Introducing the mighty Edifier S760D



Wait what? S550?
Apparently the box I received is not the S760D box so...

To start this review
I would like to thank Edifier for sending out this speaker for review. It's not small my friend. (For all S730D and S550 owners, you will understand the size of it.)
Edifier also had one of their members personally drove all the way to my house to deliver this unit to me

I'm thankful to have this chance to review this beast.


Package Design/Unboxing/First Impression
I live in a small terrace house. I was worried that this takes up too much space but I guess the size isn't too big like I imagine.
It is surprisingly light for a massive speaker setup. The person who delivered the speaker to my house was a young man and he carried the largest box into my house with no problem.

I don't remember it being that lightweight (I'll talk about the weight later in the review)
As I have carried the box of the Edifier S730D, it was way much heavier than this unit


The box was a recycled box from an older model named S550.
I'm guessing this was Edifier's display unit or something? I didn't ask.


Like most Edifier boxes, Edifier is generous by giving box-in-a-box configuration. It's just to prevent box from tearing as well as a good shield against impact.


Opening the small box confirms that it's Edifier S760D alright


Aha!
Looks familiar doesn't it?
Well... first look does seem like they didn't do any changes.
But they did. Just wait as I finish the unboxing.


Probably my only picture that's out of focus. (I'm sorry that I'm lazy. )
Heavy Duty RCA cables for analog 5.1 connections.


They're in a ribbon form so customers don't have to worry about cable jungles but.....


There's still no escape to these shiny speaker wires

(I'm supposed to get the 3.5mm to RCA cables according to the instruction manual but I didn't get any here.)



This post has been edited by power911: Oct 30 2014, 10:46 PM

Well lets continue to look at the satellites




I placed my S530D satellite with the S760D satellite.
Guess which one is the S760D


Well... the answer is...
Edifier S760D had a darker color tone to its speakers.
The Greys on the S760D is somewhat a more classy brownish silver than the older models.
The color kinda reminds me of the Anodized Aluminum used on Nitecore SRT3 flashlight. (Just ignore this line ><)




The center unit.


Well... The wired remote shows great difference.





Remote looks similar with the older units but they are the same size and same insides from what I see
The only difference is that the LCD screen is black rather than blue
It still has the old "phone stand" design.


The long one is the wireless infrared remote. (I don't know why the card remote was included. It doesn't work with the unit though)


oh I forgot about the included optical cable.



This post has been edited by power911: Oct 30 2014, 11:25 PM

Here's the heart of the speaker



Big and massive! But wait... I see some flaws... Maybe because it's a display unit?





This... Surprised me a lot!
I was told that it's using an efficient Class D amp that doesn't heat up too much as well as improved amplification. (Correct me if I'm wrong about the Class D amp)
Gotta agree. It's efficient. I mean, look at the cute little tiny heatsink.
My tiny room doesn't heat up at all despite playing loud music.
With tiny heatsink, reduced weight.
With Class D amp... Even less required parts for weight reduction
Now that kinda explains why it's so easy to carry this unit.
But still... I'd recommend you asked a friend to help you carry it if you're purchasing a unit...or two


Gold connectors~ Now that's an upgrade. (My S530D don't have it)


Power plug with no fuse~
Maybe it's efficient to the point it doesn't need one?
Well it's a 3 pin.
I'm guessing an extra ground?


cable provided says otherwise...
No fuse in plug... different head that doesn't fit Malaysian standard power sockets.
You can substitute the power cable with some CPU Power Supply cable available anywhere in stores. No biggie.


I just use a travel adapter. It works

This post has been edited by power911: Nov 2 2014, 10:37 PM

Test powering it


BOOM
Major difference.
Black makes everything more professional.


The brightness drops but hey, I've always hated the brightness of my blue remote
This is a good improvement.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the new wired remote has a wider viewing angle. My S530D basically fails when I have the remote flat on the table but the S760D wired remote is visible even at critical viewing angles

Some good size comparisons to show (especially the heatsink size)




While playing around...
whoops~


The front grille just came out like butter.



They're just pressure fitted with these foam griptape




This needs some bass management yo~
Bass lovers will enjoy the view of this.
I did notice a bigger dustcap as compared to the S730D and S550
Bigger as in it's basically the whole speaker membrane.
Go google some pics and you'll see a size difference.

I don't remember where I found the link but if I'm not wrong, the S760D has "dual-voicecoil"
yep... dual voicecoil. I wish I could dismantle this unit to confirm but I don't have the permission to do so.

This post has been edited by power911: Oct 31 2014, 02:01 AM

Lets set this speaker up

Firstly:
You need a big room.
You need space.
This speaker works on long distance listening without sounding noisy (so you can use it as a home theater)
It may sound weird when you use it on a small room but it still works.

Secondly:
It sounded nothing like the S550
You need friendly neighbors that accepts loud sounds

Yea.

The user interface is exactly the same as the old Edifier S550 but with additional features for Dolby Digital and ProLogic II


Using the wired remote alone will limit you to tune:
-Bass
-Treble
-Front Left
-Front Right
-Center
-Surround Left
-Surround Right
-Light opacity
-(Hidden Mode for Surround delay time adjustment for Dolby ProLogic II)

as well as
-Power on/off
-Input
-Factory Reset (by clicking power and function button)

Those were the traditional settings applied on the S550



With the Infrared Remote enables you to access "more modes" for this speaker namely
-Mute button (rather than power off)
-instant access to device input
-Dolby ProLogic II on and off button
-Dolby ProLogic II presets (Music, Movie, Emulator, Matrix, Virtual, Game)
-Compressor On/Off switch for Dolby Digital

-Surround delay time adjustment for Dolby ProLogic II in the function list

Dolby Digital, Prologic II and AAC only works with digital input. Just bear in mind.


Finally lets began with how it sounds. It's what we're here for.

Device used:
-Onboard Realtek Soundcard (works best)
-Slevin Sent T-Muso PCM2704
-PS Vita/PSP
-Xiaomi Mi3
as well as Edifier Optical In via:
-T-Muso
-Realtek SPDIF Optical


This beast is different. Unlike the sound of S530D the frequency and dynamic range is huge.
Edifier of the past used to fail in 2 parts (to my ears)
-Their trebles are clean but annoying
-Their bass are not deep enough

The S760D improved these 2 aspects............ A LOT

The highs
This unit no longer sounds like the old signature where they have clean but scratchy trebles.
The highs are clean in a soft way. They don't sparkle in a hot way but they shine well. You can call it cold trebles but I'd say they're just smooth.
They however, sounds like a 2" fullrange speaker producing trebles. (maybe it's just me... because it resembles the sound of my car tweeters)
It reminds me of the Edifier Spinnaker's tweeter I used to review.
The soft characteristic may blunt off the energy of a fast metal rock song but it isn't too bad once you got used to it.

The mids
As the sound of S760D evolved, the mids changed too.
It has gone less sweeter than my S530D.
I personally prefer warm mids but a change in cold mids is not too bad. (I can always tame down the trebles if I wanted to)
The mids perform very well in this case. Strong, Fast, Energetic, and Full
Vocals gets the first play in mids. They sound round and big. No exaggeration in midbass even when bass is set to max. Female leads still has their sweetness in it without sounding annoying. You get clear vocals even when it is a noisy conversation.
Electric guitar may sound messy and noisy in crunch characteristic but synth leads just sounds smooth and articulate.

The lows
BOOM is the best word I can say.
I used to hate a 10" woofer due to slow response in speed as well as they always sound boomy.
But I think I can start loving this bass.
It still has the slow lows of a 10" but the response is much tighter and hits much harder.
Bass guitar solos would fail anyhow but if it's a generic bass support then it's a good support flow.
However this bass is very prominent in kicks as it is VERY sensitive to beats.

I suspect that these were tuned lower to perform better.
They were very different to what S730D sounds.
S730D has a problem where the frequency range is limited. It sounded too high and doesn't go low enough to be considered a "sub"woofer
The S760D however did sacrifice some midbass but it extends deep deep down to 35Hz before it gets cut off.
I don't own a frequency meter to test but there are songs that has subbass that suddenly shines in this S760D

However the ProLogic II tunes the sound of S760D to a different character.
Audiophiles usually would ignore the feature given but it's a good tool to have.
I had to admit the Prologic II doesn't sound good to me but it wasn't too bad.
You just need to accept a "new soundstage" if you're using ProLogic II.

ProLogic II works by taking useful bits in stereo sound and channels it surround.
To make this effect perform, Digital input would be recommended over analog stereo.

What's seemed to be the main vocal, it smartly toss it into the center channel
What seems to be others, it'll be played on the front stereo.
What's left remains front left, what's right remains front right.
What seems to sound like room reverb or echo, it all goes back to surround stereo.

All that under one simple stereo input.

But there are cases where ProLogic II detects some sound and smartly locates it around "correctly"
It is up to the audio mixing engineer to implement this filter for ProLogic II.


Performance:
Music.

I would say this isn't really a suitable unit for music listening (no 5.1 speakers were suitable in the first place unless you know what you're doing)
Edifier is smart enough to always default to 2.1 setup while using digital.
But even on a 5.1 analog input, the subwoofer bass is still present but low in volume. Common 5.1 would just have silent subwoofers when music is played.

Some good OSTs I listened to will be Aldnoah Zero OST by Sawano Hiroyuki


Songs were made in epic orchestral style + rock drum covers + electronic music.
Especially on the song name aLIEz, the 2nd ending song to the anime Aldnoah Zero.
Powerful drum kicks hits me right in the chest with bass lines coming in.
Instrumental separation was fantastic and flawless. It makes identifying the layers of the songs easy.

Not to forget another OST that suits perfectly on Dolby ProLogic II

The 3rd Birthday OST


The 3rd Birthday OST works perfectly on Dolby ProLogic II
If only I own a good high quality copy of it I would experience much better surround music.

Ignoring the ProLogic II part, I would like to talk about the song name Dive into Myself by Mitsuto Suzuki.
This song introduced a series of ambient noise which I usually thought it was just humming tones.
With the S760D new and improved subwoofer, I'm experiencing massive vibrations and it's one great massive experience of subwoofer earthquake.



Here's an example video I took
Bass is massive in this and all bassheads would be pleased to view and listen to this


Here's another example I took with a normal japanese song by Annabel-Above Your Hand
Which also surprised me with its capable bass.


Movies/Anime/Cartoons
I'm a big fan of anime honestly. Not really into movies.

I did watch Captain America 2 The Winter Soldier but having it enabling the AAC... I guess it sounds pretty average.

I will proceed to talk about The Legend of Korra since it has Dolby Digital and AAC
As this show is about elemental bending and fighting, and it is a cartoon... The voice are studio recorded.
Studio recorded voices generally leaves a deep bassy tone to vocals due to proximity effect.
With that in mind, bass is always an issue of interruption.
With the Logitech Z2300, Putting the bass in half just muds up the entire vocals.
With the Edifier S760D, putting bass and subwoofer at ridiculous max values leads to slightly thicken the tone but didn't affect the clarity at all.
Fight scenes were fast and crisp with whooshes swirling around your room.
With clean trebles, sparkles from afar can be heard even when the surround speakers were placed far.
The center channel performs very well being a good all vocal speaker as every word spoken is clearly heard.

But how about the Dolby Prologic II feature? Any good to movies?

I have not found any movies but I did found an independent animation series that uses ProLogic II well.
You can watch the videos here at RWBY - Rooster Teeth

It's just a fun little short video for entertainment. Voices were just in stereo.
Enabling the ProLogic II drastically exaggerates the ProLogic II abilities to surround a stereo signal.
Yes. True surround. Like connecting it as a 5.1 channel.

Sound Engineers of RWBY had them mixed where ProLogic II just works. I lack knowledge on how this works but it works.
What's behind you actually sounds behind you.

Other than that I do watch anime "everyday" just to fill my time.
If you remember me talking about Aldnoah Zero in the music section, well you need to watch this epic anime.
I had ProLogic II enabled on this anime too but the effects isn't that obvious. It's mild
But a good show like Aldnoah Zero with wonderful sound effects and proper music blends just makes this Edifier S760D shines like a true home theater.



Games
Forgive me in this section but I don't play much games honestly.
I play more online RPG games like Aion online... Well there's 5.1 surround so it works

I did play The 3rd Birthday on my PSP connected via analog with ProLogic II enabled
There isn't much surround I can get other than ambient noise. Positioning is just stereo.

Battlefield 3 is always a good way to test 5.1 capability but I just don't feel the need to have surround?
I did manage to spot few intruders thanks to the surround speakers but nothing too big.

I would say my impressions would be similar to the movies and anime section. What's good is good. (wow... great explanation )



Conclusion:
Great improvement overall.
I would say this is one of my top recommended speaker for anyone who needs a home theater or a crazy pc speaker.
Bassheads are required to own at least a unit to experience the definition of bass.


Pros:
-Improved Sound character
-Dolby Digital, ProLogic II, AAC for the price of RM2k
-Beautiful
-LOUD
-Multiple inputs for multiple devices
-Powerful cinematic bass
-Efficient Class D amplification without worrying about warming the room

Cons:
-Design is basically from the old Edifier S550
-Not many clues to differentiate between S550 and S760D from the front
-Dolby ProLogic II is still not refined yet
-Wired controls are limited from Dolby settings
-Massive woofer (it's a plus to me but not to many)

That's it.
I had difficulty writing this review because I enjoyed this speaker so much that there's too many to talk about.
I guess this is what they called love at first sight???
I shall proceed my listening and will update if there's anything new I found.


Well maybe the last con you need to deal would be this XD


Gotta clean that mess soon c:

This post has been edited by power911: Oct 31 2014, 02:02 AM

lol, too much to say... too little time~

i'm sleepy ahahahha

I no longer have contact with an s550 owner (never tried the s550 encore though)
but yea they're the same externally, just with that wet surface texture and darker grey accent


DTS worked fine with me.
I gotta drop the center volume thou
if not the center would just overpowered the whole thing

I still love my S530D sound characteristics over this.
I wouldn't mind owning this unit~ But if I need music I would rather have the S530D than this~

but damn the bass in this is violent

This post has been edited by power911: Oct 31 2014, 09:53 PM

Edit: Couldn't add anymore pics to my existing post...

I'm just gonna continue here.



The good ol' Edifier S530D, S550 and the S730D share this similar remote (if I'm not wrong)
but they all had this one problem in their design.



Limited screen viewing angle despite having a design that allows the remote to sleep flat
Got me bugged for quite a while since I got my Edifier S530D


With this new LCD screen with new colors and new look, I noticed the improvement immediately.



I took this picture with the best critical angle possible and still getting good view on the remote showing whats on the display.

No more terrible LCD screen.
Loved the update

This post has been edited by power911: Nov 1 2014, 11:00 PM

I did not buy this unit as mentioned in my review. It was a review unit provided by Edifier

I'm not too sure about the exact price but it's around RM2000+ and you can get it at lowyat sri com or all it if I'm not mistaken. Usually the new Edifiers are always there

orly now...
don't cha want dem dolby

despite that... prologic ii barely works on analog but more on digital.

anyway, edifier has 6 presets of music,movie,emulator,matrix,virtual and game for the dolby settings.
panorama... not too sure.
center width, it is locked in this unit. not sure why (it is recognized as center delay but you cannot do anything to it)
Room dimension is not a feature inside but the delays you can tweak would somewhat fit in the room settings?

I believe they fix/avoided this problem?
Sorry I no longer have this unit to test your issue (as I have returned the review unit back)
If I remember correctly in Dolby or AAC 5.1 the center/sub is working fine with bass covering the fullness of sound

But if you're using S550 I assume analog inputs... that's the part I couldn't test to answer you.

On games using analog 5.1 the center sounded fine to me with bass working together.

Sorry I couldn't help you much in this part. My memory of it is limited to this far

not too sure why did you guys get random popping noises because my testing period didn't do so. (and my house area has the dirtiest electric one can imagine) (been changing fuses non stop every time)

maybe I didn't get to test long enough

hmm... idk mang... I'd blast the hell out of these test units almost everyday for 1-2 months (you know... testing)

I left it at random volumes of 40 boost +3 or even 15 to 10 and nothing happened.

oh well... I miss the speaker anyway

I had tested analog for half a month and digital for my another half.
Never really switching off most of the time.

I had even turning on my dirty switch to test for pop and crackles because that issue is my biggest concern (as mentioned I had ugly electricity)


Using the analog 5.1 as a surround I didn't receive major problems (or more like I didn't notice it) because the sound pretty much flows naturally especially on games.
Well... again, I didn't get to test your question so I couldn't answer much

no chance d lu

already return the unit to Mr Edifier

tried muting the setup before powering off to see if it saves your setting? it may work

This post has been edited by power911: Apr 10 2015, 12:15 PM

haha thanks.
but I got to say it's all thanks to Edifier that I get to review this unit.
Gotta take as much pics possible to record things down

Wow that's loud. Yup it's normal for optical to be louder than analog for most cases.Is your source weak? Try raising your source volume?

As far as I know my soundcard is weak but tested with different DAC I get louder volumes.

Ive never go more than 35 on casual listening though

Hey, already pm'ed you

But if others is curious, it only takes a ballpoint pen to slowly pry the grill out. It is only friction fit. No glue