Millions of homes around the UK own a smart speaker of some sort, with Amazon’s Alexa being the most popular. Smart speakers are great for an ever growing variety of functions such as listening to music, controlling other smart devices such as lightbulbs and security cameras, taking quizzes, asking questions, news and weather reports and plenty of other functions. But depending on what device you own the speaker on them might not be the greatest – especially if you use them a lot for listening to music. The speakers are perfectly adequate but might not get as loud as you want and can get distorted at higher volume levels. Now help is at hand with the aid of Edifier’s MS50A Wireless Smart Speaker.
You have your smart speaker assistant set up and it’s great, it tells you the time and weather, plays interactive quizzes, controls your lighting and security devices, tells jokes, plays music, sets reminders and has lots of other functions (in my house, an oven timer), but the sound isn’t the best it could be. Don’t get me wrong, the sound is perfectly acceptable, but turn the volume up a bit and you start to notice the quality, or lack of it, more. If you are looking to add an extra speaker with better high-quality clear, balanced, and powerful sound then I can recommend the Edifier MS50A Wireless Smart Speaker. The MS50A isn’t a smart speaker that you give commands to, it doesn’t have a microphone for a start, 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. Why the reason for the lack of a microphone? It is for privacy issues so that it is not always listening (like voice command smart speakers) and as it teams up with Alexa it doesn’t actually need one.
The MS50A is a single 40w wireless speaker with touch controls that has been beautifully designed. It is housed in a wooden cabinet with a walnut texture and looks quality. With its Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity it makes it easy to connect to your favourite devices or connecting to your Wi-Fi network. Its easy connectivity options means that 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 (Bluetooth and WiFi) 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 you can connect it to your home wireless network. Weighing approx. 2.26kg, it is housed in a wooden enclosure with a classic look walnut finish. Although you can control it via Alexa commands or the app, it has touch sensitive controls on the top as well.
It pairs very easily to Alexa and greatly enhances the sound, giving the smart speaker a better quality listening experience.
Overall, I think the Edifier MS50A is a fantastic wireless speaker and an excellent addition to my Echo Dot. Whilst the Echo Dot is good, when turning up the sound to higher levels it does sound distorted and is not a comfortable listening experience. When pairing the MS50A with my older 2nd Generation Echo Dot, it vastly improves the listening experience, and it is so easy to do through the Alexa and Edifier apps (even pairing it again with my 5th Generation was simple).
The speaker looks great and goes with any décor, 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 a tech novice. Just download the Edifier Home App (for Android or iPhone) and follow the instructions to add the speaker. If you want to use it with Alexa, use the Alexa app to pair the speaker to the device. Pairing is all straightforward and quick to do.
I have the speaker paired with my Echo Dot so use Alexa voice commands to control the volume, skip tracks etc. but the speaker also features 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 with a simple touch. The controls are very responsive. Its wireless connections are excellent, 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! It 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. Rich and smooth with no distortion.
The MS50A is a single unit speaker, but it can be paired wirelessly (using the app) with another speaker to get stereo sound. It can give multi-room sound. You can have both speakers in the same room or one in different rooms and both work together seamlessly, playing the same music in both rooms.
The Edifer MS50A is an excellent sounding speaker and a perfect companion for smart speakers. 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. And I love the sound quality, perfect at even high levels.
This is an excellent quality speaker. It looks great, sounds even better, and has no complicated set up. And as it doesn’t have its own microphone, it’s not another device listening to everything around it, so there are no extra concerns around privacy issues.
If you want a better listening experience for your Alexa devices then you can’t go wrong with the Edifier MS50A Wireless Smart Speaker.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £129.99
For more information, visit www.edifier.com. Available to buy from Amazon here.