Over the years, I have become prone to trying to experience sound as best as I can. There’s just something about being able to listen to a track with all the instruments as clear as when the engineer was mastering it to truly appreciate it that just makes it all that worth it. From the decks to my everyday commotion, I have tried to keep to a certain standard of this quality; and I think I hit the nail on the head.
A few weeks ago I came across and audio brand called Edifier and I was skeptical at first (don’t know why even) on the brand as I had not heard of it before. I did the typical thing, asked around my entertainment friends to find out if they came across it before and weirdly only a few people said that they did (not helping my trust factors at this point either).
I did the next best thing, packed all my doubt into a box and threw it into the deepest, darkest hole in the ocean and decided to explore the brand. Now at this point, you might sense my doubt painted all over this but weirdly, it was BLOWN AWAY!!! And I don’t mean that lightly.
I took a quick tour into their display room at their head offices, where they had a selection of products that are currently offered in South Africa; and when I mean selection, I mean A SELECTION. The gear is spread out between personal, studio, home entertainment and gaming audio so the catalog is not short to start with.
I took a liking to their S351DB & S350DB range, and honestly, the choice came down to design at the end of the day. Being one individual that always goes for the monochrome look, the clean black design of the S351DB’s spoke to me more from the onset. The finish on the boxes around the speakers has also been nicely done and feels very solid – and any sound enthusiast will tell you how the important the box is to the overall sound experience. Being a bookshelves design, I could easily see this setup in my home studio without it feeling “clunky” and they would do the design no justice. The side dial controls on the side allows for base sound control on the overall speakers, controlling the bass, treble and mid equally.
One thing that concerned me was the cabling at the back – which I’ll breakdown in a bit. For many years, we’ve been brought up to believe that we needed to invest in thick, quality audio cables with the gold jacks at the end, but not much around coaxial inputs (unless maybe you are really that well invested in your audio quality or doing sound engineering). The details I received was that the coaxial ensured that the audio quality between the speakers does not fluctuate, and boy were they right. The sound quality feels leveled out between the speakers (basically, now one speaker overpowers the other at any point) and the bass is just smooth through the 8-inch woofer.
On a personal note, I feel like I’ve packed a caged animal into my living room – an animal that wishes to truly show how beastly it is. On the one side, I truly enjoy the clear sound that comes out alongside with a balanced bass that does not even require me to “turn it up” higher than necessary. In fact, my sound is balanced right down in the middle on the speakers and yet, I still get clear and consistent sound whether I’m watching movies, listening to music or gaming.
With that being said, I think the next test needs to be whilst I’m recording a mix to see them perform properly
