There are two kinds of powered speakers in the $400 range. There are the ones that sound great and expect you to live with two inputs and an ugly black box, and there are the ones that try to be a complete audio system in a pair of cabinets. The Edifier S880DB MKII is firmly in the second camp, and it's one of the best-executed examples of the breed I've used. It's a small, handsome two-way active pair — 88W RMS, titanium-dome tweeters, LDAC Bluetooth 5.3 — that will happily serve a desktop, a bedroom hi-fi, or a small living room, because Edifier has crammed in nearly every input you can imagine, plus a remote, an OLED display, an app with a real EQ, and a subwoofer output for when its modest drivers run out of low end.
It's the successor to the original S880DB from 2018, and Edifier didn't phone in the update. The tweeter grew from one inch to 1.25 inches with a bigger voice coil and neodymium magnets, the mid-bass driver was redesigned, the electronics were rebuilt around an XMOS processor, Bluetooth jumped to 5.3 with LDAC, and a USB-C input and subwoofer out were added. The catch is the price: the MKII launched at $399.99 in September 2025 and now lists at $449.99 in the U.S. — while the 2018 original launched for roughly half that. I spent a few weeks with a pair on my desk and around the room, and the question I kept coming back to is whether this is $450 of speaker, or $450 of convenience and good looks with a $350 sound underneath.
Key Specifications
| Specification | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Powered (active) 2-way bookshelf pair, dual Class-D amps |
| Total power | 88W RMS (12W to each tweeter + 32W to each mid-bass driver, per Edifier) |
| Tweeter | 1.25" titanium dome, 25mm voice coil, neodymium magnet |
| Mid-bass driver | 3.75" aluminum long-throw |
| Frequency response | 50Hz – 40kHz (manufacturer) |
| Signal-to-noise | ≥ 85dB(A) |
| DSP | XMOS XU216 processor, Texas Instruments chipsets, active crossover, Dynamic Range Control |
| Hi-res support | Up to 24-bit/192kHz over USB-C, optical, coaxial; 24-bit/96kHz over RCA and LDAC |
| Inputs | 2× RCA line-in, USB-C, Optical (Toslink), Coaxial, Bluetooth 5.3 |
| Bluetooth codecs | LDAC (up to 990kbps), SBC — no AAC, no aptX |
| Outputs | 3.5mm TRS subwoofer out |
| Controls | Volume/treble/bass knobs (right speaker), 2.4GHz gesture remote, Edifier ConneX app |
| Display | Auto-dimming OLED on the right speaker |
| Dimensions | 5.7 × 9.3 × 8.1 in (145 × 237 × 207 mm) active; 5.7 × 9.3 × 7.6 in (145 × 237 × 192 mm) passive |
| Weight | 13.8 lb (6.27 kg) for the pair |
| Finishes | White with light wood panels; Black with walnut panels |
| Warranty | 2 years (Edifier North America) |
Design and Build
Open the box and the first thing you notice is that these are small. Each cabinet is 9.3 inches tall and about 5.7 inches wide — a fraction of the footprint of most bookshelf pairs in this price class, and small enough that two of them flanking a 27-inch monitor still leaves your desk usable. The second thing you notice is how much care went into how they look. The curved wood side panels — light maple-toned on the white version, walnut on the black — give the pair a furniture feel, and the front and top are wrapped in a textured coating that reads more sofa cushion than speaker cabinet. It's a two-tone, multi-texture look that's rare at this price; most competitors ship either all-black vinyl boxes or glossy plastic. The white version especially is one of the few powered speakers I'd describe as something you'd choose to look at, not just listen to.
Build quality matches the ambition. The MDF cabinets feel inert when you knock on them — no hollow resonance — and the pair weighs 13.8 pounds total, so nothing about them feels cheap. The drivers are cleanly mounted behind the front baffle, with a small OLED display sitting low on the right speaker. It shows the active input, volume, and sound profile, and it auto-dims after a few seconds so it doesn't glow at you across a dark room. Nice touch.
Two grumbles before the praise. The speakers connect to each other with a 5-pin DIN cable, and it's thick and stiff — not hard to plug in, but awkward to route neatly behind a desk, and it's the one cable Edifier can't shorten because it's the amplifier link. And a few owner reports mention a corner of the textured coating arriving not fully adhered to the cabinet — the kind of thing that could peel over years. Mine were clean, but give yours a once-over on arrival. There are no grilles in the box either, so the titanium domes sit exposed; treat the front of the speakers as off-limits to kids and curious pets.
Sound Quality
The honest preamble: there's no published measurement database for this model as of this writing — no independent on-axis and off-axis response curves or distortion sweeps to lean on — so what follows is based on listening, and I'll flag the places where reasonable listeners might land differently. The good news is that the S880DB MKII sounds more grown-up than its size suggests, and the way it's tuned rewards certain music in a way that feels intentional.
Midrange. This is the star of the show, and it's where Edifier's driver work pays off. Vocals are front-and-center with real articulation — the kind of presence that makes you hear the singer's mouth working rather than a vague voice floating somewhere in the room. Male and female voices both come through with weight and texture, and acoustic instruments keep their body. The character sits on the neutral-to-slightly-forward side; there's no fake warmth ladled over the mids. This is a speaker that wants to show you the recording, and with well-produced rock, jazz, and singer-songwriter material it delivers detail you'd normally expect from something bigger.
Treble. The bigger titanium dome is a clear step up from the original's. Highs are extended and detailed — cymbals have sparkle, hi-hats are crisp, and there's a tactile quality to transients that makes drums and plucked strings exciting. The flip side: it can get edgy at the very top. Brightly recorded female vocals and massed strings push toward harshness at higher volumes, something I noticed more on choral and pop material than on anything else. At sensible levels it's fine; if you're treble-sensitive, the app EQ gives you a way to take the edge off. And unlike a lot of budget titanium tweeters, it never turned sibilant on me — "s" sounds stayed clean.
Bass. Here's where the physical limits of a 3.75-inch driver show up, and it's the one polarizing thing about this speaker. Out of the box, with the default "Classic" preset, the low end is polite at best — present enough for a kick drum's click and a bassline's shape, but light on weight, and complex mixes with heavy low-frequency content turn vague down low. Switch to the "Monitor" preset (the flattest of the five) and the picture changes: the bass tightens up, integrates more cleanly with the mids, and the mid-bass driver and tweeter hand off to each other so cleanly that you'd never guess where the crossover sits. What you don't get, in any preset, is deep or heavy bass. There's no pretending a speaker this size is going to pressurize a room. The rear-firing oval reflex ports help it sound bigger than it is, and in near-field desk use the bass is honestly decent — better than the original S880DB, and better than most desktop speakers twice its volume. But it's also why Edifier added the subwoofer output. That's the honest math: if you want real low end, plan on a sub.
Loudness and composure. Given the size, these get properly loud — louder than you'd expect, and they stay clean doing it. Cranked at a desk, they'll embarrass much larger speakers. Push them to the top and the bass blooms a bit and loses focus, which is typical of small ported designs, but there's no harsh breakup or distortion even then.
Imaging and soundstage. For near-field use, this is a strength. The phantom center is solid and focused — centered vocals stay locked in place — and instruments separate cleanly left-to-right. What you don't get is much sense of space beyond the speakers. The soundstage is contained: precise but compact, with little of the "speakers disappear, wall of sound" trick that bigger or better-angled designs pull off. On a desk, two feet apart, angled toward your ears, they image beautifully. Expecting them to fill a large living room with a wide, airy stage will disappoint. The practical takeaway is placement: these are near-field speakers at heart. Set them up as an equilateral triangle with your listening position, toe them in slightly, and give the rear ports a few inches of wall clearance — shoved flat against a wall, the bass gets boomy and the stage collapses further.
Presets and tuning. The five profiles (Classic, Monitor, Dynamic, Vocal, Customized) change the character more than most speaker EQ modes, which usually amount to marketing theater. Monitor is the honest, most musical setting and the one I'd leave it on; Classic, the default, is the weakest of the bunch, dulling the mids and softening the bass. Dynamic adds treble urgency for rock, and Vocal pushes the upper mids for spoken-word content. The Customized slot ties to the six-band EQ in the app, which is where you can fix the treble edge or add low-end presence to taste.
Inputs and Connectivity
Feature-wise, this is where the S880DB MKII embarrasses most of its price bracket. On the back of the right speaker you get two RCA line inputs, USB-C, optical, coaxial, and Bluetooth 5.3 — plus a 3.5mm subwoofer output. That means a desktop setup can have the computer on USB-C, a console or CD player on optical, a turntable with a phono preamp on one RCA pair, a second line source on the other, and the phone on Bluetooth, all connected at once with switching via the remote, the app, or the front panel.
The USB-C input deserves a special mention because it's not just a port — it has its own DAC architecture behind it, so plugging a laptop straight in bypasses the laptop's audio circuitry entirely and the speakers handle the decoding up to 24-bit/192kHz. This is the cleanest way to run them from a computer, and it's a feature most rivals at this price don't offer. Optical and coaxial accept the same hi-res rates, and the RCA inputs run at 24-bit/96kHz through the analog front end. Everything is Hi-Res Audio certified, wired and wireless.
Bluetooth is the one asterisk. It's 5.3 with LDAC support up to 990kbps, which from a compatible Android phone (Android 8.0+) sounds essentially as good as a wired connection — impressive wireless audio when the stars align. But that's the whole list: LDAC and SBC. There's no AAC and no aptX, which matters more than Edifier seems to acknowledge. If you're an iPhone user, your phone doesn't do LDAC — it will fall back to SBC, which is the oldest, least impressive codec in common use, and over SBC these speakers lose some of the polish they show over every wired input. Android users get the full experience; Apple users should plan on a cable for critical listening. It's a strange omission on a speaker this well-connected, and it's the kind of thing that only shows up in the fine print.
Features and Control
The remote is the headline feature and the closest thing to a personality flaw. It's a small white puck that charges over USB-C, with a touch surface that senses your hand approaching — the volume and input controls are gesture-driven, and it buzzes faintly to confirm each action. It's a cool object, and from across a room it works reliably for volume and input switching. The problem is the wake-up delay: the puck sleeps to save battery, and every time you reach for it there's a beat where nothing happens before it registers your input. Half a second of "did I miss?" every single time. It's consistent across units, so it's a design quirk rather than a defect — but it doesn't get less annoying with use. Once it's awake, the gestures work well: swipe for volume, tap for mute and play/pause, and the dedicated Bluetooth button puts the speakers in pairing mode instantly.
If you lose or ignore the puck, the speakers stay fully usable: the right speaker carries volume, treble, and bass knobs on its rear panel, and every control is duplicated in the Edifier ConneX app, which adds the six-band EQ, input selection, and preset management. There's also no balance control anywhere — not on the app, the knobs, or the remote. If your desk setup forces you to sit off-center, that's a real omission, and one you can't work around with the supplied tools.
The OLED display is small and smart about what it shows — input, volume, preset — and auto-dims rather than switching off entirely, so a glance still tells you what's playing without lighting up the room. The speakers also remember their last input and volume setting through power cycles, and the DSP includes dynamic range control for late-night listening. All of it hangs together in a way that makes the pair feel finished. The one thing I'd note on longevity: the whole package — amps, DSP, Bluetooth, DAC — lives in the right speaker, and if that electronics board dies after the two-year warranty, the passive left cabinet is a paperweight. That's the standard trade-off of powered speakers, but it's worth saying plainly.
Who This Is For, and Who Should Skip It
Buy these if: you want one compact pair that handles a desktop, a bedroom, or a small-room hi-fi setup without a receiver; you have multiple sources (computer, phone, console, turntable with preamp) and want them all wired in at once; you listen to vocals, acoustic music, rock, and jazz at near-field distances and value midrange clarity over bass weight; or you like the idea of real tone control via an app without depending on it. Android phone users get the full Bluetooth experience, and anyone who'll add a subwoofer gets a system that scales up well.
Skip them if: you want deep bass without adding a subwoofer — a pair of Edifier's own MR5 monitors or anything with a larger woofer will satisfy more out of the box; you're an iPhone user who mostly streams over Bluetooth, since SBC is all you'll get wirelessly; you want a TV soundbar replacement with one HDMI cable — there's no HDMI input here at all; or you're on a tighter budget, where the value math changes fast.
Competitive Comparison
| Model | Street price | Power | Drivers | Key inputs | Bluetooth | Sub out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edifier S880DB MKII | $449.99 list | 88W RMS | 1.25" titanium dome + 3.75" aluminum | 2× RCA, USB-C, optical, coax | 5.3, LDAC/SBC | Yes |
| Edifier MR5 | ~$349.99 | 110W RMS | 1" silk dome + 3.75" mid + 5" woofer | XLR, TRS, RCA, 3.5mm | Yes, LDAC | No |
| Kanto Ren | ~$599 | 100W RMS | 1" silk dome + 5.25" aluminum | HDMI ARC, USB-C, optical, RCA, 3.5mm | 5.3, AAC/SBC | Yes |
The most interesting competitor is Edifier's own MR5. For about a hundred dollars less, the MR5 gives you a bigger 5-inch woofer, a separate midrange driver, more total power, and a more linear, accurate sound — to my ears it's the better-sounding speaker, full stop. What you give up is everything that makes the S880DB MKII pleasant to live with: the MR5 is a utilitarian black studio monitor with no remote, no OLED, no consumer EQ presets, no subwoofer output, and no USB-C audio. That's the real decision here, and it's a values question more than a sound question: the S880DB MKII is the product for someone who wants a system that looks good and feels finished; the MR5 is for someone who just wants the most accurate sound per dollar and doesn't care what the boxes look like.
The Kanto Ren is the step-up alternative at around $599 — same compact footprint idea, plus HDMI ARC for TV hookup and a warmer, more musical tuning, but you pay 33% more and lose LDAC (Kanto sticks with AAC and SBC). And if you're comparing against the original S880DB that this replaces, there's no contest: the MKII is better in every measurable way — bigger tweeter, cleaner mids, modern codecs, sub out, USB-C — which is exactly what a MKII should be. The original's one remaining advantage is that it launched for about half the MKII's current list price, which tells you Edifier has repositioned this line upmarket. Whether that repositioning sticks depends on where the street price lands.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Compact, handsome design with wood side panels — one of the best-looking powered pairs in its class
- Excellent midrange and vocal clarity; detailed, tactile treble from the upgraded titanium dome
- Outstanding input selection for the price: USB-C with its own DAC, optical, coaxial, dual RCA, LDAC Bluetooth, and a subwoofer output
- XMOS-based DSP with five usable presets and a six-band EQ in the ConneX app
- Loud and composed for its size; OLED display and gesture remote are thoughtful touches
- 2-year U.S. warranty and generous cable kit in the box
Cons
- Limited bass weight and extension — a subwoofer is effectively required for anything bass-heavy
- No AAC or aptX Bluetooth: iPhone users are stuck with SBC
- No HDMI input, so it's not a clean one-cable TV solution
- Remote puck's wake-up lag is annoying in daily use; no balance control anywhere
- Price has crept up from the original S880DB's launch level, and Edifier's own MR5 sounds better for less
Verdict
The Edifier S880DB MKII is one of the most complete compact powered speaker systems you can buy, and at the same time it's a speaker that asks you to accept its compromises. If you're an Android user with a desk or a small room, a taste for vocals and acoustic detail, and a plan to add a subwoofer later, this is about as good as the format gets: gorgeous, flexible, real hi-fi in the mids and highs, and equipped like a speaker twice its price. At $449.99, though, it's a considered purchase — the value argument is strained by the missing AAC support for Apple users, the undeniable low-end limits, and the fact that Edifier's own cheaper MR5 sounds more accurate. When it dips toward its $399.99 launch price — and it will, because Edifier runs sales the way other companies run ads — it's easy to recommend. My advice: wait for the sale, buy the sub, and put them at ear level. Do that and you'll be happy with them for a long time.
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