Edifier ES300

• 3.5mm aux and USB-A inputs
• Wi-Fi and Apple AirPlay support
• Up to 12 hours of battery life

Despite the selection of ports being relatively sparse, the ES300 is easy to connect to just about any source you could want. It has Bluetooth 5.4 and supports LDAC, so you can wirelessly stream tunes from your phone or laptop. There’s multipoint connectivity, so you can keep two devices paired at once and seamlessly switch between them.

Of course, the 3.5mm aux input means hi-fi equipment or dedicated music players will work without issue, too.

The Edifier ES300 also has Wi-Fi, and it supports AirPlay 2, so you can wirelessly cast music from an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or any computer with iTunes installed. If you’re more of an Android / PC person, the Wi-Fi functionality isn’t very useful, and I think that’s a shame. I had to dig out my iPhone to make the most of it.

That said, the quality of the Bluetooth playback is more than good enough for me, especially if you have an Android phone that supports LDAC. The only downside is that, if you get a phone call, your music playback will be interrupted. There’s also no microphone built into the speaker, so you’ll need to switch to your phone to actually take said call.

There’s a companion app called Edifier Home for both Android and iOS. It’s pretty basic in terms of functionality, but it looks nice and gives you access to the most important functions.

Using the app, you can configure the Wi-Fi connection, switch inputs, choose your EQ and control the lighting mode.

The app lets you switch between cool and warm lighting, adjust the brightness from 0-100% and switch between three lighting modes. There’s a static option as well as a breathing mode and one called “water flow”. The water flow mode is the only slightly unusual one, which has the lights pulsing from left to right.

All of the lighting effects are on the subtle side, and I think that’s a classy choice. However, none of them react to the music, and that seems like a missed opportunity, as the underglow pulsing along with your music would look quite cool, in my opinion.

• 4-inch mid-bass woofer
• Twin 1.25-inch tweeters
• High-res audio up to 24-bit/96kHz

The first thing that struck me when listening to the ES300 is how powerful it is. It’s not an especially large speaker, but it sounds like one. It doesn’t distort at these higher volumes, either, which is an impressive feat for such a compact unit.

It reminds me of my (ageing) Sonos Play:3, in that it can kick out sounds that feel like they should come from something much bigger, and that it just doesn’t distort, no matter how far you crank it.

Comparatively, the Edifier ES300’s bass response doesn’t extend quite as deep, but the mid-bass has just as much punch. Meanwhile, the Edifier has greater clarity in the highs and better vocal presence, too. I was pleasantly surprised by the fidelity of this single-box solution.

How you feel about it will likely depend on your music preferences. I felt that most rock, jazz and pop tracks sounded exceptional, but genres that utilise the lower sub-bass frequencies like dubstep and Drum & Bass could sometimes feel a little lacking.

Edifier isn’t shy about this; its own spec sheet states a 56 – 40,000Hz frequency response. So it’s clear the speaker isn’t designed to create that super low-end rumble, and 99% of the time that’s absolutely fine.

It’s all about choosing the right speaker for your needs, and the lively mid-bass of this speaker makes rock, indie and 80s songs sound dynamic and appealing. Metal sounds pretty great, too, if that’s your kind of thing.

Being a single unit, you can’t expect much of a stereo effect, but the speaker does a great job of spreading out sound. It sounds great so long as you’re roughly in front, and projects the sound in a wide 180-degree cone.

My only real criticism of the sound quality is that, when you push it to near maximum volume, the detailed treble starts to sound a bit harsh. Honestly, though, it’s only at seriously high volumes. At my typical listening level (around 50%), it sounds great. And unlike many rivals, it sounds excellent when played quietly; you don’t need to crank this to get the full effect, and I love that.

The majority of the time, I listened using the default “classic” EQ, as it sounded best to my ears, but there are other options available via the companion app. There’s one called ‘monitor’ which I think is just a flat-ish EQ, then there’s one for gaming and a ‘vocal’ preset for podcasts and audiobooks.

There’s also a six-band custom EQ that allows you to increase or decrease the volume of certain frequencies by 3dB. If the default EQ isn’t doing it for you, this could be the ticket, but after plenty of fiddling, I still found I preferred the standard profile.

Should you buy it?

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