Edifier MS50A Bluetooth & WLAN Speaker Review – Not quite as smart, but tap-proof and with a nice sound

1 - Einführung, Unboxing und Technik 2 - Verbinden und Bedienen 3 - Sound-Check und Zusammenfassung

Sound Check

The sound is quite good and round for such a small midget. The rather warm tuning comes from the rather present lower mids, and I’m grateful that Edifier didn’t overfatten the upper bass between 100 and 150 Hz in return to feign cheap low end. The usual cardboard sound at 250 Hz is also missed with a joyful feeling. The part plays completely relaxed down to its physical dispersion limit and is limited at the end only by the small internal volume and the amplifier power.

At lower and medium volumes, you usually get the impression of higher volume shelf speakers, which I liked. You can’t generate extreme volumes with it, but up to about 20 m² of room area, it’s quite good. Two people with a left-hand box could certainly do more, but then the question of price arises again.

Power consumption

In a switched-off state (let’s call it stand-by), the calibrated measuring system displays an ample 0.25 watts, which is fully within the required standard. With active WLAN (Connected), the speaker needs up to 2.7 watts in idle (no signal), otherwise with Bluetooth (you always need something) it is about 200 mW less.  For normal room volume, it’s around 5 to 6 watts, with a bit more boom then 10 to 15. The full output then becomes a bit more full-bodied and the peaks were up to 25 watts. More is not possible, if it is not exactly to sound like trampled tin bucket. From this point of view, the specifications with up to 40 watts RMS are quite plausible if you assume a sine power between 20 and 25 watts.

Summary and conclusion

The Edifier MS50A Bluetooth speaker is kind of semi-smart in the end. Controlling Tidal, Amazon & Co is possible, but not directly via voice input via the speaker. Feat, because a microphone is missing. This is not particularly disadvantageous, because things like Tidal can also be pushed from their apps and even from the PC. Navigating in the playlists is then done as usual via control buttons on the speaker. On the other hand, you can at least be sure that Putin, Xi or the almost omniscient brother behind the Atlantic won’t notice anything if you express yourself too critically about the times.

Sound-wise, you can live well with the peck (see above), it is surprisingly potent and not on lean. Only the too low noise level on the iPhone via Bluetooth is annoying, while the power cord that slips out quickly is even really annoying. You can easily help yourself against the latter; with the iPhone, you have to choose the clever way via WLAN, if the respective app supports that at all. It is also a pity that all sources arrive with different levels. WLAN is much more sensitive than Bluetooth, unfortunately.

Speaking of the app, the Edifier Home app is plenty rudimentary and one would like to have more options like maybe even a simple tone control. However, this is not possible. Installation via the is self-explanatory to some extent, if you think along a bit. The manual, on the other hand, is rather misleading for laymen. That’s why Grandma Hilde would probably be lost without grandchildren. A test attempt with my mother revealed a similar deficit on the manual comprehensibility side. But you can do much worse, I know what I’m writing about.

The operation via the touchpad mostly worked absolutely smoothly, only wet fingers should better not be used. That times for those who plan the part for the kitchen. And what else? Great workmanship, proper sound and at the end of the day the nice insight that stereo is rather overrated and therefore dispensable in areas where you only listen with one ear anyway and let yourself sprinkle. WLAN helps to bypass the usual Bluetooth restrictions, as long as the players also find the device. This also puts the 140 Euros into perspective, since the Edifier R1280DB, which was mentioned at the beginning, is offline by nature.