Edifier R1010BT Studio Monitor Speaker Review

Usability –

The rear of the R1010BT houses the bulk of the interfaces, the bass port and main controls have also been moved to the rears and share the same basic layout as Edifier’s other speakers. At the bottom lies two spring loaded connectors that route power through a generic interconnect wire to the left passive speaker. This allows users to easily switch in a longer cable for wider placement.

The speakers have an integrated power cable that is relatively short and may limit the placement of the speakers in some setups where the use of an extension cable is not possible. Just above is a power switch next to the basic tone adjustment dial and analogue volume control since the speakers don’t support remote commands like the R1280T. The volume knob doubles as the source selector via button press, switching between the Speaker’s two RCA line-in inputs and Bluetooth. The dials do feel a bit cheap with a plastic construction though they rarely require adjustment beyond initial setup and are well hidden at the rears of the speakers. The rear facing bass port also makes the R101BT more placement sensitive than the R1280T though the bass dial does offer some level of compensation and individual tune-ability.

When placed in Bluetooth mode, the speakers immediately enter pairing mode or attempt to establish a connection with a previously paired device. As always, the lack of a distinct pairing mode removes an extra step from setup making them that much more convenient to use. The R1010Bt’s support Bluetooth 4.0 enabling two devices to pair simultaneously. Unfortunately, they don’t support apt-x and their implementation is clearly worse than Edifier’s higher priced speakers. In my testing, the R1010BT’s had inferior range, occasional dropouts and noticeably higher latency than the majority of Bluetooth enabled speakers I’ve used. They are still usable for movies and videos though delay is clearly noticeable and gaming over wireless is far from ideal. That being said, most similarly priced speakers don’t even support Bluetooth at all and the R1010BT works perfectly fine for music streaming where latency is less of an issue.

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