Edifier e25HD Luna Speakers & G4 Gaming Headset Reviews

If you haven’t heard about Edifier before, well you’re about to. As someone who is new to the gaming sound market, but not the sound market itself, Edifier comes right into the mix with two pieces of tech that couldn’t be any further from polar opposites of each other in terms of sound quality, packaging and presentation. The Edifier e25HD Luna Speakers are some of the best speakers I’ve had the chance to play with for a long time, while the G4 Gaming Headset is something that has it’s heart in the right place but needs a lot more time in development. So let’s take a closer look at both.

Starting things out is the G4 Gaming Headset by Edifier. While this headset sounds like something you would want to buy on paper, with it’s impressive 7.1 surround sound system thanks to an in-built sound card in the headset itself, the results are… interesting to say at least.

Name: G4 Gaming Headset
Manufacturer: Edifier
Release Date: Out Now
MSRP: $99.95 AUD / $79.99 USD
Disclosure: Review unit provided by Edifier

The Edifier G4 Gaming Headset, as I said previously, bosts a nice in-built sound card right into the headset; meaning you are going to get some nice clear audio with these puppies. When playing something like Fortnight or PUBG, where sound helps you keep track of where the bullets are coming from, the G4 Gaming Headset does a great job. Frankly, the directional sound output is amazing to the point where you want to move your head just to make sure you are avoiding things. This all comes from using specially designed drivers that need to be installed, plus the G4 Gaming Headset is also used a USB 3.0 connection to make sure that everything is coming into the sound card as fast as possible.

Speaking of the connection, the cord itself is encased inside a very strong yet flexable rubber tube so there isn’t going to be much in the way of wear and tear over time. The cord’s length is about 3 meters total, long enough to go from the back of my PC through the gap and still have plenty of movement left to move around my desk with ease. There is also a small controller on the headset too, enabling you to control the sound, the level of the bass, muting the microphone and turning the headset off altogether. While this does sound great and all, shutting the headset on or off will interrupt something somewhere on the PC. When I was using the G4 Gaming Headset to watch the WWE Network with a couple of Outerhaven writers, shutting the headset off would crash Firefox. So something is going wrong there.

While the G4 Gaming Headset produces great sound for games, there are some issues. First one being that the drivers, as mentioned before, seem to crash something else when in use. Also, while the directional sound is amazing, the G4 Gaming Headset will push things a bit too far, making footsteps of a human sound like a T-Rex is coming for you. The bass, when either boosted or not, comes out sounding more tinny than that heavy bass BOOM that it should be, leading to things not sounding as great as they should. Then there is the microphone… With the G4 Gaming Headset, from what I was told, the microphone comes out in two ways: Either it picks up everything around you and has no way to reduce noise, or when you are talking, everything sound muffled. Personally, I’d put this down to the solid plastic nature of the microphone itself and also having no wind sock or anything to dampen excess noise.

The issues with the G4 Gaming Headset aren’t just limited to the internals, but also the externals. The microphone is way too short and barely gets to the side of my mouth, making more issues with the microphone; plus the whole no wind sock thing too. Encasing the whole unit it solid plastic isn’t doing it any favors either as the very ridgid design can easily be warped or broken if your head isn’t suited for the unit (while mine isn’t). Finally there are the ear cups themselves, which are round and a bit too small. These days most gaming headsets are designed with the idea that ears are more oval in shape and given extra padding for extended use, the G4 Gaming Headset just gives standard padding and design, leading me to want to remove them after an hour because my ears were getting squaished up.

Edifier has a good idea, the on-board sound card that produces nice and clear 7.1 surround sound is amazing, some of the best sound I’ve had out of a headset in ages, but that’s the only thing it does right. The microphone is garbage and produces a muffled sound that doesn’t work for podcasts or talking in the middle of a firefight with friends during a game. The overall headset design is just terrible and not suited for long periods of gameplay. At the end of it all, Edifier has a nice base to work with here, but needs to do more research into the gaming side of how headset design should be.

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On the other side of the coin we have the e25HD Luna Speakers by Edifier. Now these speakers are some of the best 2.0 speakers I have used in a long time (Note to PR company: Can I keep these? please?) and that’s saying something. While the packaging is a littel weird and the wiring is some of the most insane I’ve had to deal with, it has been worth it for the sound alone.

Name: e25HD Luna w/Bluetooth
Manufacturer: Edifier
Release Date: Out Now
MSRP: $299.95 AUD / $249.99 USD
Disclosure: Review unit provided by Edifier

The e25HD Luna Speakers are just amazing to behold. Two compact units that sit and work well with any gaming set up; also as a bonus they can work with either your TV, or bluetooth enabled phone or mp3 player to bring that nice crisp sound to your room. The e25HD Luna Speakers are a bit heavier than your usual speakers, but that’s because inside these babies is enough bass and treble to make your house shake! Using the standard 3.5mm speaker jack in my PC (Which is running a stock in-built sound card) I can get the whole house rocking with any music I want to stream, or video I’m watching on Youtube. Otherwise, I can easily connect my Android smartphone to them from anywhere in the house and stream music or even use them as hands free speakers on phone calls. Unlike previous 2.0 speaker systems I’ve recently reviewed, I don’t find the e25HD Luna Speakers to be very intruding on my desk or even mess around a multi-monitor set up either, which I love to death.

If there is anything negative to say about the e25HD Luna Speakers its that they are just standard 2.0 speakers with a better bass than most. In this day and age where sound bars and 7.1 surround sound systems are commonly available for purchase, having these 2.0 speakers aren’t all that worth wild. For gaming, you need that directional sound to make sure you know what is arround you at all times; and when it comes to home media, you can get the same sound out of most TV’s these days.

The other issue is cables. There are just too many cables. I understand that because these are bluetooth and also produce great sound means you need to have a heavy duty internal power system, but do we really need the heavy duty link cable between the speakers? Can’t you power both off the same supply and link them wirelessly or by bluetooth? Honestly, the cable situation behind and under my desk is bad enough as it is, and adding the e25HD Luna Speakers with all it’s cables behind/under there too is just making more mess when there should be a better solution.

Overall, the e25HD Luna Speakers are amazing, they produce a great sound when used as a PC speaker system or when used at a party when bluetooth enabled music is a thing, otherwise it is very hard to recommend these as a gamer or a home media audiophile. Maybe when there is a 7.1 surround sound step up using these babies as a base is available, I could use them instead of my current set up, but till then they are just great PC speakers that can do fancy extras.

So here you have it, two pieces of audio equipment from one company, both on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of quality. I couldn’t recommend the G4 Gaming Headset at this stage as there is a lot more physical design work to be done alongside fixing the drivers and the microphone to match the great sound quality. The e25HD Luna Speakers on the other hand I can easily recommend if you don’t have any other 2.0 PC speakers since the sound is great and the bluetooth for parties is a great idea, but they are not for gaming or serious home media use. Edifier has some great bases with both of these products, it just seems like they need to do more research to catch up (Headsets) or push themselves to the next level (Speakers), but I’m happy to see what comes from Edifier in the future.