This is a review and detailed measurements of the Edifier S2000 Pro monitor (powered speaker). It was kindly sent to me by a member and costs US $400 on Amazon including Prime shipping.
The S2000 looks better than its cost indicates:
Connectivity is a lot richer than professional monitors anywhere close to this price range including a remote control:
I only had this master unit for testing. I like the large controls in the back though the rotary control for volume has no indication. So you are adjusting it blind. There is also no detent to indicate neutrality on the bass and treble controls. I tested the unit as you see. Pressing the volume control in selects the input and a small display on the front indicates which input is chosen.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of less than 1%. Temperature was 70 degrees F.
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
Reference axis was the tweeter center. The front baffler is slanted back. I measured it however as if it were not.
Edifier S2000 Pro Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
Other than a small bass boost, the measurements look OK until you get to a few hundred hertz where things start to get progressively more variable. If we look at the near-field measurements we can see some of the reasons why:
The cabinet/port resonances start to mix with the response above 500 Hz causing the variations. The tweeter itself has very uneven response which may be due to all the structures in front of it. Despite use of DSP, it doesn't seem like it was used to correct any of these deficiencies.
Early window reflections which is more indicative of far-field listening is a bit smoother/better:
That helps predicted in-room response some as a result:
Horizontal beam width is variable:
Vertical response is not centered on measurement axis due to slanted tweeter:
Seems like response would have been better if they had not slanted it. Regardless, don't go below 90 degree horizontal line.
CSD/Waterfall graph indicates a number of resonances:
Distortion was high and quite out of control at 96 dBSPL as I could hear the speaker make a lot of odd noises:
Listening test after the measurements were complete indicated that turning up the gain in the back and lowering the signal sent to the unit improved the sound. So part of the problem at higher SPL may be this. Then again the amplification available is very modest (12/50 watts) so the limit is not going to be that high anyway.
Edifier S2000P Pro Listening Tests and Equalization
As is the sound was a bit boomy and not very enjoyable. I took out my EQ tool and started to correct response deficiencies one by one:
I was still not happy with the results. Right before giving up, I realized I had to really push the speaker to get loud and it would generate a cracking sound at limit that often occurs due to digital clipping. So I turned up the gain in the back and boy did that make a nice difference. Now I could get good dynamics and with the EQ correction, the sound was quite good. The slight boost around 4 kHz opened the sound a bit. And taking down the rest of the peaks seem to not only impact the frequency response but level of distortion as clarity was increased as well.
Conclusions
The S2000 Pro is a very feature rich speaker for its price. Objective measurements though indicate a number of response errors. Subjective listening confirmed the same with rather lackluster performance. Equalization helped fair bit indicating that if they had done this in the on board DSP, they would have had a winner on their hands.
As is, I can not recommend the Edifier S2000 Pro. It is just too imperfect. If you have it though, equalization helps a lot to turn it into a good sounding speaker at a great price.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Starting to harvest some vegetables from the raised beds. Picked a few BoK Choi (second from front) which was absolute delight. So delicate and sweet compared to store bought version:
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The S2000 looks better than its cost indicates:
Connectivity is a lot richer than professional monitors anywhere close to this price range including a remote control:
I only had this master unit for testing. I like the large controls in the back though the rotary control for volume has no indication. So you are adjusting it blind. There is also no detent to indicate neutrality on the bass and treble controls. I tested the unit as you see. Pressing the volume control in selects the input and a small display on the front indicates which input is chosen.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of less than 1%. Temperature was 70 degrees F.
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
Reference axis was the tweeter center. The front baffler is slanted back. I measured it however as if it were not.
Edifier S2000 Pro Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
Other than a small bass boost, the measurements look OK until you get to a few hundred hertz where things start to get progressively more variable. If we look at the near-field measurements we can see some of the reasons why:
The cabinet/port resonances start to mix with the response above 500 Hz causing the variations. The tweeter itself has very uneven response which may be due to all the structures in front of it. Despite use of DSP, it doesn't seem like it was used to correct any of these deficiencies.
Early window reflections which is more indicative of far-field listening is a bit smoother/better:
That helps predicted in-room response some as a result:
Horizontal beam width is variable:
Vertical response is not centered on measurement axis due to slanted tweeter:
Seems like response would have been better if they had not slanted it. Regardless, don't go below 90 degree horizontal line.
CSD/Waterfall graph indicates a number of resonances:
Distortion was high and quite out of control at 96 dBSPL as I could hear the speaker make a lot of odd noises:
Listening test after the measurements were complete indicated that turning up the gain in the back and lowering the signal sent to the unit improved the sound. So part of the problem at higher SPL may be this. Then again the amplification available is very modest (12/50 watts) so the limit is not going to be that high anyway.
Edifier S2000P Pro Listening Tests and Equalization
As is the sound was a bit boomy and not very enjoyable. I took out my EQ tool and started to correct response deficiencies one by one:
I was still not happy with the results. Right before giving up, I realized I had to really push the speaker to get loud and it would generate a cracking sound at limit that often occurs due to digital clipping. So I turned up the gain in the back and boy did that make a nice difference. Now I could get good dynamics and with the EQ correction, the sound was quite good. The slight boost around 4 kHz opened the sound a bit. And taking down the rest of the peaks seem to not only impact the frequency response but level of distortion as clarity was increased as well.
Conclusions
The S2000 Pro is a very feature rich speaker for its price. Objective measurements though indicate a number of response errors. Subjective listening confirmed the same with rather lackluster performance. Equalization helped fair bit indicating that if they had done this in the on board DSP, they would have had a winner on their hands.
As is, I can not recommend the Edifier S2000 Pro. It is just too imperfect. If you have it though, equalization helps a lot to turn it into a good sounding speaker at a great price.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Starting to harvest some vegetables from the raised beds. Picked a few BoK Choi (second from front) which was absolute delight. So delicate and sweet compared to store bought version:
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
