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Although the Edifier R1280DB do fit comfortably on most desks, they are still notably bigger than your average PC speaker. If you just want something compact that’ll give you a bit of a boost over laptop or monitor speakers, they’re probably overkill. That said, they don’t project quite so far forward as the rather strangely shaped Razer Nommo Chroma speakers, for instance.
In terms of styling, they’re fairly standard Hi-Fi speakers, with a choice of either brown/wood or black finishes and a removable fabric speaker grille on the front. Rounded corners, the addition of a chrome stripe across the speaker grille and the two-tone finish of the wooden version all help to elevate things from being just a generic cuboid though.
We think they look great, though it should be noted that the wood texture of both versions is fake – its just a vinyl skin stuck to an MDF frame. Indeed the whole speaker is of MDF construction. For £120 that’s as much as you could expect, though, and Edifier has done a great job of working with those basic materials to create a really solid, elegant speaker.
Prize the speaker grille off – it’s held on via pressure-fit plastic lugs – and you can see the two main drivers that power these speakers, along with their front-firing bass port. The latter is notable as it means you don’t need to position these speakers any distance from a wall to get them to perform properly.
Each woofer driver measures four inches across. Combined with the sheer physical volume of these speakers this would suggest these speakers are capable of a reasonably powerful bass response.
The 13mm tweeters, meanwhile, don’t boost any particularly exotic, stiff materials but instead use a silk construction with a domed shape. The total output from all four drivers is 42W with all the power provided by the amplifier housed in the right speaker.
Also here is where you’ll find the connectivity and audio controls. Round the back are the spring clip connections for connecting up the left speaker, two sets of RCA sockets for connecting analogue inputs, a coaxial digital input and an optical digital input, along with a mains power switch.
Meanwhile, round the side are controls for adjusting the bass, treble and volume levels. The former two are conventional analogue dials while the latter is an infinite-spin digital dial. This means you can adjust the volume using either this dial or the remote control.
The remote is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this speaker set, at least in terms of initial impressions. It’s a thoroughly generic and cheap-looking thing with popper-style buttons that have an indistinct mushy feel.
You get plenty of buttons, though. You can directly choose all four inputs – no cycling through different inputs using the same input button here – adjust volume, mute the speakers and there are full Bluetooth playback controls. Note, you can also change inputs by pressing in the volume control.
