4 minute read
I got the Edifier D32 expecting a Bluetooth speaker. What I got is closer to a piece of furniture that happens to play music, and in my new home it has quietly become one of my favorite things in the room.
Most wireless speakers are designed to disappear. Black plastic pucks, fabric burritos, the kind of thing you shove behind a stack of books and forget. The D32 goes the other way. The walnut cabinet, the braided grille, and the little accordion-style key strip across the top make it read like something off a 1970s hi-fi shelf, except it streams over Wi-Fi and pairs to my phone in seconds. It’s the rare gadget I actually want sitting out in the open.
It earns the spot on looks alone
The cabinet is real wood over a 12mm MDF build, and you feel it the second you pick the thing up. At a little over three kilograms it has the heft of a real speaker, not a hollow toy. Mine is the white walnut finish, and it plays well against both warm wood tones and cooler modern surfaces. There’s a black version too if your space leans brighter. The braided grille cloth is the detail that sells it in person, and the row of physical keys up top means I’m not digging through an app just to skip a track or nudge the volume.
For $299.99, the design is the part I’d happily pay for twice. Edifier clearly built this one to be looked at, and that’s not something I say about most of the gear that crosses my desk.
What’s actually under the grille
The hardware backs up the styling. Inside are two 1-inch silk dome tweeters paired with a 4-inch long-throw mid-low driver, run by Class-D amps rated at 30W on the woofer and 15W per tweeter. Dual bass reflex ports handle the low end, and the system is tuned across a 52Hz to 40kHz range. On paper this is a capable little setup, not a novelty.
The connectivity is where it stops feeling retro. Bluetooth 5.3 with LDAC means high-bitrate streaming from a compatible phone, and you can keep two devices paired at once and flip between them. Dual-band Wi-Fi with Apple AirPlay 2 lets me stream straight from an iPhone, or group it into a multi-room setup if I add a second unit later. Wired inputs cover USB-C and a 3.5mm aux jack, and it handles hi-res audio up to 24-bit/96kHz. The Edifier ConneX app gives you EQ and the deeper settings if you want to tune it.
There’s also a 5,200mAh battery good for around 11 hours, which is a strange and welcome thing in a tabletop speaker this solid. It’s heavy enough that I treat it as a fixture, but the battery means I can carry it out to the patio for an afternoon without hunting for an outlet.
Most of my listening is EDM while I’m working from home, which is a genre that exposes a small speaker fast. Weak bass and it falls apart. The D32 holds up. The dual bass reflex ports give the low end real push, and it keeps its composure when I turn it up loud enough to actually feel a drop.
Is the Edifier D32 worth $300?
For me it already is, and once you factor in the sound it’s an easy call. This is a single do-everything speaker that covers Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, AirPlay, and wired sources, looks better than anything else on the shelf, and runs off a battery when you want it to. If you’ve reached the point of caring what your stuff looks like sitting out, that combination is hard to find at this price. It comes in black walnut and white, $299.99 direct from Edifier, backed by a two-year warranty.
