I tested Edifier's great-value new desktop monitor speakers and they exceeded all of my expectations

Edifier MR5: Two-minute review

Active monitor speakers were at one point the near-exclusive haunt of the audio professional, casual listeners leaning more to desktop computer speakers or to hi-fis of their own design. A recent deluge of more accessible, feature-rich monitor designs has attempted to bridge the gap, often at the expense of practical utility to the people they were first designed for – but the Edifier MR5, in my opinion, does a great job at bucking that trend, making them some of the best stereo speakers I've tested recently.

For the low low price of $349.99 / £279.99 (approx AUS$570), you get a delightfully demure set of desktop-friendly speakers that achieve remarkable neutrality, incredible high-end clarity and a satisfying low end that trumps the capabilities of many larger competitors.

This is possible by virtue of Edifier’s smart new three-driver design, incorporating a downward-facing woofer, a bi-ported chassis and a tri-amped, active-crossover architecture. The results speak for their balanced, broad and crystal-clear selves.

There’s a shedload of tech backing up these fundamental smarts too. Digital EQ controls and customization are available via the Edifier ConneX app, including some one-click acoustic tuning options that compensate for corners of your desktop. I feel like these features sometimes get in the way of the MR5’s essential excellence, but that’s just me.

With Bluetooth 6.0, LDAC support for hi-res streaming and four options for analog inputs, it’s understandable that their design budget couldn’t stretch to including the kitchen sink.

Edifier MR5 review: Price and release date

• Released on July 1, 2025
• $349.99 / £279.99 (approx AU$570)

Edifier is a Chinese brand that’s had its mitts in the monitor market for a long time, and has consequently made a reputation for itself as one of the best budget brands going. Its products are often inexpensive and in possession of unusual cheer, particularly for the quality of sound they offer against the MSRP they’re able to pitch their products at.

This pair of active monitors, the MR5, is the latest in the still-quite-new MR series, and every bit an improvement on the prior models with which it shares an umbrella. Against the Edifier MR4, they add dual-device Bluetooth 6.0 connectivity – and, more importantly, a daring new three-way driver design.

The Edifier MR5's price is $349.99 / £279.99, which coverts to roughly AU$570 in Australia although the speakers don't seem to be releasing there.

Between these and the expanded digital control of EQ settings and other features, suffice to say there’s a great deal crammed into these unexpectedly-dinky active monitor speakers. Can they stick the landing, though?

Edifier MR5 review: Specs

Edifier MR5 review: Features

• Three-way active crossover
• Four analog inputs, dual-device Bluetooth 6.0
• App control for voicings and room EQ

The Edifier MR5 monitor speakers are a veritable bag of nifty cross-disciplinary tricks, with features and fripperies that speak to casual listeners, young-buck music producers and burgeoning professionals building a versatile control-room setup.

On the connectivity front, there’s balanced XLR inputs and TRS inputs, plus RCA inputs and a front-facing 3.5mm aux port, for a total of four analogue connectivity options and the absolute elimination of any roadblocks to integrating the MR5 with your studio. Couple this with dual-device Bluetooth 6.0 (and LDAC-supportive) connectivity for ease of passing the digital aux, and you’ve five powerful ways to get what you want out of these – plus a 3.5mm headphone output for quiet-time.

For the pros, there’s the extensive 46Hz - 40kHz frequency range and flat frequency response out of the box, alongside manually-adjustable high- and low-shelf filters for adjusting to the acoustics of your space. Speaking of which, there’s the option for further DSP customization via Bluetooth using the proprietary Edifier ConneX app, including more granular low-cut control, and room compensation algorithms for better performance in reflective spaces.

For everyone else, there’s expressive hi-fi-leaning options for speaker voicings, and digital control of both those voicings and audio playback via the same proprietary app. In short, there’s a boatload to discover – and the discovery doesn’t stop here either. These speakers are also trend-buckingly maximalist with how they approach their core modus operandi.

Smaller bookshelf style monitors like these traditionally have two drivers – a mid-woofer and a tweeter – and use smart chassis design or an optional subwoofer output for low-end coverage. Here, though, Edifier’s somehow managed to squeeze in three drivers in a tri-amped, active-crossover system, comprising a 3.75" mid driver, 1" silk dome tweeter and a side-ported, downward-facing 5” woofer for low-end coverage.

The result is a small set of desktop-friendly active monitor speakers, with an outsized feature-set and a smooth sound output that seriously challenges the demureness of its form – more on which right now, actually.

• Features score: 5/5

Edifier MR5 review: Sound quality

• Controlled bass with body
• Detailed and dimensional high-mid range
• Limited by size, despite smart crossover design

The Edifier MR5 have three distinct voicings you can switch between, at a press of the single knob on the front: ‘Monitor’, ‘Music’, and ‘Customized’. For the uninitiated, ‘Monitor’ mode would attempt as neutral a frequency response as possible, for a clinical representation of sound as recorded. ‘Music’ adds a hi-fi sheen, sculpting the EQ for a more exciting representation, and ‘Customized’, as I’m sure you’ve surmised, is a do-it-yourself mode for saving your personal EQ settings (dialed in via app).

For this review, I spent the vast majority of my time using the ‘Monitor’ voicing. As someone who frequently uses monitor speakers in a professional capacity more so than a personal one, the neutral frequency response is far more useful to me day-to-day. I have some thoughts about the other settings later on, but until then you’re getting my impressions of these monitors at their essential best.

Small caveat for the bargain-seeking audio pros amongst you, too: my listening environment was not that of an acoustically-treated studio control room, and as such my observations should be taken with a pinch of semi-casual salt. It’s a hard line to tread between the exacting expectations of the career-minded and the vibey sensibilities of the rest, and yet it’s a line both this reviewer and these speakers are determined to tread.

Given that unique downward-facing driver design, you might be expecting an avalanche of desk-shaking bass. It is my utmost pleasure to report that no such misrepresentation occurs – at least, unless you push the MR5 to the upper limits of their volume range, at which point you can immediately quell it using the helpfully-named Desktop mode.

Instead, that bold woofer is put to use in delivering body over boom. There’s a little bloom with more outrageously-arranged pieces – Falle Nioke’s Falle Le Le Le features a low end that sounds like it’s already blown the speakers it was blasted through, and even that edgy, crunched-out kick and bass synth is presented with a level of welcome restraint. Distorted, low-tuned guitars a la Greet Death’s Die In Love are full and forceful, to gratifyingly torrential ends.

The ported sides of each speaker give airy movement in the ultra-low end, allowing kicks and thumpy bass guitars to breathe. Unfortunately, despite the clever design principles on display here, you’ll still experience the same limitations imposed by small-form nearfield monitors – namely, a compressed low-middy boxiness at higher volumes, that’s hard to design your way out of even with nifty acoustic tuning options and customizable EQ.

As a probably-intentional byproduct of this restrained approach to bass, the Edifier MR5 are phenomenal midrange communicators. Pile’s Bouncing In Blue, from latest heavy-folk stunner Sunshine And Balance Beams, is a phenomenal showcase of this, primarily through the Biscoff-spread smoothness of Rick Maguire’s drawled voice.

Uneasy, which follows immediately after, is a tactile delight, setting panned staccato guitars and kick-snare-kick-kick-snare percussion against one another with gratifying gusto beneath Maguire’s actually-quite-affected sneer. Indeed, there’s magic in that high-mid and high end, with stunning voice translation and a beautiful reediness in sustained strings and the like.

The MR5’s handling of transients isn’t as cutting or sharp as other speakers, but still reassuringly immediate. At the tippity-top, there’s no bite, spike or scratch, but rather a forthright resolution that puts anything flicky, ticky or indeed scratchy in glorious magic-eye-picture 3D before your ears. Hi-hats, auxiliary snaps, maracas – all presented with a delicate touch and a brilliant sense of in-the-room presence. This impressive soundstaging is a triumph both of the tweeters themselves and the clever acoustic design surrounding them.

Water From Your Eyes’ Playing Classics is one of the driest, most up-front songs going at the moment, and an excellent bellwether for the matter-of-factness these MR5 monitors are capable of. Bluntly-presented digital cymbals, dry DI-ed guitars and sampled-piano melodies make a compelling case for the high-end clarity these are capable of – even if that airy low-end starts to encroach a little.

In ‘Music’ mode, the MR5s add a heaped cup of extra bloom to the low end, along with some characterful contouring that gives a little more hi-fi excitement to proceedings. I get it, particularly for the additional presence it (of course) gives to kicks and hi-hats, but I don’t necessarily love it. With the Customized mode, the graphic EQ makes it easy to select for problem frequencies, but makes vibes-based EQing a tad fiddlier. Nonetheless, EQ moves were expressive enough to give you some control over your ideal outcomes.

• Sound quality score: 4.5/5

Edifier MR5 review: Design

• Extensive connectibility
• Handy, feature-filled companion app
• Digital settings are slow on the uptake

Thanks to the MR5’s prodigious I/O, setting up for analogue playback is about as simple as it could be: plug thingies you have into thingies they’ll fit. Unlike many professional monitor speakers, the MR5 hosts most of its hardware in one speaker, and sends audio to the other using a unique 9-pin connector cable; as such, you only need one plug socket to run the two of them.

Bluetooth connectivity is similarly fuss-free, and much the same as you’ll find anywhere else. A dedicated button on the rear puts the speakers in discovery mode, and connecting is as simple as looking for the good Edifier name on your transmitting device.

Bluetooth control is also how the Edifier ConneX app is able to work its remote-control magic. From the app you can mess with various features, including switching between voicings, acoustic tuning settings, and even selecting which speaker receives left or right channels of audio.

The MR5’s techy maximalism can sometimes get in its own way, though. An over-eager auto-standby can catch you off guard if you pause music for a phone call or a brew – a half-pointless mini-feature that does more to vex than it does to save energy. Thankfully, you can de-activate it using either the encoder knob or the app, rendering this particular gripe half-pointless itself.

Perhaps more vexingly, the customisable EQ settings are communicated through the ConneX app via Bluetooth, and there’s some significant latency between the sliding of a digital fader and a real-terms change in the volume of a given frequency. This latency makes hunting tuning problems a little more difficult and time-consuming than it really ought to be – but, again, if you’re just here for the room compensation, there’s a low-cut knob right there on the back of the speaker.

As for visuals, there’s some understated class to the MR5. The dimpled waveguides around the tweeters add some fun as well as some practical high-end widening; the bronze flourishes on the mid-woofer dustcaps, around the tweeters and via that knurled encoder knob are tasteful, but only just. For my taste, they toe the line between cool and cringe – and toe it all the better in your periphery.

• Design score: 4/5

Edifier MR5 review: Value

• Astonishingly feature-rich for the price
• Signifiers of cheapness few but obvious
• A stunning choice for desktop nearfields

The Edifier MR5 are a truly maximalist affair, and arguably worth every penny on the features front alone. It’s nice to see monitor speakers, particularly at this higher-end-of-cheap price point, not just meeting practical expectations but exceeding them. You can connect to these speakers five different ways, switch between three different sound profiles and control a lot more of its sound and functionality than you might reasonably expect.

Some elements of the MR5’s price point are more obvious than others. For instance, the only part of the speaker with which you actually, actively interface every time you use it is the plastic knob adorning the sole rotary encoder on the front. The encoder itself has a solid and reassuring mechanical feedback, but it’s transmitted through a cheap-feeling tactile surface. It’s a miniscule part of the greater MR5 whole, but nonetheless a shame that this no-brainer of a cost-cutting angle is so necessarily present in, and even central to, the user experience.

I mention this not to dock marks from the MR5, but to highlight just what it’s managed to achieve. That a plastic knob, some delayed EQ adjustment and an optional auto-standby feature constitute the majority of my criticism should tell you everything you need to know about these highly-accessible, multi-disciplinary, pint-sized works of well-priced magic.

I will say that I’m a personal fan of them as an at-home set of trustworthy nearfield monitors. They’re fine mid-field hi-fi operators, but really shine in a desktop or small-office environment, and as a jack-of-all-trades as opposed to a bona fide pro audio solution. For the fine line they tread, this is about as good as it gets.

• Value score: 5/5

Edifier MR5 review: scorecard

Should you buy the Edifier MR5?

Buy them if...

Don't buy them if...

Also consider

How I tested the Edifier MR5

• Tested for five weeks
• Used as monitor speakers in an attic office space,
• Serviced by a Universal Audio Volt 476 audio interface, and by Bluetooth connection
• Predominantly tested using Bandcamp, Spotify, local music files and Reaper sessions

The Edifier MR5 spent their time as the primary listening devices for my office studio setup, as nearfield studio monitors. During my time with them, I streamed music from Spotify and Bandcamp, as well as played music locally from my computer (both high-quality downloads, and works-in-progress on the digital audio workstation Reaper) – all via a Universal Audio Volt 476 interface. I also streamed music from my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra smartphone, which also harboured the Edifier ConneX app for testing digital control.

First reviewed: October 2025

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