Bluetooth speakers come in a huge range of styles and the Edifier D12 is one for those wanting a stylish bookshelf speaker with a simple system and good sound quality at an affordable price. 

Not everyone wants a portable Bluetooth speaker that’s waterproof and can charge your smartphone, although they can be excellent gadgets. Edifier provides something different with the D12 and with its experience in traditional bookshelf speakers, offers a neat package at under £100/US$100. 

Design & Build 

Unlike Edifiers typical bookshelf speakers, the D12 is a single all-in-one unit. Its oblong shape is reminiscent of the , only smaller and squarer. 

What I particularly like here are the wooden ends which are unusual in the typical Bluetooth speaker market and, according to the firm, reduces acoustic resonance.  

On top is a leather effect that feels remarkably real with three dials sitting in the front corner. These are for bass and treble adjustments while the third is for volume but can also be pushed for power and input selection. 

If you have enough space above the D12, or perhaps place it on a desk, then there’s a nice amount of space on top to put something like a wireless charger.  

As well as the dials, Edifier includes a flat plastic remote. It feels quite budget but is a welcome addition giving you the ability to make adjustments from across the room.

It looks much like a remote you’d get with a cheap media streamer with buttons for volume, playback, mute, input and two different sound modes (more on those later). 

You’ll need space for the D12 of course, and a shelf that can take the weight although it’s not particularly heavy at just over 5kg. Also note that with rear-facing ports, if you’re using cables then you’ll need around 2in of space behind the speaker to plug them in.

Like a lot of bookshelf speakers, you can take the fabric cover off to reveal the drivers behind. This also provides a better view of the status LED. 

Sound Quality & Features 

Those drivers consist of two 4in drivers and two 19mm tweeters, proving a total power of 70W RMS and offering a frequency range of 54Hz-20KHz. 

Although this is a stereo speaker, but because it’s essentially two bookshelf speakers built into the same cabinet, there’s no real sense of a stereo field. But this is the case with most Bluetooth speakers we test at Tech Advisor. 

Importantly, the D12 offers decent sound quality – better than the price suggests with a warm rich sound across the board. It also has plenty of room-filling power without much distortion. 

There’s a nicely balanced tuning here so the D12 suits a wide range of music genres and also sounds good for other tasks like radio and podcasts. 

Of course, the bass and treble dials mean you can quickly give the speaker a tune depending on your personal taste. 

As mentioned earlier, the remote has movie and music modes you can select with the latter providing a flatter response. The movie option is predominantly a bass boost and I actually preferred this to music for listening to a lot of tunes. 

In terms of connectivity, I’m reviewing it mainly as a Bluetooth 5.0 speaker but there’s also a 3.5mm line-in along with left and right RCA ports so if you want to also plug in something like a turntable then the D12 could be a great option. 

RCA to RCA and RCA to headphone jack cables are provided in the box. 

There’s also a line out jack that can be used to connect a subwoofer or active speakers – something I’ve not been able to test. Although it’s possible to plug headphones in here and get a signal, it’s not designed to be a headphone jack so the speakers don’t stop producing sound. 

I found the Bluetooth connection to be strong and the speaker would connect automatically to the last paired device. However, if you want to regularly switch between different devices you’ll have to head into the settings and request a connection as I found by using my PC and phone with the D12. 

There’s no app here but that’s not the point, the D12 is about simplicity and physical controls. 

Price 

The Edifier D12 comes in just under the £100 so you can buy it for £99 from the likes of Amazon, and . 

That means it comes in just under our budget price cap and in the US you can get it for and from the likes of Amazon. 

There’s little in the way of rivals that we’ve tested at Tech Advisor but if you’re not sure what kind of Bluetooth speaker you want, we have a wide range in our best cheap Bluetooth speaker chart, along with a high-end selection, too. 

Verdict 

Those looking for an affordable and attractive bookshelf speaker with Bluetooth will enjoy the Edifier D12. 

Coming in at just under £100/US$100, it has a lot to offer with its wooden panels, solid sound quality and handy remote control.  

The idea here is simplicity and the D12 does it well, although auto-switching between different paired devices would be a nice addition. There are also multiple wired options, too, which may well be an added bonus if you need to connect a turntable or similar. 

Just note that while it’s technically a stereo speaker, the drivers are too close together to provide a tangible stereo field. 

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Learn more.