The
"BESTISAN" SR01 bookshelf speakers on Amazon that surfaced near the end of 2020 are visually very similar to the R1280T which is one of the best budget bookshelf speakers, according to various sources I've read (including the in-house review
here). I was pretty much set on getting those to dip my toe in the water, since the closest I've been to "good" audio is through my Sennheiser HD558. The Bestisan bookshelves are clearly designed to compete with the R1280T from Edifier, and with both companies being Chinese, I'm very curious to see how the former measures up according to an audio professional. They appear to have no reputable reviews due to being a relatively new product, and while the Amazon reviews are stellar, the amount of salt required to trust them would leave me catatonic.
Bestisan SR01 vs Edifier R1280T pros and cons from my layman perspective:
Pros:
- $17 cheaper at the time of writing ($83 vs $100)
- Optical and USB input
- Input switching via remote (internal audio switcher?)
- Higher maximum output (50W vs 42W)
- Impedance stated in product description (6 ohm vs ???)
Cons:
- No official English website or online documentation (Amazon QnA stated user manual may be requested via support email)
- "DSP technology enabled sound modes" sounds like ways to screw up audio balance
Specs-wise it seems to be more feature-rich than the R1280T and it's cheaper to boot, but it has not been tried-and-tested by the masses or professional reviewers. I'm the type of person to always want the absolute most out of the money I spend on tech, so having more features for less is very appealing, but I also understand that in the world of audio, speakers with the exact same sized tweeters and woofers can still manage to sound drastically different. I guess I'm just hoping someone will either affirm my existing notions or smack me upside the head and say "no you idiot, these speakers are obviously garbage and here's why". I'm sure I'll be happy with pretty much anything seeing as how I thought the Z313 was good enough to buy it twice, but it would be excellent to hear a professional's take on this.