Edifier MR3 Review | Trusted Reviews

Introduction

The Edifier MR3 look to be one of the brand’s most compelling affordable bookshelf speakers available today.

For their modest £89.99 / $119.99 price tag, you’re getting a set of speakers with style and quite potent audio, alongside versatile connectivity that means you can pair them with everything from a phone to a desktop PC.

Price and size-wise, the closest rival is arguably the Majority D80, while the Cambridge-based brand’s D40X may also be on your radar.

I’ve been testing the MR3 speakers for the last couple of weeks to see how well they stack up against those rivals, and in general, as a set of versatile wireless options. Let’s take a closer look.

Design

• Smart, unintrusive looks
• Compact frame allows for easy placement
• Handy on-board controls

The MR3 is available in either black or white, with my sample in the former. They look smart in black, especially with the contrasting copper accents that I immediately prefer to the yellow styling on the D40X.

Build quality is also a high point with these Edifier options for a more affordable set of speakers. They’re mostly plastic, but are of a decent enough quality to stop them feeling cheap.

They’re also compact, so can easily be placed on a desk beside a monitor without taking up too much room, while they can also sit on a sideboard in a fledgling hi-fi setup if you’d prefer, for instance.

On-board controls are present on the right speaker, with a small, tactile volume dial. Pushing it in also allows you to change inputs, helped along with an LED indicator so you know which input you’ve selected. 

There are also two 3.5mm jacks on the speaker’s faceplate – one for connecting headphones, and the other for connecting a playback device through wired means.

Connectivity

• Decent wireless and wired connectivity
• No HDMI ARC present for TV use
• App control is decent for a range of tasks

The MR3 has some reasonable connectivity options for its price range, with wireless support for Bluetooth 5.4, while wired options on the back are for RCA line-in and balanced TRS, plus two 3.5mm jacks on the front.

That’s not bad, all things considered. I had no problems pairing either my phone or FiiO M11S DAP to these over Bluetooth, with the MR3 showing up instantly in the Bluetooth pairing menu, and working without a hitch. Wired use over 3.5mm was also as convenient as it should be.

It makes these speakers a reasonably versatile set for use with a range of devices. Against the key competition, though, you are missing out on an HDMI ARC port for connecting the MR3 to a TV, and a remote control for physical controls away from the speaker. The controls on the back are for acoustic tuning, so you can boost either low or high frequencies to compensate for your space.

To alleviate this somewhat, Edifier has a companion app for the MR3 where you can choose between different sound modes, play and pause songs, and fiddle with an EQ if you want to balance different frequencies yourself. You can also configure the speakers for your setup with more detailed acoustic compensation than with the two dials on the back of the right speaker.

Sound Quality

• Clean, inoffensive sound
• Rich mid-range and solid highs
• Bass may not be as deep as some may hope for

The MR3 is pushed as a set of budget studio monitors, and tends to lean into that presentation with a natural, inoffensive feel that potentially means you could use them for mixing music.

Its vocal presentation was smooth and clean, as demonstrated with playback of tracks including James Taylor’s That’s Why I’m Here or Ella Fitzgerald’s version of You’re The Top. In addition, on Jimmy Buffett’s Barometer Soup, the warm tones of his acoustic guitar came through cleanly.

On a CD-quality version of the Bee Gees’ You Should Be Dancing, the track’s pounding bassline was handled with panache, with a tight low end that presented decent extension. These speakers only go as low as 52Hz, so they lack the deep extension you may get from other options. The same was also true on spinning up a hi-res variant of Let’s Groove from Earth, Wind & Fire.

The top-end presentation is as clean as the mids, with a balanced and reasonably precise feel, both on the inflections of percussion in the intro to Steely Dan’s Do It Again, or in the background of I’ll Find My Way Home from Jon & Vangelis.

I was also impressed with the width of the soundstage that the MR3 presented, with excellent separation – notwithstanding the fact that there are two separate speakers here. Steven Wilson’s Impossible Tightrope is often a go-to test track for me due to its frenetic drums, bass and horns that show off a speaker’s stereo imaging. The MR3 dealt with it well, with solid spacing between each component.

Should you buy it?