Review: Edifier Prisma E3350BT Desktop Bluetooth Speaker System

There's a reason most subwoofers have boring, cube-like designs: They're meant to be tucked into a corner or under a cabinet, out of sight and out of mind.

Edifier's 2.1-channel Bluetooth sound system bucks that convention with a subwoofer that's so elegant, so eye-catching, it would be criminal to hide it away. And therein lies the conundrum: Do you make room on your desk or bookshelf for that winsome woofer, or let its looks go to waste somewhere unseen?

A first-world problem, yes, but one worth grappling with. The Prisma E3350BT is not only easy on the eyes, but also awesome on the ears – save for a few minor miscues.

Edifier's curvy, pyramid-shaped subwoofer comes flanked by taller, more monolithic satellites, all of them coated in your choice of silver, white, or black. Whatever the finish, this is one sexy-looking speaker system.

The most appealing way to use the Prisma is to pair your phone or tablet for wireless streaming of your playlists, Pandora stations, Spotify picks, and the like.Together, the 5-inch downward-firing subwoofer, 2.75-inch midranges and 19mm PV dome tweeters crank out 48 watts of audio goodness. That's an impressive amount of power for a system of this size, and the result is enough oomph to fill a small- or medium-size room with music.

Music, and wires. The Prisma necessarily employs several of them: one to link the satellites, one to connect the satellites to the subwoofer, one for AC power, and a fourth for the wired volume-control puck.

That puck engenders mixed feelings. It's sleek and metallic and ringed in glowing blue, and it hides convenient headphone and line-in jacks. But it controls only the volume. The Prisma's power button sits atop the subwoofer, while its bass-volume control hides beneath it. Why not group all these controls together on the puck?

To wit: To access that bass volume dial, you have to grope behind and beneath the subwoofer. And if you want to plug something into the secondary line-in jack, you have little choice but to pick up the subwoofer and flip it over. It's a necessary concession to the design, though at least not something you'll need to deal with often.

Indeed, the most appealing way to use the Prisma is to pair your phone or tablet for wireless streaming of your playlists, Pandora stations, Spotify picks, and the like. Just one problem: This system limits you to one paired device at a time. Plenty of other Bluetooth gizmos can accommodate at least two. This will definitely cause hassles in multi-device households.

The good news – no, the best news – is that the Prisma system sounds superb. Its midrange comes through strong and smooth, and it delivers more than enough bass to keep the joint jumping and thumping.

Bluetooth stereo often gets knocked for compressing audio, and although my ears had no complaints with the overall quality of the speakers – quite the opposite – there's just a trace of "muffledness" that might be attributable to that compression. More discerning listeners may prefer to plug in their devices rather than letting Bluetooth mess with their music's fidelity.

It's worth noting that the Prisma has a price tag lower than some standalone Bluetooth "brick" speakers, most notably the Bose SoundLink and Jawbone’s Big Jambox. Those models pull off some masterful feats of audio wizardry, but they don't – they can't – sound anywhere near as "big" as the E3350BT.

WIRED Big, smooth sound. So beautiful, it'll improve your décor, not detract from it. Two auxiliary inputs, one on the sub, one on the remote. Priced lower than many single-speaker Bluetooth systems.

TIRED Pairs with only one device at a time. Sexy subwoofer design wasted on a component that will probably end up on the floor. Controls are spread out rather than centralized on the volume puck, including one that's shoehorned beneath the 'woofer.