Edifier S2000MKIII Review
Review Tech

Edifier S2000MKIII Review

When the email to tell me the Edifier S2000MKIII Review unit had arrived I was pretty excited. The last pair of bookshelf speakers from Edifier I reviewed were the dual purpose R1580MB’s.

So, I was looking forward to checking out some good old fashioned speakers dedicated to one thing and one thing only. Quality sound.

The Edifier S2000MKIII’s are quite hefty and take up quite a bit of space. But, if you can accommodate their size you’ll be pleasantly surprised by just how good these are. How good? Read on to find out!

They Feature Bluetooth V5.0 with Qualcomm aptX HD decoding and carry a Hi-res certification for components. The planar diaphragm tweeters and 5.5-inch woofers are normally found in HiFi level speaker models!

Edifier S2000MKIII Review: These are simply sublime!
Edifier S2000MKIII Review: These are simply sublime!

Edifier S2000MKIII Review

I began my review as I usually do, by taking a look at the packaging. Its fairly basic so I won’t waste your time telling you too much about it.

The speakers are well packaged and I don’t envisage them getting damaged in the mail. The outer box has some details about the speakers along with the Edifier packaging.

Something that had improved over the last set; a reduced amount of plastic. The cables needed to get set-up were in a cardboard sleeve, previously they had been encased in plastic. So a good plus point there!

Another thing I noticed about Edifier’s packaging is that the smaller devices, such as earbuds and headphones have really great packaging. The larger and more expensive products have to make do with some basic packaging.

My initial reaction to this was that it’s probably a bit of a cost cutting exercise to help save a few pounds / dollars on the more premium stuff. But, after a few minutes thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that I would happily pay more to have a premium unboxing experience.

Anyway, my first impressions of the actual speakers? Really heavy but stunning to look at!

S2000MKIII Review: The exposed screws look great.
S2000MKIII Review: The exposed screws look great.

Edifier S2000MKIII Review

It was almost audio love at first sight when I unboxed them. The speakers are really heavy, so probably not suitable for my cheap IKEA desk. But, very much at home on the TV stand.

The Edifier S2000MKIII are firmly out of the budget range, you’ll find them for just under £330 / $400. That may seem expensive, but they definitely look and feel like speakers that are worth every penny and more.

If it was my own cash I would happily pay the asking price.

I normally include the tech spec but I’m not sure how much value my audience is getting out of it, so I’m going to skip it on this occasion! If you want it, then drop a comment below and I’ll include the more techy stuff in the next review.

Sound Quality

The Edifier S2000MKIII’s really do fill the entire room with a full sound that has such epic clarity. You’ll find yourself finding instruments in songs that you never realised were there.

On the bundled remote control you can select from four pre-configured audio profiles. These audio modes are:

  • Monitor
  • Dynamic
  • Classic
  • Vocal

When changing between the four different modes there is a minimal yet effective change to the overall tone, but to be honest I’d have expected the differences between them to be more distinct. The best of out the bunch is monitor mode though.

It gives a more enjoyable truer sound. Placed either side of my TV the sound feels like it’s coming at you from right in the middle, it’s a really great experience.

The master volume control is 50-level high-precision knob that allows lovely tactile adjustment, this ensures you get a totally immersive and extremely loud listening experience when required. 

For the sound test I watched the film Fury. I had the speakers on Dynamic mode. This really brought the movie to life and you could hear the sound moving around the room when a tank drove from right to left on screen.

The bass is very responsive and just wants to keep firing those booming punches until your neighbors come knocking. It’s tight and crisp and if you crank the dial all the way up to max it’ll definitely rattle your ear drums.

As for the mid-range, the tone is really impressive and only gets better the louder you adjust the volume. The treble is really good and doesn’t allow the large woofers to drown out the high-hat and snare sounds.

One slight annoyance is that they don’t sound as good when listening on lower volumes. It’s probably because of the way the power is fed to the speaker as the volume is adjusted. I guess that’s one draw back of having one active and one passive speaker.

There is a cool innovative touch on these though and that is the smart start-up. It protects both your hearing and the speaker from harm. If you were listening at high volumes it’ll lower the volume the next time you turn them on. I thought it was a bug in the system at first, but when I did my research I realised it was intentional.

Overall, these sound really, really good. They’re loud enough to fill a large sized bedroom, home office or living room easily with no degradation at higher volumes.

Build Quality

One word. Stunning.

The classic dark wood grain against the black drivers and grey dust covers look amazing. I really love the gloss black cones and the exposed screws holding the drivers in place.

They are really solid. I tried scratching the wood grain with a key and then with a pen. It handled my scratch test perfectly without as much as a smudge on the wood. To be honest I didn’t try too hard as these ones are going to be returned, but it gave me a decent enough idea of just how well built these are.

The only weak part of these speakers are the dust cover grills. They’ve very pliable and I reckon I could easily break it in a ‘twist’ test. A more real world test would be if someone stepped on it by accident.

I don’t think the dust covers would hold up to much punishment, so keep them somewhere safe if you decide to rock your speakers without them attached.

On the back of the active speaker there are 3 controls to adjust the volume bass or treble. When you adjust the volume you’ll receive lovely tactile feedback, that same feedback is not there when you adjust the bass or treble. I feel it should be, it’d give a more consistent user experience.

There are also 2 RCA inputs which means I can plug my PC and laptop in at the same time. There’s also an optical input I used to connect my TV when I watched Fury.

I usually have a 2.1 system hooked up to the TV and the S2000MKIII’s were just as good. If you are after a decent 2.1 system, I covered some on the blog, so here’s my XM3BT Review if you want to check them out.

The Bluetooth connectivity is easy and strong. I paired up my phone in seconds and didn’t suffer any of the connection issues I’ve faced before with other speakers in the range. There is also no discernible quality difference when listening via wired or wireless input.

An included remote control often accompanies most Edifier bookshelf speakers, it’s a bit hit and miss sometimes though. But I’m pleased to say this time it’s a big win. The remote is fantastic and well built. It doesn’t seem like an after thought at all.

Overall these are really well made and Edifiers fantastic build quality in there for all to see.

Where Can I Buy The Edifier S2000MKIII?

We found them for sale on Amazon they’ll set you back around $300. They’re a great price at the minute so all you need to do is click or tap on the button below to get a great deal!

Summary & Verdict

Score: 9.5 / 10

I’m not an audio expert by any stretch of the imagination (yet) but I would be surprised if there’s a better pair of book shelf speakers at the same price point.

The only reason I didn’t give them the perfect 10 was because the dust covers feel a little bit ‘off the shelf’ and not purpose built for this particular model. They also felt a little weak and fragile but that shouldn’t stop you considering these.

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Disclosure

The Amazon links in this article are affiliate links. This means that if you go onto buy something from Amazon after clicking on them we may get a small commission. It won’t cost you anything extra but it helps us pay towards the running costs of the blog. It allows us to bring you great content! Thank you so much for your support.

CodeWithMike is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to www.amazon.co.uk.

CodeWithMike is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to www.amazon.com.

The speaker units sent to us for this review have since been returned. All opinions are our own and we were not paid to write this review.

4 Comments

  1. Honestly, if they looked like a turd and still sounded the same I wouldn’t draw a point of off them.
    Due to the very well tuned DSP I found these speakers also sound very full and detailed on low volumes. They would wipe away any passive setup on low volume, even speakers with a high sensitivity. Are you sure you ran them for 50 to 100 hours before you did your review? I found mine changed quiet a lot in sound character compared to when they just came out of the box. Low end became deeper and way more detailed (also on low volume) turning the bass dial a bit back. The mid/high section became sweeter and “rounder” with more refined details ( and also on low volume).
    At the start I did not notice much difference with the presets/EQ settings but after the 50+ hours of playing the differences became way more distinctive.
    If I had to withdraw a score point it would be the bass port chuffing at very high volumes. I have to add, this is different depending on the room where they play. In the living room (50 m2) it’s hardly noticeable but the set we run in a way smaller room it’s pretty present. Note, bass port chuffing is one of the downsizes that every bass reflex speaker has.

    Enjoy and cheers for your review!

    • CodeWithMike

      Hi RD, Thanks for your thoughts! Yea I was really conflicted but in the interest of honesty I commented on the poor quality dust covers simply because I felt a little disapointed by them. But I do understand your point, they are simply sublime!

      For the sound test, I mainly listened in my small home office so didn’t really experience that bass port chuffing. It’s a metric I’ll keep an ear on in future sound tests. I must admit, I didn’t quite get to the 50 hour burn in time! These were only loan units so I had minimal time to get to grips with them.

      Take care,

      Mike.

  2. simon degirolamo

    Edifies s2000 speakers are you able to hook up wireless headphones to them and how world volume work ?

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