light-therapy session background music, I live-stream via YouTube music that is and heavy on flute / pan flute / bamboo flute, piano, harp, cello, birdsong, babbling brooks, etc. I experienced this ubiquitous genre of "spa-music" while getting acupuncture treatments years ago, and enjoy it for relaxing in a meditative state through my long daily therapy sessions. I actually have to do several sub-sessions because my single 36"x12" light panel doesn't cover my whole body, and I have to do front and back separately.

View attachment 110905

Good luck with the therapy. Nerve stuff is scary. Great to hear you've improved .

 

[Demiurgi]

Hi,

I want to thank @amirm for reviewing these loudspeakers and giving so many details about their performance and how to get the best of them. Big thanks also to @Maiky76 for the EQ settings and additional information!

It was thanks to this forum and the information the members provided that I was convinced to buy these little but joyful speakers. After a couple of days of listening to them, I’m more than happy that I didn't spend more money on expensive speakers that would have been total waste in our household.

As a side note, installing Equalizer APO had a huge impact on the sound. The R1280T’s are connected to my Asus laptop where I first used the built-in EQ. With that, the speakers were lifeless even with boosted bass. But everything changed with the Equalizer APO. I’m still stunned how much low end these speakers have even when the EQ line is flat. I’m currently using Amirm’s or Maiky76’s EQ settings and they both work great.

With the addition of ~€10 aptX Bluetooth receiver, I got wireless speakers for less than €100 that are fun to listen to even in a challenging and speaker-unfriendly environment.

 

[ishouldbeking]

Hi,

I want to thank @amirm for reviewing these loudspeakers and giving so many details about their performance and how to get the best of them. Big thanks also to @Maiky76 for the EQ settings and additional information!

It was thanks to this forum and the information the members provided that I was convinced to buy these little but joyful speakers. After a couple of days of listening to them, I’m more than happy that I didn't spend more money on expensive speakers that would have been total waste in our household.

As a side note, installing Equalizer APO had a huge impact on the sound. The R1280T’s are connected to my Asus laptop where I first used the built-in EQ. With that, the speakers were lifeless even with boosted bass. But everything changed with the Equalizer APO. I’m still stunned how much low end these speakers have even when the EQ line is flat. I’m currently using Amirm’s or Maiky76’s EQ settings and they both work great.

With the addition of ~€10 aptX Bluetooth receiver, I got wireless speakers for less than €100 that are fun to listen to even in a challenging and speaker-unfriendly environment.

For what it's worth, if you ever have to use them without full-blown parametric EQ, the best settings I found was turning down the on-board treble by -3db and turning down the bass by about -1db. You may have to turn up the master volume a bit, but it doesn't sound bad overall; quite a bit more neutral, brings the mids closer to where they should be. (These already have boosted bass, so turning it up more only drowns out the mids even moreso.)

 

[_thelaughingman]

Has anyone taken out the drivers from the housing to see what kind of sound isolation foam is in there? I took mine out and it looks like puffed up cotton wool but made of nylon stuck with hot glue to the driver. Can't figure out the reason behind gluing it to the driver.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Has anyone taken out the drivers from the housing to see what kind of sound isolation foam is in there? I took mine out and it looks like puffed up cotton wool but made of nylon stuck with hot glue to the driver. Can't figure out the reason behind gluing it to the driver.

To minimize reflections from the back of the cabinet, I guess. It seems to be a conscious decision because it's present in this teardown as well:

 

[_thelaughingman]

Assuming better quality isolation foam wouldn't affect any sonic aspects of the speaker?

 

[irishrOy]

@Maiky76 Thank you for the EQ file. Been using it on my R1280' and the sound is so much better now than when i was listening without EQ>

Hello all! complete newbie here
Today I received my R1280Ts as well and now they're set up. Compared to my 15€-speakers they're awesome. I have read through the thread and stumbled upon @Maiky76 's data, numbers and graphs.
Fist of all: When it comes to sound-stuff, I understand absolutely nothing. Some rough knowledge, but as soon as I go into the more deep stuff, I'm out of my element.
But I'd like to play around a bit and also have my speakers sound the best they can be. Seems like you guys know a whole lot about that.

So far I've downloaded Equalizer APO and have gotten to the equalizer-settings. However I don't know what do nor how to read to with the files @Maiky76 provided and then do something meaningful with them Can anyone maybe point me into the right direction? :-D

 

[infinitesymphony]

Hello all! complete newbie here
Today I received my R1280Ts as well and now they're set up. Compared to my 15€-speakers they're awesome. I have read through the thread and stumbled upon @Maiky76 's data, numbers and graphs.
Fist of all: When it comes to sound-stuff, I understand absolutely nothing. Some rough knowledge, but as soon as I go into the more deep stuff, I'm out of my element.
But I'd like to play around a bit and also have my speakers sound the best they can be. Seems like you guys know a whole lot about that.

So far I've downloaded Equalizer APO and have gotten to the equalizer-settings. However I don't know what do nor how to read to with the files @Maiky76 provided and then do something meaningful with them Can anyone maybe point me into the right direction? :-D

Install the Peace front-end to make configuration easier.

https://sourceforge.net/p/peace-equalizer-apo-extension/wiki/How to use Peace/

You can enter information using the Frequency, Gain Values, Quality (Q), and Filter type settings as well as setting the preamp setting at the top to set overall gain.

For example, the first line in Maiky76's EQ:

PEQ 95.5, -3.50, 2.72,...

PEQ = peak EQ filter type
95.5 = frequency
-3.50 = gain value
2.72 = quality (Q) value

Enter those values into the first column and then continue on with the rest of the settings.

 

[JSmith]

Wouldn‘t rear-wall be the wall behind the listener and the front-wall be the wall behind the speaker?

Correct.

That all depends on your point of view.

Everything he says can be unconfused and clarified... he's using words inappropriately to create that.



JSmith

 

[MZKM]

Correct.

It’s not according to Klippel. Front wall is in front of speaker and rear wall in behind the speaker. You can tell by the treble, behind the speaker is going to have less treble.

 

[JSmith]

It’s not according to Klippel. Front wall is in front of speaker and rear wall in behind the speaker. You can tell by the treble, behind the speaker is going to have less treble.

True, so he's referring to the speaker, not the listener. Whereas if was referring to the listener position then it would be the other way around. Usually these things are confusion of language usage and interpretation.

In this case I probably should have watched what was being referred to rather than just reading the thread.



JSmith

 

[irishrOy]

Install the Peace front-end to make configuration easier.

https://sourceforge.net/p/peace-equalizer-apo-extension/wiki/How to use Peace/

Man, thanks for the fast and helpful reply. That's very helpful. I'll get the Peace-frontend and play around with it some more. I think I should be able to get it right now. Cheers!

 

[akarma]

On what distanse the mic is located when measuring on tweeter axis (CEA2034 first graph)?

 

[infinitesymphony]

On what distanse the mic is located when measuring on tweeter axis (CEA2034 first graph)?

It says 1 meter on the left side of the graph (vertical scale).

 

[akarma]

It says 1 meter on the left side of the graph (vertical scale).

Sorry

 

[infinitesymphony]

Sorry

No prob. For what it's worth, I skimmed the CEA2034 document and did not see a distance standard specifically for measuring frequency response.

 

[akarma]

and did not see a distance standard specifically for measuring frequency response.

May be Amir will clear up the point

 

[ghsch]

Hello, recently I've bought a pair of Edifier R1280Ts monitors - the one with sub out, but unlike R1280T I can't find frequency response graphics nor EQ presets available to correct the sound they reproduce (feels a little muffled and odd to my ears). I guess they both differ because the frequency response listed is different between them. R1280Ts frequency response range is 52Hz-20KHz, wich resembles more the R1280DB than the T one.

I'm not heavily experienced on these technical matters, so I would like to ask how can I evaluate and flatten the sound through EQ?

P.S.: They also came with the "Soundfield Spacializer" feature, turned by remote control that kinda makes the songs more echoed and in some cases cleaner, but in others it feels weightless and almost completely erases some frequencies. It is very good for games or movies, where it noticeably gives the soundstage a boost and make them feel more 3D.

 

[infinitesymphony]

May be Amir will clear up the point

It seems like 1m is the most common distance used even though it's not part of the standard.

Hello, recently I've bought a pair of Edifier R1280Ts monitors - the one with sub out, but unlike R1280T I can't find frequency response graphics nor EQ presets available to correct the sound they reproduce (feels a little muffled and odd to my ears). I guess they both differ because the frequency response listed is different between them. R1280Ts frequency response range is 52Hz-20KHz, wich resembles more the R1280DB than the T one.

I'm not heavily experienced on these technical matters, so I would like to ask how can I evaluate and flatten the sound through EQ?

P.S.: They also came with the "Soundfield Spacializer" feature, turned by remote control that kinda makes the songs more echoed and in some cases cleaner, but in others it feels weightless and almost completely erases some frequencies. It is very good for games or movies, where it noticeably gives the soundstage a boost and make them feel more 3D.

They should be similar enough that you could use Maiky76's EQ from earlier in the thread as a starting point. Or use the built-in controls as described a few pages ago: turn the bass down a bit, turn the treble down a bit more than that.

The pseudo-surround effect you describe is done by playing with the phase relationships to make things sound like they're behind your head. It can be a cool gimmick if done well but there's usually a frequency response penalty as you mentioned.