Taking a look into the Edifier S880DB; the stuff behind the good sound?

We have a nice partnership with Edifier for quite some time now. We loved most of their products. What we loved most about their products was that they offered some of the best value-for-money on the market right now. But what really got us thinking was the Edifier S880DB. We know it sounds amazing. But what kind of magic has Edifier crammed into it? Edifier claims an XMOS DAC inside, but packing it into a speaker and still just charging RM899 for it sounds too good to be true, so we decided to take the Edifier S880DB apart to take a peek at what’s inside.

On the outside

The Edifier S880DB is mainly finished in white, with light wood grain wood panels on the sides. This is a first for Edifier, which prefers to go with darker tones for their bookshelf lineup. The side panels are smoothly curved yet feature sharp lines at the four corners and three grooves running horizontally for a more dynamic look. There are no imperfections or gaps to be found here, with a smooth finishing on all surfaces, testament to the QC Edifier puts into their products.

The 19mm tweeter is titanium-coated to give you the precise highs with stunning resolution without distortion even at louder volumes. Meanwhile, the aluminium 3.75″ bass drivers is capable of delivering powerful yet detailed bass. Working together, these drivers offer a dynamic listening experience, tuned to perfection with KLIPPEL GmbH’s feedback. The result is a smooth, balanced response over the entire frequency response curve from 55 Hz to 20 kHz.

For the analog RCA inputs and the digital Coaxial input, you get gold-plating on the electrical contacts. They prevent the ugly corrosion from affecting the conductivity of the inputs, which will also improve the durability of these speakers in the long run. Also you won’t have the wires connectors rusted into the jacks because gold is an inert metal.

Getting inside

Disassembly was a simple enough procedure. Just remove the 6 screws on the back and you have the whole console removable from the wooden cabinet. The cables to the drivers are soldered on so we will only be able to peek at the hardware inside.

XMOS DAC

True enough, we find the XMOS DAC chip, labelled XMOS U11690C20. Some googling shows us that this chip is the xCore 200 XU216 microcontroller unit (MCU). It offers the USB DAC feature while also doubling as the DSP. This very chip sets it apart from the other speakers in Edifier’s Signature series.

The USB DAC offers decoding of up to 24-bit/192 kHz inputs, allowing it to achieve the esteemed Hi-Res Audio certification. With the Edifier S880DB able to process the digital signal from your PC, Edifier skips the variability that is inherent when you take analog sources into account. As an end-user, you also save on the costs of getting a decent DAC. An equivalent standalone DAC with the XMOS DAC chip will set you back a fair sum, so you are really getting a great deal here.

Aside from its function as a USB DAC, it also doubles as the DSP. The four sound profiles — Monitor, Classic, Vocal and Dynamic — that you can switch between on the remote to suit your media? That is handled by this chip too. Being a DSP, it also handles the crossover functions, sending the signals separately to the dedicated TI TAS5754M Class D amplifiers. It also prevents any distortion resulting from the drivers being overdriven through dynamic adjustments for a smooth listening experience.

TI PCM9211 ADC

The TI PCM9211 ADC/DAC handles the other inputs, including the two pairs of RCA jacks, SPDIF, Coax and Bluetooth inputs. The decoding of the digital 24-bit/192 kHz optical inputs will also be handled here. It has a dedicated 24.576 MHz cystal oscillator to reduce audio jitter too.

Qualcomm CSR8645 Bluetooth receiver

This is a common Bluetooth receiver chip found on many higher end Bluetooth audio devices. It supports Bluetooth 4.1 with the AptX codec, allowing for higher quality audio over Bluetooth. This chip also supports the ubiquitous A2DP profile with the MP3, AAC and SBC audio codecs so it will work with any of your Bluetooth-enabled audio sources. AVRCP 1.4 allows you to control the music on your smartphone via the remote control, a feature which we tested and enjoyed.

TI TAS5754M Digital Class-D amps

For each of the drivers, Edifier has thrown in these TI TAS5754M digital Class-D amplifiers. The bass and treble channels are amplified discretely, with one of these chips for each of them. This ensures that the drivers have enough power to deliver their best with 12W for the tweeters and and 32W for the woofer. With the TAS5754’s 768 kHz PWM frequency for the output, the noise floor is effectively lowered while avoiding treble distortion especially at the upper limits.

Heatsink for the amps

Amps can get hot when driven hard. While this may not look like much, this aluminium heatsink is actually sufficient to cool the two TAS5754M digital amps as they are quite efficient. There is even a thermal pad for better heat transfer from the PCB to the heatsink. You can see that the solder is neat here with no loose joints or excessive solder. I really like the black PCB used here too, which is a good move by Edifier despite most manufacturers opting for the uglier green or brown PCBs when you can’t actually see the PCB during normal use. While PCB color does not directly indicate quality, black PCB just looks better.

Conclusion

Edifier packed the Edifier S880DB with high quality components while still charging a very reasonable price. It really is no wonder that they rank among our most recommend brands. Have you experienced Edifier products? Let us know in the comments!