Page 2 - Physical Look - Hardware
Like the Edifier S1000DB, the S2000 Pro are massive. If you are planning to put these speakers on your desk, then you better have a pretty large desk. As I have mentioned in the introduction of this review, both models are built with the same enclosure, hence their similarities. At specified dimensions of 34.3cm tall, 20.3cm wide, and 26.7cm deep, you know these bookshelf style speakers are not made for the common man by sheer size alone. It is even bigger than the Audioengine HD6. If you are looking for something a little smaller that fits well on your desk, my advice is to look elsewhere. All S2000 Pro models come with wooden side panels and matte black finish in front. The genuine birch sideboards are darker than the wood used in the S1000DB. In my opinion, the S2000 Pro looks clean yet sophisticated, and aptly looks the part as a piece of premium audio equipment. It is different than the HD6 in a way that it does not look like it has been designed by someone with a ruler, and only a ruler. I am also happy to see detachable speaker grilles are included. They are held on by four friction tabs, and Edifier claims attaching the grilles reduces sound attenuation. Of course, we can never judge acoustics by the way it looks, so let us talk about its construction and design.
From the front, both the left and right speakers look nearly identical. At the bottom is a 5.5" high strength, low distortion aluminum cone woofer with energy absorbing rubber hemming, and at the top is a 1" low distortion planar diaphragm tweeter. The woofers were calibrated using a Klippel precision analyzer. Together, the frequency response of the woofers and the tweeters is rated at 48Hz to 20kHz. Compared to the S1000DB, the most obvious change are the tweeters. We will talk about its actual performance in our evaluation on the next page. The drivers are angled to face the listener for improved soundstaging, and reduces the resonance of the output. Signal to noise ratio is specified at ≥94dBA. At the bottom, Edifier's logo is embossed onto the grille piece. A bunch of LEDs are present on the right speaker to indicate power status and input source, where it glows white in accordance to the labeled input, including Opt, Bluetooth logo, Cox, Bal, and Aux. An infrared receiver for the remote control is also located here.
Here is a shot at the back of the Edifier S2000 Pro powered desktop speakers. By "powered", it means it comes with an internal amplifier. What we have here are three internal amplifiers located inside the right speaker that provides 12W for each tweeter and 50W for each woofer RMS per channel for a combined output of 124W RMS. Surprisingly, both speakers weigh about the same. Edifier does not specify how much the speakers weigh, but according to my trusty digital bathroom scale, both came out to be 20.0lbs -- certainly not light by any metric, and one more pound than the S1000DB. A bass reflex port opening can be seen at the top of both speakers. The main, bass, and treble volumes can be adjusted independently by three knobs shown in our photo above. Pressing the infinite rotation master volume dial will allow you to cycle between inputs, while holding it down will disconnect the active Bluetooth device. The S2000 Pro will remember the last volume setting when set above a certain level. Power is supplied by a 100-240V internal power supply, which can be turned on or off by a rocker style switch.
As you can see in our photo above, Edifier offers a generous array of input connectors on the S2000 Pro. There is an RCA line-in, optical, coaxial, and XLR balanced input. A 3.5mm to RCA cable is included for you to connect devices that uses this jack. It is too bad there is no USB input, but most computers have optical out anyway. This is the first time I have seen an XLR balanced input in a computer speaker; an invaluable feature if you are planning to use the S2000 Pro as studio monitors for audio production. Unlike most powered computer speakers with multiple inputs I have used in the past, you can actually select between optical, coaxial, auxiliary, XLR, and Bluetooth separately, which is very useful for those who plan to hook up some newer cable boxes that cannot be turned off or muted. On the output side, no stereo line level output is present. Having a stereo line level output is a big oversight in my opinion, because you lose the option to pair a subwoofer to the S2000 Pro. The only output is the one that connects the active right speaker to the passive left speaker, where an included 5m cable gets the job done. The cable has a transparent black metallic yarn finish and a five-pin connector that separates the treble and bass signal transmission for minimal self-interference.
Edifier packs some serious electronics inside the S2000 Pro. It features a Texas Instruments TLV320AIC3254 digital signal processor, wired independently of the electronic crossover and dynamic management. A 24-bit, 96kHz Texas Instruments PCM1802 chip takes care off the analog to digital conversion, while a 24-bit, 216 kHz PCM9211 digital interface IC is responsible for the optical and coaxial inputs. Three independent Texas Instruments TAS5754 digital input Class D amplifiers promise best-in-class performance for minimal distortion and local noise. One TAS5754 takes care of the treble and bass, a second one powers the woofers using a parallel to the bridge connection, and the third one is dedicated to 768kHz amplifier output frequency. The printed circuit board is populated with WIMA audio grade capacitors.
On the wireless side, Bluetooth operation depends on an internal antenna. To start, simply switch the Edifier S2000 Pro to Bluetooth mode. Protocols supported over Bluetooth include aptX, AAC, and SBC thanks to the Qualcomm CSR8645 chip. SBC, or Subband Coding, is the default Bluetooth audio codec with reasonably good audio quality and low processing power requirements. aptX is a time domain ADPCM compression algorithm that promises "CD like quality" according to the people promoting it -- but so does MP3 at 128kbps, which, in my opinion, is quite an overused marketing term in the industry. Do not get me wrong; it is probably still an improvement compared to the standard profile, since it has a more efficient encoding algorithm and higher bitrates. In case you are asking, Apple devices do not support aptX, but many high-end Android devices do, like my Nexus 9. Fortunately, for Apple users, the S2000 Pro supports AAC as well, which communicates at about 250kbps from the source.
The Edifier S2000 Pro is built using 18mm thick wooden enclosures with genuine birch sideboards. Our photo above shows the bottom of the S2000 Pro, which four rubber feet with metal perimeters are used to dampen it from the surface it resides on. This is most likely your wooden or glass desk, which can be very useful. No inserts are present for wall mounts. The S1000DB's rubber feet do not feature metal surrounds like the S2000 Pro, which is a nice visual upgrade on the latest model.
Edifier includes a remote control to go with the S2000 Pro, shown in our photo above. The remote control is black and made out of glossy plastic, and its layout is relatively simple. However, it is a considerable upgrade from the S1000DB in terms of appearance -- this one looks way more sophisticated and classy. The black mirror finish is a fingerprint magnet though. It starts off with two buttons at the top, which are power and mute. The power button toggles between standby and on. Next, a matrix of buttons allows you to select the input source directly; labeled from the left to right and top to bottom, Opt, Bluetooth logo, Cox, Bal, and Aux, which should be self-explanatory. Using the power button will fade out your music if something is playing at the time you press the button. The S2000 Pro's internal equalizer presets is selected by pressing the buttons labeled monitor, dynamic, classic, and vocal. Pressing left or right on the D-pad will repeat and skip, respectively; while hitting up or down will increase or decrease the volume, respectively. The button in the middle of the D-pad is play/pause.
With all this in mind, it is now time to put the Edifier S2000 Pro through APH Networks' infamous subjective audio tests.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware
3. Subjective Audio Analysis
4. Conclusion
