Before I start my review I would like to say I am very thankful to Edifier for giving me a chance to review the R2800. It is considered one of the signature series of the Studio setups Edifier offers.

The Edifier R2800


Unboxing it

I woke up one morning just to realize a Massive box arrived at my doorstep. As for size comparison, it is as large as the Edifier S530D box and it’s ridiculously heavy. Imagine the price of the shipping to be delivered to my house. Unimaginable weight, size, and price.
For a studio speaker setup, the R2800 came in a single box rather than 2 separate boxes instead. It is as expected because it isn’t a pair of active speakers but rather one active speaker and one slave speaker.



Opening the outer box reveals the true commercial box with flat 3 toned colored prints on it. No fancy multicolored prints just like the Edifier S730D or the S550 box. Not a problem since most likely everyone would just throw/sell away the box as it is quite massive.


One of the box flaps had a quick setup diagram like how most Edifier boxes have. Good stuff for those who don’t bother to read the manual.


Opening the flaps reveals huge massive layered foam hiding the goods in. I loved the thickness of the foam as it protects the heavy pair of speakers safely during transport. Inside comes with an active speaker, a passive slave speaker, and a box of accessories.


You get your manual, power cable, wireless remote (with a pair of AAA batteries), an optical cable, a 3.5mm to RCA cable, and an RCA to RCA cable in the little box provided.




Now back to the speakers. The speakers are protected with foam and wrapped in plain plastic bags. (no fancy cloth pouches like the E30 comes with) Massive speakers come with massive cloth grills.



This post has been edited by power911: Oct 19 2013, 11:03 PM

First Impression



HUGE! As in MASSIVELY HUGE!
For anyone who is considering this unit, do make sure you have a strong wide table with lots of empty space to place it on. A wide tv console is the best spot for this unit if you intended to use these as a home theater speaker.


The speakers are covered in beautiful black wood veneer. Not too sure if it’s real wood veneer or some pvc stickers but it sure looked luxurious thanks to that. The front grille comes with a very soft but strong cloth material which serves pretty well protecting the speaker cones from poking or any objects flying to it.


Opening the grille reveals the wonderfully pretty silver cones. The cones feel like reinforced paper to me. Not too sure about the material but paper cone is surely a good form of warmth I should be expecting.
Each side comes with a massive front firing port for the 8” woofer’s massive airflow. The port is protected with a thin cloth net behind it to prevent things from falling in to the speaker. It’s a 3 way Active Crossover speakers which means each pair of tweeter, mids, and woofer are individually amped. Very noticeable hiss in this particular unit though compared to most of the edifier speakers I've tested. But it's okay because once you starts playing something with it, the hiss is barely noticeable.




Looking at the back of the speakers didn’t really impress me too well as the speaker cables provided for the slave speaker is “hard-wired” which means you are only limited to the provided length given. It is, however, given to you a 5-pin XLR cable (right-angled) so there’s no mistake for any problems about connectivity. In fact, when it comes to connectivity, everything is made super simple to set up and it’s difficult to make a mistake.


The volume control on the side even has a quick guide on what color represents which input. There are 4 total inputs namely PC stereo, AUX stereo, or if you fancy digital inputs, an optical in or coaxial is also provided at the back. Just switch between those inputs by clicking the volume knob and it will switch inputs. The knobs feel great. The bass and treble volume is potentiometer typed volume control and the turning resistance is not too stiff nor is it too smooth. It is just perfect as it is. Volume ranges are -6 to 0 to +6 for both treble and bass volume and it clicks center when you turn to 0. The master volume features a digital multi click-roll type volume. Very responsive volume control and it feels great too. Position may be a little awkward as the massive R2800 makes changing volume a little far to reach so you might want to swap the left and right speakers around.
There are no heatsink at the backplate for cooling. I’m not sure if this is normal? But I have to say it does heat up quite a bit. Enough to know that it is beyond warm even with no music is playing. Think of an ordinary laptop running warm due to games or any heavy loaded programs. That’s the heat coming out of this speaker on idle. It’s not very eco-friendly knowing that my room gets warmed up too quickly with this hotplate.





Other side comments would be the remote control provided. It comes with a sexy looking mini brick like remote rather than the modern card remote. Being a brick-like remote is good as you can use ordinary batteries to save money rather than having a hard time finding expensive button cell batteries for card remotes. It’s a good thing. The Remote comes in a shiny black gloss finish with metallic silver colored buttons and silver base. The battery lid is a standard black plastic though. Batteries are easy to install like how most television remote works. No screws, no clips to pry, just slide and place the batteries and you’re ready to go.


Great remote to begin with but I do not like how cheap the buttons are. The plastic buttons features a very stiff click feel and the worst part is that the buttons has sharp corners that catches your fingers. The buttons reminds me of those cheap low class plastic molds that come in a kid’s toy car remote. Remote is not very responsive on some cases as turning the volume up and down doesn’t make any noticeable difference in it unless you hold it on for quite a long time. Vigorously clicking the button helps though. It is definitely not a luxurious feel for a luxurious looking remote.

This post has been edited by power911: Oct 20 2013, 01:33 AM

The Sound
Note:
The R2800 needs a lot of time to break in especially the tweeters. Listening to it while it’s fresh from the box sounds horrible as the trebles are not smooth. It sounded like a poor transistor radio when it’s new. Running it with pink and white noise for 6 hours every day helps settle down the problems mentioned above. So do not worry if it sounds bad when you got your pair as it needs time to settle down.
I tested the R2800 with 3 type of sources namely PCM2704 DAC, iMac’s internal soundcard and also via optical.



General studio test I made was by putting both bass and treble on 0. It sounded real flat and natural without getting boring. Bass is what is presented according to the source I listened to. Trebles are just as natural as how real life would be. Mids are as realistic as possible without even a hint of too much trebles or too muddy bassy warm sound. It’s just wonderful just like how a studio speaker should sound. (I have the M-Audio BX-8a as a close reference to the R2800)(not really a fair comparison but it’s the only studio speaker I get to use as reference)
As a Broadcasting student, we have video editing that requires audio balancing in our videos and in our projects, the R2800 serves very well balancing the volumes of our video. I’ve been using the S530D for my work and it wasn’t really serving me too well as I tend to kill the bass too much at times. Oh well, the S530D is a multimedia speaker for entertainment and it’s good for that purpose while the R2800 has its own purpose to serve as well. (I love both S530D and R2800 equally)
But why stay on 0 for bass and treble when you can boost it up to +6?
So I did that and the R2800 is purely wonderful. From studio speakers, it has become an entertainment speaker for daily usage without having to worry flat studio speaker’s sound. (it’s a problem I have with the M Audio BX8a as the BX8a has zero bass or treble boost for a hint of coloration. It’s strictly a studio speaker)

I’ll start off with movies and shows.
I am not really a movie lover but I do watch movies occasionally for its wonderful sound designing. I’ve recently watched Equilibrium, a 2002 movie about gun-jutsu. A great action movie to use as a reference. The kicks and pumps of Christian Bale gun jutsu fighting everyone is very entertaining with the massive R2800 as the 8” woofer packs bass punches like a subwoofer would give and that was on 0 for bass. Increasing the bass throbbed my heart according to each fight scenes in it. Bass lovers would love this. Not to forget how impressively clear the vocals are. It sounded brightly clean and the amount of body and depth of the vocals are perfect. You would never hear muffled vocals with this unless the audio you are hearing is poor by itself. Even with a poor recorded vocals, boosting the trebles would clean up the mess and you can retrieve the vocals as well.
As an anime lover like me, I tend to watch lots and lots of anime to fill my free time. The current top hit anime is Shingeki no Kyojin. (or Attack on Titan for English) The reason why I chose this anime over others would mainly because the audio designing for this show is as good as movie styled level. As titans attack humanity, they destroy walls and smashes humans into bits as if mosquitoes. With the R2800 everything sounded super gory and human flesh is super juicy. The soundtracks blend in extremely well and with the R2800 ‘studio’ features, everything was portrayed so well that it gave me goosebumps. The blasts and explosion brings out the massive impact and fight scenes with swords clashing are just a joy to listen to with those clean sparkly trebles.

Music:
As a stereo setup, it is definitely perfect for music use. Because it is a studio speaker, you can expect a perfect balance no matter what songs you threw in. Be it rock, metal, jazz, or even trance, hip hop, dubstep. The R2800 tackles them all. In fact I’m listening to music while I type out this review. A few genres I had in my list where I use it as a critical listening test would be jazz, rock/metal, and orchestra type music (be it classical or baroque).
Slow jazz worked perfect with the R2800. Instruments are well separated without being too unnatural. Vocals are strong and powerful with no excess exaggeration. The R2800 differentiates what an acoustic double bass sounds like as compared to electric bass clearly.
In the genre of rock or metal, there is always a problem in defining the sound of an electric guitar. For an electric guitar to sound crunchy or distorted, it shouldn’t sound like a heap of noise but instead, a melody. The R2800 may suffer a little in terms of speed to catch up the distorted tone but it is okay enough to sound good. Having a good drummer who plays fast and accurate makes the R2800 sounded like a good set of drums. The huge pair of 8” woofer did suffer a little in speed due to its size but it performs pretty well catching up.
Digital music such as Trance, Scouse House, Techno, Dubstep, or Lounge, requires a very good balance on each section. Basslines, Synth, and Drums. They all took the spots for bass, mids and trebles. There is no good mixes without a good supporting bass. And without a good set of synth leads, it’s just plain boring bass lines and kicks. Not a problem with the R2800 as the R2800 tackles every section with ease. If there isn’t enough bass there’s always the bass knob to crank up.

Games
Ah, games. I’ve been playing quite often recently. Good games I’ve been playing are Devil May Cry 5 and Mirror’s Edge. (Also I’ve played Aion online but I wouldn’t consider that a good game to test the speakers)
There’s nothing much to talk about Mirror’s Edge to begin with but I have to mention this. It is when Faith walks near any exhaust fans or coolers; it creates a large heavy hum like how a real exhaust fan would sound. The R2800 portrays the sound of the exhaust ridiculously realistic. I’m not sure if I’m fancy of this speaker or the size of the speaker is as big as an exhaust fan but it surely did made me feel like I’m sitting very close to a real exhaust fan which scares me at first. Great stuff!
Devil May Cry 5. I loved this game a lot. Reason? It features a LOT of metal songs which I like the most. Loved how the R2800 performs so fast and wild it makes my blood pumps faster as I play even more of Devil May Cry 5. As I used Dante’s Ivory and Ebony (guns), every gunshot is just pure speed and attack and the speakers are kicking in joy. The moments when Dante kills every demon, the bass drops and the R2800 massive 8” woofers are pumping so much air it’s basically a fan for my face out of the bass. There are times where there’s too much detail it sounded a little fatiguing but it’s okay. It’s Devil May Cry after all.
I shall summarize on how the R2800 sounds. It is a studio/multimedia speaker to begin with. Bass is good and the ranges are wide. The mids sounds sparkly but it has a large body in it. It isn’t warm mids but more of a powerful forward mids. Trebles are as smooth as silk domes can offer but these tweeters require a lot of time to loosen up to how it should sound. As an overall sound, it is a good neutral flat sound which adapts to most type of music or movies and games. It is also a very enjoyable speaker to listen to as compared to most studio speakers out there thanks to the bass and treble add ons.


This post has been edited by power911: Oct 19 2013, 04:35 PM

Side review of my very own personal point of views on what I do with the R2800



I would like to mention that the ports are considered really good places to hide your remote control in it because it is massive and you can put almost anything in it
(I do not recommend you putting anything in the port though. please refrain from doing so)

As a 2.0 bookshelf user, I can say I am really surprised that the R2800 is LARGER than my old Sony SS-D201 with NAD302 amp combo
I mean look at the size~





It is clearly that my Sony bookshelf loses in size to the R2800
when it comes to size, the R2800 wins even in terms on volume size and loudness.


Go back home S530D satellite...
You do not belong here





Conclusion
The R2800 is not something famous in stores or the internet yet. I had a hard time trying to guess how the R2800 looks like as there is almost no pictures of R2800 ever existed online. I couldn’t even find it in most stores too as it is quite a rare piece (like my S530D). If you were to search R2800, the internet is going to give you an image of the R2700. (What a troll)
I do wish more people will know the existence of this new product R2800 as it is a wonderful setup for everyone. The speakers may be humongous but I wish more people will make space for this setup because I think everyone deserves to own this set of speaker.

The price of the R2800 is around RM750 if I'm not wrong. It's definitely a steal for its price as I don't think anyone could get a good studio speakers in that price. Not to forget it is voiced by Phil Jones

This post has been edited by power911: Nov 16 2013, 03:29 PM

Nice review sir. I have one question.

This kind of speaker, need connect to anything ? Doesn't seem i can straight plug and play into 3.5mm jack :\ . Sorry noob here.

Yes.
It is a plug and play device to begin with

All Edifier speakers comes with a 3.5mm plug cable for easy plug n play

Studio speaker and normal speaker different in studio in flat sound right ?

Yes
Studio speakers are generally flat because studios require a balance sound in their editing and mixing.
It is too make sure that whatever they are creating is always equal to every customer who listens to it with their own speaker setup.
studio speakers are 'flat' on purpose to make sure the editor knows what is lacking or what is too much (like being too noisy or being too dry in trebles and such)

You don't wanna create music with bassy speakers just to let your friends realize there's not enough bass in your mix.


I would say studio speakers are usually not for everyone but the Edifier is like a hybrid of studio and home speaker.
Just crank the bass and treble up and your audio will sound even more delicious

This post has been edited by power911: Oct 19 2013, 11:26 PM

Congrats to have a chance for reviewing R2800.

Anyway, digital input or analogue input sounds better? Sorry if I miss-read your reviews.

Good review from power911, informative and full of pics as always.

I got many love to 2.0 monitors, the plus i see on the model is its front firing woofer which eases the placement against wall or confined corner but I got some question, i sorted it back by importance:

-Big translates to heavy and area consuming, how heavy it is? from here says its 27.8kg thats like 1/3 of my weight put on the table lols, can u confirm it?

-8" driver for woofer placed on the table such as your setup, it should have high magnetic force which can affect monitors, mouse or even external dacs placed on the table, refer back here
the enclosure uses MDF board with some foams and the only shielding is via the steel cupping of driver

steel cupping only provides shielding for sides and back, how about front?

-u mentioned heat, can u share with us the temperature increase against ambience on both idle and working?

-related to above, warm up, does it need warm up or just switch on and start firing?

-the remote is lost/spoiled, do i lost the ability to mute/unmute it?

I couldn't really confirm this part though.

I personally think the digital optical has better smoother trebles while the analog via PCM2704 has better mids
but on other days (and temperature and mood) it turns the other way round
not to worry as it is a very minor change in sound that I couldn't even detect sometimes even when I wanted to

1.The russian site says it's 27.8kg and it's true
it is THAT HEAVY
not to worry as well because even with my weak computer table it's holding the speakers well without causing things to go flimsy

2. Magnetic shield here is superb, top notch. Oh mann I totally forgot to mention this part thanks for asking me this question
shown in the pic below is that I have a super sensitive samsung CRT monitor 'right beside' the left R2800 speaker


And I have to say there is no magnetic influence at all
Zero screen distortion despite having a massive woofer with massive magnet

But as for your question about front being unshielded?
Unfortunately yes. The front isn't shielded that well. It is actually a normal thing for most speakers.
It took around 3-5 inches of distance to distort my CRT monitor by facing the woofer near the screen face to face.
Hope that answers your question

3.Ahh... heat...
well... in a small room, it does acts as a second laptop for heating the room.
On idle it gets quite warm as if it's a smartphone running on multiple games. Couldn't measure the temperature as I don't have a thermometer lying around but that's the best description I can give.
while on full non-stop loud music playing for 5 minutes and above, it gets a slight scorching heat feel on the backplate just like how hot a normal laptop is running on high graphical games

4: as for speakers warming up... I don't see the need of warming up to sound good.
So just switch it on and play immediately

5: Losing the remote DOES actually lose your ability to mute

Hope this answers your questions
Hope this answers helped everyone

This post has been edited by power911: Oct 20 2013, 03:06 PM

How much is the market price? Rm1k?

It's around RM750

edit: it's RM799 as Edifier said below

This post has been edited by power911: Oct 21 2013, 02:08 PM

The SRP of R2800 is Rm799.

Price is okay... but not sure with its sound.

Any showroom for this speakers and other studio series?

any place where i can audition this?

You can test it @ Low Yat Plaza or Technetium.

hmm no quieter places to try it out?

For quieter place - Technetium or Power911 home

This post has been edited by Edifier: Oct 23 2013, 03:13 PM

so power911 , apamacam? LOL