Hey everybody, welcome back to Recordology. Really looking forward to this because it has been a minute since we reviewed powered speakers. And as you know, I love powered speakers. That's the way I listen to vinyl.
So for people that are like-minded and are looking into bookshelf powered speakers, I always like to have recommendations to offer. So I'm really excited to check these out. You're not going to want to miss this.
So here we have the majority D40X powered speakers set. And I'm excited to check this out. It's been a long time since we've reviewed powered speakers. And these look pretty good from what I could tell.
Okay, I was not expecting a retail box, but I'm glad to see one. I think these are fun because it's an advertising piece for the product to be able to kind of see what we got. So they are Bluetooth enabled, they're bookshelf size, obviously they're powered so the amplifier is built in. You can connect any line level device to these.
So a record player's preamp output or an external preamp output as well or a CD player, tape player, anything you want. Interesting it looks like it also has a USB and SD card. playback and there is a remote so this will be really cool i'm excited to get into it and see exactly what we got by the way these are about 90 these speakers i think they're 89 right now on amazon so the price point if they're good is very competitive so yeah uk company they won the queen's award for enterprise in 2021 they've been around since i want to say 2012 all right so the speakers you All right here wrapped in plastic and then down in here we've also got a user manual, cabling, we'll look at closer here in a minute, a remote, some more cabling and that's about it. Okay so here's the remote based on the size of this I'm guessing AAA batteries that are included. I was about to say not included but they are included.
Glad it's not a button cell remote. And on here, functionality-wise, you know, you've got transport controls because of the fact it's Bluetooth enabled, so you've got to be able to skip those songs. There's a Trey minus and Trey plus.
Is that treble? Interesting. So this is the treble control, but these are the bass control buttons. I like the fact they have that on here.
Interesting button choice. A mode switch, a mute switch, etc., etc. So that will be kind of handy.
Now, I have these earmarked if they test out okay. to actually be for my TV because right now my television speakers are the only audio I have coming out of my TV. Now you may be saying that's to be expected but a lot of people use a sound bar because it enhances the sound quality. My LG television sound isn't bad but it's a bit it's a bit muffled compared to you know something that's a little bit more sharp. Sometimes you have to turn it up quite a bit to hear the dialogue clearly, at least to my old ears.
So I've got these kind of pegged for that usage, but this channel is about vinyl and, you know, they're really designed for something along those lines. So that's really the use case that they're for. That being said, Majority also makes a ton of other products, including specifically sound bars and things of that nature, so that'll be cool.
All right, we've got our remote batteries inserted. We've got an RCA to AUX cable, and we have an AUX cable as well. And the power cable, good to see it doesn't use a wall wart. Pretty typical, though, for speaker systems to have an AC power supply. So that's good.
Let's go ahead and set that aside and look at the actual speaker design. Now, when it comes to powered speakers, there's always a primary and a secondary speaker. And that's because the amplifier is only contained...
interesting... the amplifier is only contained in one of the two speakers. It doesn't need to be in both. So sometimes that primary speaker, which is this one, is heavier than than the other.
And sometimes they weight the secondary speaker so that it doesn't feel like it's overly lightweight, if you know what I mean. So in this case... They're pretty close. This one's a tad bit heavier, but I like the fact that they're pretty even in terms of weight distribution.
So this is very, very interesting how they've done this. So it has a permanently attached... cable the secondary speaker to connect via an rca jack to the primary i would have liked to seen something that was replaceable now it is replaceable if you know you can get in there and change it out but that would void your warranty etc etc so when this jack eventually if it eventually perishes as my friends across the pond say then that could present an issue so i would have liked to seen something that was socketed instead that being said it should work Fine, so we're ported on the back here.
These are going to be two-way speakers. Let's take a closer look at the back panel. All right, looking closely at the back panel here, we've got the jack. This is the RCA jack for the other speaker.
We've got an optical input, so you are able to connect an optical source, which is cool, as well as an analog source via an eighth-inch jack as well. Very interesting to see microSD card. or tf card and usb receptacles as well so you can play media directly from these so these are not only speakers they're actually media players very very interesting the power switch the power supply and that's about it you can see this panel has screws for servicing it but you know we can't do that without voiding the warranty understandably but interesting to know that the cabinet can be accessed via that panel And again, looking at the secondary speaker, you can see there's no connections, no anything except for that permanently affixed cable. Okay, and here is a look at the front of these speakers.
Obviously, there's a protective film that we can remove easily. Now, these have no speaker grill, and I used to love naked speakers like this with no grill. I've grown to appreciate speaker grills for some reason.
I don't know why that is, but I prefer a speaker grill now. So I wish these had that they do not unfortunately, but they still look very slick It's a shiny front panel that is plastic. I have not seen that before by the way The overall construction is going to be probably an mdf board material with a deeply textured laminate That looks good. This is a black finish.
I'm sure they come in a couple different finishes But that is what they look like and I think they look pretty sharp Obviously, we've got a gold colored cone for the woofer and that color is what it is. So if it doesn't fit the aesthetic you're looking for, that could be a deal breaker. However, I think it's fairly neutral and I think it looks actually really, really cool. Okay, a couple of specifications here. So this uses Bluetooth 5.0.
It doesn't mention the specific version of Bluetooth 5 that it's using. Probably aptX, but I'm not 100% sure. In terms of the digital file playback, it will play back MP3s, WMA files, FLAC files, MAV files, and APE files. I was just reading that these guys actually plant a tree for every purchase made, which I think is a pretty cool thing.
Further functionality can be found on the side panel of the primary speaker. If you don't have the remote with you and whatnot, you can control the forward and back. as well as the volume up and down, and the mode right there as well. There's a series of indicator lights here, and even a headphone jack, which is pretty awesome. I love it when speakers include a headphone jack.
So these speakers are much more than speakers. They're a media playback device, a Bluetooth speaker, powered speakers, and that's really cool. A headphone amplifier, you can do a lot of things with these speakers. So we really need to plug them in and give them a listen because it... from a design standpoint so far I'm very excited about.
I think that they're very cool. They feel high quality. Fit and finish is tight.
The only thing that I'm raising an eyebrow on a bit is the choice of a plastic front panel there. The thing about it having a grill or not is personal preference but fit and finish is absolutely top notch as far as I can tell except that plastic front panel, which may be fine. I don't think it'll impact sound whatsoever.
It's just more of the, I mean, that's what you see. That's the first thing you see before you see this higher quality looking material there. But that's a design choice.
Functionality wise, it could be perfectly fine. I hope they are. Time to give them a listen. So let's grab a turntable, hook them up. And making an appearance on Recordology for the first time in months, if not years.
is the first generation Marley stir it up turntable with its beautiful bamboo plinth anyway so it looks sharp I mean they look sharp the speakers look really good this is a good looking setup and back to what I was saying At the beginning of the video about why I love powered speakers is what you see right here is all you need to have a complete vinyl setup with powered speakers, just the turntable and the speakers, assuming you have a turntable with a line output, which most new turntables do have. And if you have an older turntable, all you got to do is add a little preamp and that's small. So a couple other things I wanted to point out, the drivers for the four inch drivers are actually Kevlar.
which is is really really cool that's a good material for that the rubber surrounds are are nice and thick and that looks like a good construct for um that speaker i'm glad to see that one thing i did notice when i powered these on they talk to you kind of wish they didn't talk to me kind of wish they didn't talk to me uh power output for these is 70 watts total so it's going to be 35 watts per channel. They also make a version with slightly lower power output but these are the higher output ones. Those ones are 60 these ones are 70 watts. Okay I was just getting everything set up and giving it a brief listen just to make sure that I had signal and it's completely out of phase. Now it's probably not the speakers.
I'm sure that the issue is the cartridge wiring possibly the turntable. Like I said this turntable has been in storage for years. So I'm going to eliminate the turntable from the equation, put it back into storage, and we'll bring out another turntable just to kind of troubleshoot that a bit. All right, Crosley to the rescue.
I love saying that. Okay, so here we have the C100BT in the limited edition champagne color connected to the speakers. And I confirmed it's in phase.
Everything's perfect. So the problem was that record player. Without further ado, and by the way, music is Enoch Light. I say you're cute.
I don't believe that we met. In every way you're cute. The name I did not get. Those big blue eyes. And your kids Will have turned up No more okay very impressed very impressed these things definitely punch above their weight and yeah these sounded great they were fun to listen to lots of rich bass and the mids and the highs were there definitely very bright and sharp in a good way everything was well balanced this was zeroed out on the EQ.
So if you wanted to add bass or detract bass, add treble, detract treble, you could do that as well. Don't forget about that Bluetooth functionality and the ability to play back digital audio files. I do want to point out a couple of other things too. I wish that the back of the speakers had RCA inputs versus just the eighth inch input. They do give you an RCA to eighth inch cable as we saw.
But it would be nice if there was a direct RCA left and right inputs on the back. Also, even though these had plenty of bass, it would have been cool if there was a subwoofer output, which there is not. So that being said, for $89... These are fantastic. These are very very very good sounding speakers at a very very fair price.
So if you were to unplug the analog input from the back it would automatically default to Bluetooth mode or you can use the remote control as I am and switch to Bluetooth mode. As you can see on my phone, it comes up right there. Yep, Bluetooth sounds good as well. Okay, I'm going to put an SD card in the SD card slot back here.
Don't forget you have these mode controls on the side, which is cool. Memory card. A bit. Yep, that works too.
Awesome features. Love the features on this. And when you turn them off, that's it. All right my friends, and that is going to do it. I hope you enjoyed this show.
Link in the description down below. Also, wanting to let you know that for our 45 adapters, exciting things are happening because not only are we rolling out a new exclusive color, in fact by the time you watch this it could already be available, But we are rolling out a new exclusive 45 adapter design that you've never seen before. And I'm super excited about it because the fit and finish is better than ever. It's designed so that it rolls off the printer as a single unit that requires no finishing. There's no flash, uneven, rough edges or anything like that.
It's a smooth and very well designed product. I'm very excited to share it with you. It's a perfect fit. for your spindle and for your 45s and be on the lookout for that as well. We're going to offer it in the exclusive orange color at all times as well as the alternating special color as well.
So we're keeping the old design, adding a new design. We also have the Seaberg 2-inch adapters as well and the design for the new 45 is kind of sort of similar to that Seaberg design where it's a solid unit sort of like a hockey puck design. Anyway, my friends, that's it for now. We've got a lot of fun stuff coming your way, including multiple record players stacked up and waiting for review. There's lots of fun happening right now on Recordology.
And so glad to have you along for the ride. But that's going to do it for today. So happy record hunting, and we'll see you next time.