Edifier has its fair share of fantastic speakers, some with normal designs and some with weirdly wonderful designs, it’s fair to say the Edifier Spinnaker desktop speakers fall into the latter example. The design has, in fact, won them the CES Innovations Design and Engineering award.
Specifications:
- TOTAL POWER OUTPUT:RMS 10W x 2 +10W x 2 + 25W x 2
- THD + N:10%
- SNR:≥90dBA
- FREQUENCY RESPONSE:68Hz – 20kHz +/-3dB on reference axis
- FREQUENCY RANGE:50Hz – 23kHz -10dB
- CROSSOVER FREQUENCIES:135Hz -10dB
- DISTORTION:≤0 0.5%
- INPUT SENSITIVITY:800mV±50mV
- AUDIO OUTPUT:Bass expansion for outboard subwoofer
- SPEAKER UNIT:Treble: 19mm silk dome, Magnetically shielded, 4Ω
- Midrange: 2¾ inch (70mm), Magnetically shielded, 4Ω
- Bass: 4 inch (116mm), Magnetically shielded, 6Ω
- POWER SUPPLY:Input 100V-240V AC, Output 20V/60W DC
- DIMENSION:140mm x 413mm x 189mm (W x H x D)
- WEIGHT:4.3Kg (net) | 5.3Kg (gross)
Edifier Spinnaker Desktop Speakers Review: Design
Right out of the box, the most noticeable thing about these speakers is their horn structured design, which you’ll either love or hate. There’s more to this pointy devil-ish design than just looks though, in fact, the design serves a practical purpose when it comes to audio quality. The tweeters sit towards the top of each speaker, offering the user higher frequencies that won’t be delivered in a flat manner comparable to the mid-range and bass components of the system.
With dimensions of 140mm x 413mm x 189mm (W x H x D) per speaker, this set is quite big, especially when compared to some of the bookshelf speaker offerings from Edifier.
A cloth mesh covering wraps most of the way around each speaker, creating a minimal yet stylish look. These coverings aren’t removable, most likely due to the unique shape of the speakers.
The speakers each sit on a circular base, with a silver semi-circular part at the rear. These semi-circular parts actually feature grooves on the bottom to enable clean and tidy cable management for the speakers.
A neatly placed deeply grooved area can be found underneath the right speaker. This area is home to five different connection points, which are a miniUSB port for updating the firmware, a speaker out port for the passive speaker (left), a 20V DC in for power, a Subwoofer port and lastly a AUX/OPT in port (both the AUX cable and OPT conversion device are included). To ensure the speaker sits flat to the surface, there are indented grooves for each cable.
While all required cables are included, the speaker to speaker cable is quite short, which means you can’t get a lot of distance, between the two speakers, you get roughly 140cms. Since the cable isn’t a standard speaker cable, replacing it with a longer one isn’t going to be easy or cheap, if you can replace it at all that is.
Much like the speakers themselves, the included remote is rather odd in terms of design, mainly because it really doesn’t look or feel like a remote. Instead, it’s a dome with a rotating head, a microUSB port for charging, a single button and an LED light ring at the bottom. This style certainly makes it look a lot nicer than a standard plastic slab style remote but does come with some drawbacks. Firstly it takes some learning to actually use thanks to having only one button and twisty dial. Luckily a small Instruction card is included so that you and any other users can get learning right away, although it still doesn’t help much. The other issue is that while trying to turn the dial, you’ll often find the whole device rotating on the surface, which can be quite annoying.
Unfortunately, the speakers themselves have no buttons on them, meaning that the control is required to use them and switch between different outputs. It would have been nice to see some buttons on the speakers, even if they were tucked away on the back somewhere.
Edifier Spinnaker Desktop Speakers Review: Setup
Setting these speakers up is mostly an easy task that doesn’t take very long at all. There’s simply the case of placing the speakers and then connecting all the wires. The biggest problem comes from the wiring, which isn’t hard to do but can be a bit finicky thanks to the location of the connection points on the bottom of the right speaker.
The other aspect of setting these speakers up comes from the Bluetooth connectivity. Like any Bluetooth device, it’s not difficult to do at all, with most of the work taking place from your smartphone or other Bluetooth enabled audio source. Within 30 seconds you’ll more than likely be all set up and ready to go, especially if you’ve connected many Bluetooth devices together in your lifetime.
Edifier Spinnaker Desktop Speakers Review: Audio Quality
For reference, I have been using the Spinnaker set with my Moto G6 Play via Bluetooth and my PC via the ordinary AUX connection. Both methods have been used primarily for listening to music.
I listen to a wide genre selection of music and in general, I have found the audio to be pleasing, although there are a few issues, such as what I feel is a very limited volume when compared to other Edifier speakers I have used and the speaker producing a slight rattle noise during some bass heavy songs, as if it’s bouncing slightly on the surface of my desk.
Bass and treble seem to be set quite well, which is good because there’s no way of adjusting them as is it. This lack of adjustment really isn’t a problem as I have never found myself using this on any of Edifier’s other speakers, I prefer just to keep it 50/50. If I was an audiophile, it would be more of a feature I’d look into using.
Edifier Spinnaker Desktop Speakers Review: In conclusion
What most likely started off as a competition to see who could design that strangest looking speaker Edifier could produce, turned out to create something so stunning that it went on to win an award. There’s no denying that their unique shape, definitely gives these speakers a touch of class and elegance, that not easily offered by your standard rectangular box-shaped speakers. A lack of on unit buttons is disappointing though and the included remote does take a lot of learning to use correctly and get used to.
In terms of audio, they are pretty decent, coming from a standard user like myself. if you’re a pure audiophile, you may find the lack of adjustment options to be off-putting. I also feel the volume could be a bit louder as they don’t seem to go anywhere near as loud as other offerings.
Pros:
- Unique style
- Clever cable management
- Good bass and treble
- A wide range of connection options
- Decent audio quality
Cons:
- Dodgy remote
- Low volume range
- Short connection cable
- No buttons on speakers
