Edifier Aurora notebook speakers
Not long ago we looked at the Edifier Soundbar, a speaker that is attached to your notebook via USB and provides better sound than most notebooks can while still remaining quite portable.
The Aurora, also from Edifier, is a rather different proposition. Comprising a separate subwoofer and two satellite speakers it is rather too heavy to carry around from place to place with a total weight of 1.4Kg. This is a speaker set that will sit in your office or at home and be a permanent replacement for your notebook’s internal speakers.
With that in mind the design standards are quite high. The speakers come in a wide range of colours – our review set was a very bright pink and you can also choose blue, red, green, bronze, black, yellow and a few other variants.
The subrwoofer is a long unit, but not too long that it won’t hide behind most notebooks quite happily. The two satellites are small globes which look rather attractive sat either side of a notebook. We’d have liked them on longer leads, in order to spread them further apart. That’s not fixable, as the leads are hardwired into their connector to the subwoofer. You get about 40cm of play on each lead.
The right speaker has two buttons on its top – one for putting volume up, the other for lowering it. There is no on/off switch. The subwoofer takes power from the mains, and is turned on when you plug it on, off when you unplug it. There is a small red power light on the subwoofer itself.
Total power output is 22W with 15W coming from the subwoofer. At higher volumes this produces an acceptable level of bass tones, though the sound is not very rounded and complexity can get lost. Bass tones diminish at lower volume levels.
Overall the speakers are a little treble heavy, but for spoken word and much music that’s fine. The delivery is certainly good enough for casual listening to music and movie watching, but serious music fans will want a richer, deeper and more vibrant sound and quite possibly more volume too.
Overall, at £49.99 the Aurora is barely more expensive than the £39.99 Edifier, much less portable and more powerful.
More detail and a link to purchase can be found here.
Sandra Vogel