Introduction

Edifier is an audio brand with over 25 years of experience catering to a variety of use cases including personal home sound, professional audio, automobile audio, as well as headphones and microphones for both personal entertainment and professional use. Based out of China, the Edifier presence globally is a small subset of what it offers in the domestic market where it has become large enough to be listed on the stock market too. Indeed, Edifier may be associated with a lot of budget speaker, Bluetooth headphones, and TWS earphones in the west, but the company bought STAX Ltd.—an audio brand with over 80 years of history making excellent electrostatic headphones/ear speakers—in 2012. It then became a significant investor in Audeze, whose products we have covered before already, and today we examine Edifier’s new entry to the premium wireless headphone market that aims to bring together both of these other brands too.

The Edifier STAX SPIRIT S3 is a mouthful to say, and harder to type given the generous use of capital letters. We first got word of it earlier this year after Edifier sent out a press release concerning the global launch of the product, and immediately people recognized that the STAX contribution here was merely in name. It can be confusing if you went in expecting wireless ear speakers employing e-stat drivers, but then again it’s not like Edifier could call this the Edifier Audeze LCD-1 Wireless either. Yes, there’s a lot being shared between this set and the Audeze LCD-1, including the design and the use of planar magnetic drivers which itself is a rarity in the Bluetooth headphone market. On the other hand, there is a lot more different and unique to the STAX SPIRIT S3 too such as reworked drivers, updated tuning, a closed-back and wireless nature (obviously), and some neat app-based features that promise to make this a highly compelling product and the first entry to the new STAX SPIRIT product line. Thanks to Edifier for providing a review sample to TechPowerUp, and we begin with a look at the product specifications in the table below.

Specifications