For the time being, Edifier is a relatively unknown brand, but it has everything it needs to become a big name in the world of PC audio. 

From its base in China, the manufacturer makes well-finished products which produce audio that's anything but bad.  Even its website is a lot easier than on the eye than some of its local competitors.

Cones for the tweeters

Edifier doesn't exactly innovate with the design of the S330D, with just about everything in black, with it's with a satin black finish, matte, grainy or otherwise.  A few silver details and very traditional shapes finish the whole thing off.  However, once you open up the two tweeters, you find that they use cones, which isn't all that common.  The woofer, a large cube, is bigger than the one provided with the Creative T3.  It's not the easiest thing to make room for under your desk. 

The wired remote uses the same technology as the T3.  On top, there's an auxiliary input and a headphone jack.  While we're on the subject of connectivity, it's worth noting the large number of options, including digital inputs (see inset).

Audio Quality: We've heard worse

Let's be clear: the S330Ds aren't the best speakers we've ever listened to, but they're also a long way away from being the worst!  Indeed, all of our criticisms are standard problems we often encounter.  The subwoofer has an irritating tendency to sound washed-out as soon as you make it work a little.  Nevertheless, it manages to avoid the mistakes made by some entry-level speakers, which go for the all-or-nothing approach: either a rolling avalanche with vague bass notes picked out or absolute silence.

The two satellites also perform as we'd expect: the tweeters do their job, but speakers that don't even measure 5 cm can't work wonders in the mid-range where things get a little confused.  Once again, though, it's better than the cheapest models which are absolutely incapable of producing anything in this part of the spectrum.  One of the direct consequences of this loss of mid-range sounds is the sensation of an aggressive sound, even  though the treble isn't shouty--far from it, in fact.

These S330Ds are less impressive than Creative's T3s, which isn't surprising given how high a bar they set.  They're still a very interesting proposition, especially given that they offer the chance to use S/P DIF connectors, something that's still all too rare with 2.1 kits.