With many of us gladly embracing the idea of working from home, having a decent pair of speakers in our makeshift home-office has become something of a priority. Spotting a lucrative gap in the audio market, many manufacturers have been quick to create a market in that gap. Among the more praise worthy offerings is Edifier’s R33BT. This somewhat compact 2.0 speaker is an elegant and reasonably priced product with surprisingly good sound reproduction.
Housing a black coated wooden body made of MDF, the Edifier R33BT offers connectivity via Bluetooth 5.0 or Aux-in. The speakers boast a frequency response of 70Hz to 20Khz, and a noise level of <25dB(A). Both speakers offer a total output of 5watts each – so a total output of 10watts. Plenty of bang for your buck. Spec-wise, each unit has a 3.5″ mid-bass driver at the bottom, and, sitting above it, a 0.5″ tweeter. The right speaker is the master, with the built-in amplifier and includes the aux input, aux out to the left speaker and power on/off.
Getting the Edifier R33BT up and running was a breeze. Inside the box you’ll find a 1.5 long power cable along with a 2.2 long connection cable which is already firmly attached to the speakers. There’s also a 1.6 m long jack connection cable.
Most of the heavy lifting is done by the right speaker which houses the built-in amp as well as the aux input/ out to the left speaker and the power of and off. Interestingly, the Edifier R33BT power cable is hard wired to the right speaker while the 2.5m aux link is hard wired into the left speaker. Both speakers have a semi-transparent fabric front cover that can easily be removed. Once powered on, the Edifier R33BT searches the environment for playback devices and, once its found it, you use the three built in buttons to determine playback mode as well as setting the volume.
Because of the Edifier R33BT’s compact size (they’re just 116 wide by 160 high by 205 deep), you can place them beside or just beneath your PC without them looking intrusive. During our trial run, we placed the Edifier R33BT on shelves on either side of the PC, to take full advantage of the stereo separation. It’s worth noting that you have to make sure that wherever you place the speakers, they’re no more than 2.2meters apart and you have to be able to reach the three buttons on the top of the right speaker. Performance wise, the Edifier R33BT got a huge thumbs up. At high volumes, the speakers struggled a little with deep bass tracks. But with the volume turned down to mid to low, the sound was excellent.
The Edifier R33BT is ideal for games such as Age of Empires where the music is ambient and the sound effects are equally divided between both left and right speakers. For games – like first person shooters – where you need to quickly determine the direction of a sound, you’re probably better off with headphones. In fairness, this is a problem shared by most speakers and not the just the Edifier R33BT. If we had any gripes with the Edifier R33BT it has to be with its noticeable lack of a remote control. A remote would have made it easier to work with the Edifier R33BT , especially as it can be connected to a device in another room.
But, minor niggles aside, after some ten days trial run, we found the Edifier R33BT a great set of PC speakers, ideal for listening to music while you work or even playing games when you’re winding down. Priced at just £69.99 the Edifier R33BT will make a great addition to your home office – or anywhere else you listen to music or play games. Go buy.
9 out of 10
