Edifier S880DB MKII: Two-minute review

As the best small-format active speakers go, the Edifier S880DB MKII are pretty swell. They go toe-to-toe with a great many other low-to-mid-range hi-fi pairs, thanks to a prodigious array of forward-thinking inputs both analog and digital. There’s also a subwoofer output to fully extend the practicality of these little (and surprisingly loud) actives, and a gesture-controlled remote puck to access a bunch of different functions, from input switching and volume control to handling various EQ sound profiles.

Excellent as the S880DB MKII are on paper, between their swish aesthetics and versatile, future-friendly control options, small frustrations abound with the remote control’s reaction time and bass-representation issues inherent to the small-bookshelf format.

These frustrations are just that: small. But they’re made all the larger when other active speaker models in Edifier’s roster, namely the excellent MR5 monitors, are simultaneously cheaper and better-performing.

Ultimately, though, the Edifier S880DB MKII do a lot of things right, and as many things well. I’m thusly inclined to score it kindly, in recognition of what it’s achieved over what it’s competing against. After all, it’s a MKII, and well and truly a well-upgraded successor in a competitive niche.

Edifier S880DB MKII review: Price & release date

• $449.99 / £335.99 / AU$595.99
• Launched on 4th September, 2025

Edifier is a key figure in the budget audio space, with a pretty wide-ranging roster of audio bits and bobs that punch well above their figurative weight. I can prove it, too: I was happy enough to review Edifier’s new MR5 monitor speakers some months ago, and happened to think mighty well of their performance (and even mightier of this performance against their frankly astonishing budget price point).

These speakers, though, exist in a different paradigm to the musician-oriented active listening monitors that the MR5 very much are. These are the Edifier S880DB MKII, a second-gen successor set of multidisciplinary active bookshelf speakers that ably straddle a broad set of use cases. Bedroom hi-fi system? Small desk-friendly active monitors? Subsidiary speaker set for your small cinema system? Why not!

This versatility is courtesy of some powerful internal amplification, some smart user-friendly features, and some future-friendly upgrades that make them more able (and better-sounding) than ever before. But do they make the grade, and do their updated features do them justice?

Edifier S880DB MKII review: Specs

Edifier S880DB MKII review: Features

• Multifarious inputs, plus sub output
• Hi-res Bluetooth LDAC connectivity
• Handy remote-control surface

The S880DB MKII are a highly connectible set of small-form active bookshelf speakers, designed to settle suavely into a wide variety of different at-home listening scenarios. Being a successor model to Edifier’s OG S880DB, there’s a lot of familiar stuff in here. But that familiar stuff is part and parcel of a pretty comprehensive upgrade, that brings some improved acoustics and techy quality-of-life updates.

The biggest auditory updates come from the new drivers. The 1-inch titanium dome tweeter from the first model has been sized up to 1.25-inch, with a bigger voice coil to match. The mid-bass driver has also had a ground-up redesign, with the impact of more low end, any of which is a gift in small-format speakers such as these.

With their small size, large 88W RMS output and surprisingly broad frequency range, the S880DB MKII are excellent low-profile partners for a home office PC system – and they’ll slide just as effortlessly into a multi-faceted living room hi-fi or home theatre system, with especial thanks to an expansive set of inputs.

On the wired side of the equation, we have two separate channels of RCA input, a Toslink optical in, coax, and an all-new USB-C connection – the latter of which enjoys its own DAC architecture, so you can connect a laptop directly to it without any dongle-y jiggery-pokery. Sadly, this USB-C port doesn’t also provide the option of 5V power – when USB ports are a commodity at your desk, a spare port for powering peripherals (foreshadowing alert!) would be a welcome gift. Also new is a 3.5mm TRS output for optional connection to a subwoofer unit, giving what’s nominally a small-form set of active bookshelf speakers a great deal more oomph potential.

On the wireless side of the equation, the Edifier S880DB MKII are handily equipped with Bluetooth 5.3, up from the previous version’s 5.1, and now supports Sony’s hi-res LDAC codec, too. On-board you’ll find the requisite rear-mounted treble, bass and volume controls, and within, a set of five EQ presets for different sound profiles: ‘Classic’, ‘Monitor’, ‘Dynamic’, ‘Vocal’ and ‘Customized’.

A new 2.4GHz wireless remote-control puck eschews black plastic and clicky buttons in favour of a silver-and-white gesture-control surface. It senses your hand on approach, and can be used to switch audio inputs, access Bluetooth, control the volume and switch between the aforementioned sound profiles. Any and all changes are heralded by a cheery little vibration from within the puck itself. The MKII is also tweakable via Edifier’s ConneX app, which gives you access to the same controls as the remote, and a six-band EQ with which to customize the, er, ‘Customized’ sound profile.

A small OLED screen on the front displays the necessaries – defaulting to your current audio input, but also showing you volume changes and differing sound profiles as you cycle through. It’s subtle, but subtly futuristic. And I like it.

• Features score: 5/5

Edifier S880DB MKII review: Sound quality

• Excellent high-end clarity
• Exceedingly powerful for their size
• Unfortunate handling of low end

The Edifier S880DB MKII are loud, and impressively so for the format. I dared, hubristically, to test them at full volume while sat at my desk – a crime for which my ears paid dearly, and for which I undoubtedly owe my neighbour an apology bottle of wine.

When they’re not being loud, they’re being remarkably consistent. Whether listening via RCA-in or Bluetooth, there are no discernible shortcomings on the fidelity front. As for character, these speakers are decent all-rounders, but particularly and delightfully tactile in the upper register. Knik by Portugal. The Man is a delight of swishy cymbals, woozy guitars and stacked chest- and head-voice vocals. It’d be fair to say, generally, that the S880DB MKII speakers are extremely vocal-forward, a function of those tight mid-range drivers and titanium tweeters.

That overall handiness, bolstered by high-end tactility, trades off against an under-representative low end. Knik ends with an explosion of fuzzed-out guitars and blooming bass, all lost to a set of speakers that don’t have the stature to platform them properly. At least, this was the first impression I had of the S880DB MKII, predicated on an initial listen through the automatically applied ‘Classic’ sound profile.

Cycling through other modes revealed a decent wedge more boom on all fronts, the more neutral ‘Monitor’ mode immediately the most musical to my ears. The ‘Dynamic’ mode adds a little treble-y urgency, giving a little more love to transients in the process, while the ‘Vocal’ mode seems to target upper mids, doing exactly what you’d expect it to (with a little compensatory ducking of lower mids). Personally, I don’t see why the Classic sound profile is the default option, when it’s so clearly the worst of the bunch.

Better as the other modes sound, all bear out the same essential conclusion that bass isn’t the S880DB MKII’s strong suit – a fundamental truth of the speakers’ small form. This isn’t to say they’re entirely without punch, though. Across all EQ profiles, they’re tuned exactly as you’d expect a jack-of-all-trades hi-fi device, with plenty of presence for hi-hats, voices, and kick-drum clicks, the latter of which grab you enough to insinuate the oomph you’d otherwise miss much more dearly. And if you crank them, you get plenty of somewhat-indistinct bassy bloom from their ported rear faces.

Of course, Edifier are deeply aware of this form-borne shortcoming, and have even made adjustments towards improving it in this second go-around – including greater low-end extension and a new subwoofer out port. I didn’t have an active subwoofer with which to pair the S880DB MKII, but I’d wager that most potential buyers of such speakers don’t either. Besides which, I wouldn’t want to colour my straight opinion of these things with something ‘else’. All the same, it’s a credit to Edifier that they’re working with the size, rather than against it!

I oughtn’t have spent so long on the lower end of the S880DB MKII’s frequency spectrum, not when there’s so much to love a little further up the graph. Queens of the Stone Age’s Everybody Knows That You’re Insane is an explosive delight, jangly guitars and croon-adjacent vocals giving in to gratifyingly grabby power chords and pingy snares.

Getdown Services’ Blooze, meanwhile, is right at home on these speakers, with a boxy, idiosyncratic mix that attains a woolly, three-dimensional presence on my desk – and brings out the best of the S880DB MKII’s miasmic-bass potential in the process. These are truly some high-definition performers, bringing some densely detailed magic where it counts for most.

• Sound quality score: 3.5/5

Edifier S880DB MKII review: Design

• Aesthetically delightful little things
• Breezy to set up and use
• Remote is cool but slow

The Edifier S880DB MKII are incredibly pleasing to behold, with their two-tone, multi-textured, veneer-sandwiched visual design. There are two colorways on offer: one a black-and-walnut affair, the other a white-and-pine-y sorta deal. My review sample matches Nordic pine vibes with a leatherette finish to make something wholly more living-room friendly than other bookshelf-style speakers, many of which fall prey to the same sort-of boring anthracite proclivities, and stick out like lead-stained thumbs accordingly.

The OLED panel on the front runs the risk of being gaudy, but is understatedly smart in execution. It doesn’t clamor for your attention, and only ever shows you whatever you need to know at the time.

As for the practical side of things, it’s as easy as it could be to situate these speakers. Installation is simply a matter of connecting one speaker to the other via the supplied DIN cable, connecting power and making the various audio connections you require. The S880DB MKII have two RCA-ins, USB-C connectivity and Bluetooth 5.3, so you’re unlikely to struggle, though some may understandably miss the convenience of a HDMI ARC option for their telly systems.

Realistically, the biggest challenge you’ll face setting these up is sorting your wireless connections – but Edifier’s made that a breeze, too. You put the speakers in search mode by touching the dedicated Bluetooth space on the remote, and they pop up a moment later in your device’s list of available connections. That’s it. With Bluetooth connected, you can stream audio and access the ConneX app, which also makes messing with your speaker settings breezy as can bee…zy. [Careful now. Ed.]

The only shortcoming on the design front is the remote – and this is in spite of its relatively inspired gesture-control schema. Every time you go to use it, it needs a moment to wake up first; what could be a smooth one-touch experience becomes a couple of frustrated jabs before your request is recognized. It’s hard to design around this, since the alternative is that the remote’s battery drains so much quicker, but it’s still a minor hiccup in an otherwise butter-smooth setup.

If only you could wire it straight to the speakers via a handy 5V-powered USB-C port…

• Design score: 4.5/5

Edifier S880DB MKII review: Value

• Comprehensive feature-set is great
• Performance is better in other, cheaper Edifiers
• Buy these if you value convenience over sound

The question of value is a difficult one to answer with respect to the S880DB MKII. They’re undeniably an excellent prospect as desktop speakers or a small-room sound system, irrespective of their cost; their connectibility, ease of use and perfectly serviceable sound performance make them functionally excellent. But cost is relative, and something else entirely.

The RRP of these speakers is $449.99 / £335.99 / AU$595.99 – not a lot in a world of high-valued mid-range hi-fis and break-the-bank audiophile speaker systems, but still a fair whack to put down (even if what you’re getting is a completed integrated, powered audio system). It’s especially difficult to judge fairly when another set of Edifier speakers – the aforementioned MR5 monitors – are simultaneously cheaper and, to my ears, far better.

The question of value, then, is a question of what value you place on certain things: convenience, aesthetics, fit. The Edifier S880DB MKII are compact, easy to place, easy to look at and handily controllable with a wireless remote – all things that could justify a little uplift in price, but only to those of you that value them.

For me, this is hard. I genuinely like these speakers, and I think they’re pretty faultless for most of the things you reasonably expect from them. But when I enjoy another set of Edifier speakers far more, which cost quite a bit less, it’s difficult to say this is a good-value purchase.

• Value score: 3/5

Should you buy the Edifier S880DB MKII?

Buy them if...

Don't buy them if...

Edifier S880DB MKII: Also consider

How I tested the Edifier S880DB MKII

• Tested for 3 weeks
• Used in attic office, as primary desktop listening speakers
• Predominantly tested using audio output from a Universal Audio Volt 4 audio interface, and Bluetooth transmission from a Samsung Galaxy S23 FE

The Edifier S880DB MKII found their home on my attic office’s desk, as a primary pair of monitor speakers for my work setup.

They received audio via RCA-in, from my trusty Universal Audio Volt 4 interface; I also tested the USB-C input directly from my HP Pavilion 15 laptop, and Bluetooth connectivity using my Samsung Galaxy S23 FE smartphone.

Over four weeks, I rotated through some new and familiar artists on Spotify and in my personal digital music library, to get a feel for the S880DB MKII in different musical contexts.

First reviewed: December 2025

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Dali Kupid: Two-minute review

Dali may have been concentrating on the loftier parts of the audio market lately with its various loudspeaker and headphone product launches, but with the Kupid it wants you to know it hasn’t abandoned the entry level. The company has had plenty of success with its affordable speaker ranges before now, and it wants to bring those days back.

The Kupid is a small, neatly finished standmounting design that’s available in a couple of quite vibrant finishes (blue and yellow) along with the more usual black, white and walnut. Its compact nature means it should be easy to position, though its rear-facing bass reflex port means you can’t just plonk it anywhere. Rather unpromising impedance and sensitivity figures turn out to be no major real-world issue when it comes to pairing these speakers with appropriately affordable amplification, though.

And, in practice, the Kupid turns out to be a very successful proposition where performance, as well as appearance, are concerned. One of the best stereo speakers on the market? You bet...

Dali Kupid review: Price & release date

• Released October, 2025
• Priced $599 / £299 / AU$599

The DALI Kupid standmount loudspeakers launched in October 2025, and in the United Kingdom they cost £299 per pair. In Australia they’re a predictable AU$599, while in the United States they cost a slightly less predictable $599.

The American market is a law unto itself at the moment, I suppose, and DALI is almost certainly being pragmatic enough to factor in any whim-based fluctuations in tariffs and the like.

Dali Kupid review: Features

• 26mm soft dome tweeter
• 114mm wood-fiber/paper mid/bass driver
• Rear-facing bass reflex port

These are affordable passive loudspeakers, so it won’t come as all that much of a surprise to learn they’re not exactly overburdened with features. Those features the Kupid do have, though, seem entirely fit for purpose.

At the front they have a 26mm soft dome tweeter sitting behind a mildly dished waveguide. Beneath this there’s a 114mm mid/bass driver made from the same mixture of paper and wood-fiber pulp the company has been refining for quite some time now. This duo is supported by a rear-firing bass reflex port that; a) contributes to an overall frequency response of 63Hz - 25kHz; and b) makes the Kupid slightly less appealing as a shelf-mounting proposition than they otherwise would be.

Crossover between the drivers is sensibly positioned at around 2.1kHz. Nominal impedance (4 ohms) and sensitivity (83dB) mean that the Kupid will be just a little trickier to drive than the majority of the size- and/or price-comparable rivals.

In theory, at least…

• Features score: 5/5

Dali Kupid review: Sound quality

• Rapid, energetic sound
• Impressive grasp of rhythm
• Unlikely levels of dynamism and punch

You’re entitled to expect certain things from a loudspeaker, no matter how small and/or affordable it is. But there are some things that are not quite so easy to come by when you’re talking about compact, (relatively) inexpensive loudspeaker designs. What’s remarkable about the Dali Kupid is how they manage to deliver everything you expect and a fair bit of what you might only be hoping for.

A listen to a 24bit/96kHz FLAC file of ScubaZ The Vanishing American Family gives a strong flavor of both of these things. The tonal neutrality and even frequency response you are expecting is present and correct, but the dynamism, and low-frequency extension and solidity the Kupid are capable of falls squarely into the ‘unexpected’ category.

Detail levels are decently high, and if they’re sympathetically positioned the Dali are capable of creating a fairly large and quite carefully controlled soundstage. Control of low-frequency activity is good, so rhythmic expression is convincing, and despite the unpromising nature of most of the numbers here, there’s more than enough low-end energy available to ensure there’s weight and punch to the Kupid sound.

The midrange communicates quite freely. There’s plenty of space for the voice during King Hannah’s Big Swimmer to project ahead of the similarly close-mic’d guitar – these speakers can do ‘intimate’ just as readily as they can do ‘animated’. The top of the frequency range, while rounded off just slightly in the name of ‘good taste’, can nevertheless bite and crunch with the best any price-comparable rival can summon.

Momentum levels never dip (provided the recording doesn’t dictate it, of course), but the Dali never sound forced – they’re just pleasantly on the front foot. Yet despite the sort of attitude that begins at ‘exciting’, the Kupid retain the headroom to make big dynamic shifts in volume or intensity perfectly apparent.

Music is meant to be fun, isn’t it? Well, most of the time anyway – I guess we all like to pop on a bit of Elliott Smith or Joy Division every now and then. But if it’s ‘fun’ you’re predominantly after, along with the sort of authenticity that can only come from a well-sorted loudspeaker, the sound of the Dali Kupid is the perfect place for most of us to start.

• Sound quality score: 5/5

Dali Kupid review: Design

• Extensive range of finishes
• Very acceptable build quality
• 245 x 150 x 198mm (HxWxD)

There are a couple of immediately striking things about the Dali Kupid's design. The first is the size of the cabinets – at just 245 x 150 x 198mm (HxWxD) the speakers are almost small enough to perch on a windowsill, let alone a shelf or speaker stand.

The other, if you encounter one of the livelier finishes is, well, the finish. Sure, you can have your Kupid in black, white or the species of fake walnut that my review sample rather disappointingly showed up in, but why would you, when ‘chilly’ blue and ‘golden’ yellow are also available?

As the asking price strongly suggests, there’s nothing special about the materials used here, and at just 2.9kg per speaker they’re not what you might describe as ‘weighty’. But the standard of construction is perfectly sound, and the gently curved cabinet edges offer a slightly more upmarket appearance than the straight-edged alternative that’s more common at this sort of price.

The fact that the grilles attach magnetically, meaning there are no lug-holes in the front baffle of the speaker, only adds to the impression of thoughtful design.

• Design score: 5/5

Dali Kupid review: Setup and usability

• Wall-brackets and rubber feet are provided
• Single-wire speaker terminalsS
• Some running-in required

Where do you want to position your Dali Kupid?

If they’re going on speaker stands, you have plenty of choice from plenty of specialist brands. If you want to put them on a shelf, Dali provides eight little rubber feet in the box to help with decoupling. If you fancy hanging them on the wall, there are rudimentary wall-brackets supplied, too.

As regards setup, there’s really not a lot to it. You have a stereo amplifier, presumably – if not, you’ll need one. Each Kupid has a single pair of speaker cable terminals on the rear of the cabinet – try to keep the lengths of cable you use to connect each one roughly the same length.

And, like all loudspeakers, a period of running-in is required before you hear them at their best. Dali reckons you should expect to put 100 hours on the Kupid before they sound how they’re supposed to sound…

• Setup and usability score: 5/5

Dali Kupid review: Value

The Dali Kupid are by no means your only choice when you’re looking for compact and affordable passive loudspeakers. But they’re more compact than most, which many will find appealing, and the combination of some vibrant finishes and relatively good-looking cabinet-work doesn’t do any harm where perceived value is concerned either.

Best of all, though, and the real deal-sealer, is the energetic and engaging sound these speakers make. Pair them with an affordable streaming amplifier (like the similarly titchy WiiM Amp, for instance), and you can create a compact, high-achieving audio system for a relatively small amount of money. And that means ‘value for money’ all day long in my book.

• Value score: 5/5

Should you buy the Dali Kupid?

Buy them if...

Don't buy them if...

Dali Kupid review: Also consider

How I tested the Dali Kupid

• Connected to a Naim Uniti Star and an A&R Cambridge Audio A60
• Vinyl listening via Technics SL-1300G turntable
• Playing a wide variety of music from a number of different sources

I connected the Dali Kupid to a Naim Uniti Star and also to a ‘vintage’ A&R Cambridge A60 for amplification purposes, and then used the Naim as a network streamer, a Rega Apollo for CD playback and a Technics SL-1300G (via a Leema Elements pre-amp) as a vinyl source.

This allowed me to listen to lots of different types of music from a variety of formats. And, let me tell you, doing so for well over a week, on and off, proved no kind of hardship whatsoever.

First reviewed: December 2025

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