A lot of us have a smart speaker of some sort in our homes these days, whether that’s Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant or Apple’s Siri – I have three Alexa devices throughout the rooms in the house! They are great for listening to music, controlling smart tech such as lightbulbs, taking quizzes, asking questions, telling you the weather or the news and plenty of other functions. The only issue with them is that the speakers on them aren’t the greatest – especially if you use them a lot for listening to music. Don’t get me wrong, the sound from them is good but can get distorted at higher volume levels.
If you are looking for a better quality smart speaker with high-quality clear, balanced, and powerful sound then I can recommend the Edifier MS50A Wireless Smart Speaker. Although, when you hear the words “smart speaker” you immediately think of a speaker that you can give commands to and get a response. Edifier’s MS50A Wireless Smart Speaker isn’t a smart speaker that works that way, it works in conjunction with Apple Airplay, Amazon Alexa (currently in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Poland, Brazil, Australia and Japan), TIDAL Connect, and Spotify Connect. For privacy issues, the Edifier MS50A doesn’t have a microphone so links up other devices to give a much better sound quality.
The Edifier MS50A is a wireless speaker that has been beautifully designed, with touch controls and housed in a wooden cabinet with walnut texture. It has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity to make it easy to connect to your favourite devices or connecting to your Wi-Fi network. With its easy connectivity it can be easy be placed in any room in the house. It can be used as a wireless speaker to connect to your phone, laptop, tablet etc. or used to connect to, and be controlled by, Alexa.
Features:
- Bluetooth v5.0
- Wi-Fi Streaming
- Two Speaker Pairing
- Multi-room Grouping compatible with Amazon Alexa and Apple Airplay
- Compatible with Amazon Alexa, Apple Airplay and Spotify
- Room-filling Sound with Powerful 2-way Speaker
- MDF Wooden Enclosure with Classic Walnut Finish
- 40w RMS Power Rating
The Edifier MS50A wireless smart speaker is a mains powered single speaker unit with two drivers (Φ19mm silk diaphragm (Treble) + 4inches/102mm (Mid-Bass). It has a power output of 40w RMS (Mid-Bass (25W) + Treble (15W). It features dual connectivity, it can connect to devices such as your phone, tablet, laptop or Alexa using Bluetooth v5.0 or your can connect it to your home wireless network. It weighs approx. 2.26kg and is housed is a wooden enclosure with a classic look walnut finish with touch controls on the top.
Overall, I think the Edifier MS50A is a fantastic wireless speaker and an excellent add-on to my Amazon Echo Dot. I have an older Echo Dot (2nd Generation) in my home office and whilst it is good, when turning up the sound to higher levels is does sound distorted and is not a comfortable listening experience. Pairing it with the MS50A vastly improves the listening experience, and it is so easy to do.
I love the wooden enclosure with its classic walnut finish, it has a look that screams quality.
Setting up the speaker, whether you are using with Bluetooth or a Wi-Fi connection, is extremely easy – even for tech novices. Just download the Edifier Home App (for Android or iPhone) and add the speaker. If you want to use it with Alexa, use the Alexa app to pair the speaker to the device.
The speaker has touch controls on top where you can easily change volume levels, mute/unmute and even skip tracks, go back to the previous track and pause.
I am using it via a Bluetooth connection on my Echo Dot and can control the speaker with commands to Alexa – skipping tracks, change volume etc. and it works very well with the speaker having no lag between Alexa and the speaker. The sound, as I already said, is vastly improved with a decent bass and much better sound levels, and no distortion! The speaker has a DSP Digital Circuit with professional audio processing which are used to complete the sound source processing and the dynamic management, finely controlling every detail of the sound, making it crystal clear and superior quality.
Although the MS50A is a single unit, it can be paired wirelessly (using the app) with another speaker to get stereo sound and it can give multi-room sound.
As for the sound, well it is excellent. Rich and smooth with no distortion.
The Edifer MS50A is an excellent speaker and a perfect accompaniment to smart speakers to improve the quality of the sound. I love that it can be used as a single speaker or paired with another to use in stereo or even in different rooms to give multi-room connectivity, and I love how easy it is to use via the touch panel and the app.
An excellent quality speaker that looks great, sounds great and has no complicated set up. And as it doesn’t have its own microphone its not another device listening to everything around it, so no privacy issues with it.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £129.99
For more information, visit www.edifier.com. Available to buy from Amazon here.
