There's a gap in the speaker market that almost nobody fills well: the space between desktop computer speakers and a real TV audio setup. Most powered bookshelf pairs are built for one or the other. The Edifier M90, at $369.99, is built for both — it's a compact 2.0 system with 100W RMS, HDMI eARC for your TV, USB-C and optical for your computer, Bluetooth 6.0 with LDAC for your phone, and a subwoofer output for later. Announced at CES in January 2026 and on sale in the U.S. since late March, it's Edifier's play for the person who doesn't want separate speakers for every screen in the house.
After a few weeks living with a pair wired into a Mac, a TV, and a phone simultaneously, here's my honest take: the M90 pulls off the dual-life trick better than anything else I've tried at this price. The sound is bigger than the cabinets suggest, the connectivity is hub-like in a way that matters, and the compromises — and there are compromises — are mostly the kind you can work around. Whether it beats buying a cheaper pair plus a soundbar comes down to how you actually listen.
Design and Build
The M90 looks like a slightly grown-up version of Edifier's M60, which is to say it's a clean, boxy two-way design in black or white satin-finish fiberboard. Each speaker measures 133 × 212 × 225mm — about 5.2 inches wide, 8.4 inches tall, and 8.9 inches deep — and weighs a bit over 6.6 pounds. The woofer sits above the tweeter on the front baffle, with a recessed silk dome up top and a small activity LED the only other visual detail. It's restrained in the way furniture is restrained: it won't win design awards, but it will look right next to a monitor, a TV, or on a bookshelf for a decade.
Build quality is a real strength. The cabinets are solid with no flex, the rear panels are fastened with proper hex screws, and nothing creaks or rattles when you push them. The two speakers connect with a five-meter active cable using multi-pin connectors — all the electronics live in the primary unit, which ships as the right channel (you can swap channels in the app if your desk layout demands the active speaker on the left).
The one design frustration, and every review I've seen flags it: every control and port lives on the back of the primary speaker. Power switch, volume knob, and all five inputs are crammed around the corner, which means cable spaghetti behind the desk and reaching behind the speaker to power on. Edifier's own M60 and MR5 models put the volume knob on the front, so this feels like a step backward. The included remote compensates — more on that below — but if you lose it, you'll be groping behind furniture.
Sound Quality
Internally, each speaker is a two-way design with a 4-inch long-throw aluminum mid-bass driver and a 1-inch silk dome tweeter, bi-amped with dedicated Class-D amplification — 35W for the woofer and 15W for the tweeter per speaker, 100W RMS total. The signal path is fully digital: 24-bit/96kHz DSP with an active crossover processes everything, including analog inputs (which pass through a high-resolution ADC first). The published frequency response is 50Hz–40kHz with an 85dB(A) signal-to-noise ratio.
Bass. This is the surprise of the system. For a 2.0 pair with 4-inch drivers, the low end is genuinely impressive: kick drums hit with punch rather than boom, bass lines stay articulate and controlled, and there's real differentiation between notes in the lower octaves. It's a supported, scooping bass that keeps its clarity at volume — I kept expecting to miss a subwoofer, and mostly didn't. What it won't do is press your chest on deep sub-bass material; below about 50Hz the output tapers off, and if you're into electronic music with serious sub content, the dedicated subwoofer output is there for a reason.
Midrange. Vocals sit forward and clearly defined, which is what you want from a desktop pair for podcasts and calls as well as music. The caveat: the character is slightly cool in the upper mids and lower treble, and on some tracks it can edge toward harsh — one reviewer described it as a "cool, sometimes harsh" signature that the Dynamic preset softens and the Monitor preset makes worse. The 9-band EQ fixes it easily if it bothers you; I dialed a small warmth boost in and left it. Instrument separation is strong, though on dense mixes the imaging can blur slightly — a rhythm guitar track I use for testing stereo placement was harder to pin down than on more expensive pairs.
Treble. Smooth rather than airy. Cymbals and hi-hats have contour without the exaggerated sheen of cheaper tweeters, and there's no fatigue after long sessions. It does fall out a little on some material — saxophones and high strings lack the last bit of sparkle — and on bombastic movie scenes with a full orchestral-and-effects barrage, the treble detail is the first thing to get lost in the mix.
Imaging and soundstage. This is where the M90 punches above its class. The stereo separation is excellent — instruments spread wide with a stable phantom center, and voices sit three-dimensional in the middle of the stage. The sweet spot is bigger than you'd expect from a compact pair: treble strength and clarity hold up when you're off-axis, which matters when the speakers are doing TV duty for a couch rather than a single desk chair. It won't fill a big room like a floor-stander, but it handles a medium living room at movie volume without strain — and the headroom means it doesn't compress when you push it.
Inputs and Connectivity
The M90's connectivity is the reason it exists, and it's the most complete set I've seen on a compact powered pair:
- HDMI eARC — the headline feature. Plug it into your TV and you get lossless audio passthrough and volume control from your TV remote, which makes the M90 behave like a proper stereo system instead of a pair of computer speakers. This is still rare in this category; the Fluance Ri71, its closest rival, only has plain ARC.
- USB-C — acts as a digital USB audio device with no drivers on a Mac or PC. This is the connection I used most; the speakers handle all conversion internally at 24/96, bypassing your computer's DAC.
- Optical (TOSLINK) — for TVs without eARC, consoles, and other digital sources.
- 3.5mm AUX — for turntables, MP3 players, or anything with a headphone jack.
- Bluetooth 6.0 with LDAC — the wireless side. LDAC gets you near-hi-res on Android; iPhones fall back to AAC, which still sounds good but means the LDAC badge is wasted on Apple users. Bluetooth multipoint keeps two devices paired at once, though enabling it disables LDAC.
- Subwoofer output — expands to a 2.1 system later, using any powered sub with RCA input.
All of these can be connected at the same time and switched with the remote or the app, which is what makes the M90 feel like an audio hub rather than a speaker pair. One honest warning: the box includes RCA-to-3.5mm, 3.5mm, USB-C, and Toslink cables, but not an HDMI cable — budget $10–20 if you're going eARC.
Features, Remote, and the ConneX App
The included remote is the second-best feature after eARC. It's a compact 2.4GHz RF unit (two AAA batteries, no line-of-sight needed) with volume, track, mute, and input buttons, plus three quick-switch sound presets — Classic, Dynamic, and Monitor — that you can reassign to custom EQ profiles. It turns out a remote is the difference between "desk speakers" and "speakers I'd actually use from the couch," and Edifier gets that.
The Edifier ConneX app (iOS/Android) handles the rest: a 9-band EQ from 62Hz to 16kHz with saveable custom profiles, input switching, channel swapping, auto-off timing, prompt tones, and firmware updates. The EQ earns its keep — it's how I fixed the slightly cool voicing — but the app is otherwise barebones. There's no streaming services integration, no room correction, no multiroom, and no Wi-Fi at all. Setup requires pairing the speaker in the app, which is painless. None of this is a dealbreaker for a wired-first speaker, but know that the app is a control panel, not a platform.
Two quirks to know before you buy. First, the auto-off timer is aggressive out of the box — the speakers shut down if things get quiet, and it takes a few seconds to wake them. If you use it for TV, change that setting in the app immediately. Second, wake-from-standby only works on Bluetooth and HDMI inputs; if you're primarily on USB-C or optical, you'll be powering the speakers on manually each session.
Who This Speaker Is For
Buy the M90 if: you run one room as both workspace and entertainment space and want a single pair of speakers that handles your computer, your TV, your console, and your phone. It's also a strong pick for Mac/Apple setups — USB-C plug-and-play plus eARC with an Apple TV covers nearly everything, and the off-axis performance suits couch listening. If you're weighing it against a soundbar, the M90 beats most bars under $400 on music and gives you real stereo separation for TV.
Skip it if: your listening is almost all deep-bass electronic music (get a pair with a sub or budget for one — the sub out helps but adds cost), you want Wi-Fi streaming or multiroom (it has none — a Sonos or HEOS setup is a different product), you're an Apple Music devotee hoping for hi-res over Bluetooth (LDAC is Android-only), or your desk is so tight that rear-only controls and cable spaghetti would drive you mad. And if your speakers will only ever sit on a desk for music, the $199 M60 gets you 80% of the sound for half the money.
Competitive Comparison
| Edifier M90 | Edifier M60 | Fluance Ri71 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $369.99 | $199 | $399.99 |
| Power (RMS) | 100W (2× 35W + 2× 15W) | 66W (2× 18W + 2× 15W) | 120W (2× 60W) |
| Drivers | 4" aluminum mid-bass + 1" silk dome | 3" aluminum mid-low + 1" silk dome | 5" woofer + AMT tweeter |
| HDMI | eARC | None | ARC (no eARC) |
| Other inputs | Optical, USB-C, AUX, SUB OUT | USB-C, AUX | RCA, Bluetooth, SUB OUT |
| Bluetooth | 6.0 + LDAC | 5.3 + LDAC | aptX |
| DSP / EQ | 24/96 DSP, 9-band EQ | 24/96 DSP, app EQ | Fixed voicing |
| Remote | 2.4GHz RF included | No | No |
The M60 is the value play: same family sound and the same app, but no HDMI at all, less power, and smaller drivers. The Fluance Ri71 is the closest head-to-head rival at $30 more — it's the better speaker on paper (120W, 5-inch woofers, AMT tweeters, a more neutral presentation), but its HDMI is plain ARC rather than eARC, it has no optical or USB input, and it has no app EQ. The M90 wins on connectivity and flexibility; the Ri71 wins on raw driver hardware. If you want the Dali Kupid (about $599 in the U.S.), you're paying for AirPlay 2, Chromecast, and a wireless hub — a different league of ecosystem features the M90 simply doesn't offer.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- HDMI eARC with TV-remote volume control — rare at this price, and it makes the M90 a real soundbar alternative
- Big, controlled bass for a 2.0 system; kick drums punch without boom
- Complete input set: eARC, optical, USB-C, AUX, Bluetooth 6.0 + LDAC, and a subwoofer output
- Excellent stereo imaging with a wide off-axis sweet spot
- 9-band EQ in the app fixes the cool voicing; custom presets on the included 2.4GHz remote
- 24-bit/96kHz DSP throughout, Hi-Res Audio + Hi-Res Audio Wireless certified
- Clean, solid build; right/left channel swappable in the app
Cons:
- Every control and port on the back of the primary speaker — cable mess and blind reaching behind furniture
- ConneX app is barebones: no Wi-Fi, no streaming services, no room correction, no multiroom
- No AirPlay 2; LDAC is wasted on iPhones (AAC only)
- Slightly cool, sometimes harsh upper mids on some material; treble loses sparkle on dense tracks
- Aggressive auto-off by default; wake-from-standby only on Bluetooth and HDMI
- No HDMI cable in the box
- A $170 step up from the M60 for features you may not all use
Verdict
The Edifier M90 is the rare product that's exactly what its marketing says it is: a pair of speakers that moves between desk and TV without changing your setup. At $369.99 as of mid 2026, it's not cheap for a desktop pair, but it replaces both a set of computer speakers and a soundbar — and it does both jobs well. The bass is the surprise, the eARC connectivity is the headline, and the EQ fixes the one tonal flaw.
The decision is simple: if you want a speaker pair that lives in one room and serves every screen and phone in it, this is the best value I know at the price. If your speakers only ever sit on a desk for music, save $170 and get the M60. And if you demand ecosystem features — AirPlay, Wi-Fi streaming, voice assistants — the M90 isn't that product, and you should be looking at Sonos or Dali instead.
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