Eficion F300M Satellite Speakers Review

The stands are not equipped with nor do they accommodate feet or spikes. This was a problem since my room has wall-to-wall Berber carpeting over the concrete slab floor.  This actually led to the first hurdle in trying to install the F300M in my sound room. Regardless of the amount of dead mass in the stands, the speakers rocked and swayed when placed on top of the thickly padded carpeting. After much consideration, I decided that instead of drilling into the bottom frames of the stands and inserting threaded inserts for spikes, I was going to source a set of speaker platforms to place them on. It was actually an easy decision because this was something I had planned to experiment with even with the large and much heftier full 2-piece F300 system. In fact, I was already eyeballing a set of Chinese aluminum E&T stands. I therefore used this as a perfect excuse to finally try them out and pulled the trigger.

A week later, a DHL courier hurled the hefty box of machined aluminum pieces at my front door. These stands resolved the issue of stabilizing the F300M’s and enabled me to continue with dialing in the placement.

Since I am currently using the full Eficion F300 speakers as my reference in a dedicated music room, I figured it would be a breeze to find the proper placement of the “top portion” F300M’s. After all, they are essentially the same speaker, right? As it turns out, yes, they are essentially the same speaker. That said, the setup and placement experience was completely different from that of the large 2-piece F300. I started by placing the speakers exactly where the F300’s are normally placed, but this resulted in a fairly lean sound. I therefore followed the suggestions in the manual and drew the speakers closer to the back wall. Despite being fearful of muddiness and loss of image depth, I was surprised to discover that the optimal placement was indeed a full 18” closer to the back wall than my chosen placement of the F300’s, resulting in a distance of 3.5 feet from the back wall, 7 feet between speakers and 8 feet from the speakers to the listening position and a slight toe-in.

The reference system utilized during the entire period of this evaluation period included:

The Sound

Having lived with the full-range F300 speaker system for well over a year now, I pretty well knew what to expect from the F300M’s. However, hearing them for the first time in an extended listening session, optimally placed in the room and very well anchored to the floor with the assistance of the E&T stands, proved to be much more instructional and yes, surprising, than I could have ever imagined.