I’m told that Edifier’s E3350 multimedia speaker system was the talk of this year’s Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas, being named a CES Honoree Award Winner. With its sleek and stylish design and choice of colours, I can see why.
These are good-looking speakers, and certainly an improvement over many of the traditionally grey, boxy alternatives on the market. My review unit was a sleek black model, but the system is also available in other colours such as blue, purple and bronze.
The system includes two satellite speakers and a pyramid-shaped subwoofer. My one compliant with this system would be the size of the subwoofer. At 248 x199 x 294mm it was too big to sit on my computer desk, so it sat on the floor instead. The speakers themselves are each 96 x 234 x 118mm.
With the subwoofer on the floor that meant having to reach down for the on/off button. That would have been a nice feature to include on the wired volume controller, a nice little volume dial device that sat on my desk and let me adjust the volume independent of the computer volume control. I liked the red halo light on the volume controller, and on the subwoofer.
I used these speakers with my laptop, with a desktop PC I’m testing and with my MP3 player, and got excellent sound quality with them all. A definite step-up from the internal speakers of these devices, with good power and crisp, clear sound.
The system features two-way satellite crossover, a downward firing subwoofer, and magnetically-shielded speakers. The specs include:
• Power Output: RMS 32W + 9W x 2 (THD=10%)
• Signal to Noise Ratio:>=85dBA
• Distortion:<=0.5% THD
• Input Impedance: 10K Ohm
• Input Sensitivity: Satellites—550+/-50mV; Subwoofer—200+/-50mV
• Frequency Response: 40Hz – 20kHz
At $99 these speakers are a good purchase, offering excellent sound quality for computing, gaming and MP3 playback and make a stylish addition to your home office workspace. My only qualm is the size of the subwoofer, but for the other benefits I can overlook it.
Edifier products are available in Canada at Wal-Mart, Best Buy and many local computer stores, as well as through distributors ALC Micro and Samtack Computer Inc.
