Verdict
The Majority D40X are a potentially an ideal upgrade for those who want speakers to upgrade their laptop or TV sound. It’s advisable not to come expecting the hifi-grade audio their design seems to hint at, though. These are respectable performers, given the price, but the highlight here is the breadth of features and the (at arm’s length) alluring design.
Pros
- You get a lot of stuff for your money
- Feature-rich
- They look smart
Cons
- Questionable build quality
- Inert-sounding mids
- Limited bass floor and dynamics
-
microSD slotThese speakers have a microSD slot, to let them play tunes directly off a memory card. -
Kevlar coneThe Majority D40X have kevlar speaker cones, the clearest upgrade over the step-down Majority D40. -
BluetoothAs well as a cabled connection, you can send audio from your phone wirelessly over Bluetooth.
Introduction
The Majority D40X are affordable speakers ideal for use with a PC. They don’t cost too much, they sound decent. And unlike the average Bluetooth speaker, they will provide a great stereo effect.
As is common among these cheaper units, the Majority D40X also have a great abundance of features. They have Bluetooth, an aux input, an optical input and even a microSD slot.
These aren’t the last word in audio quality, with a soft mid-range you wouldn’t necessarily hear in the audio monitor these speakers kinda emulate. But for the price, £89.99, they are a solid deal.
Design
- Wood grain effect plastic housings
- Two-tone style design
- Wireless and cabled input options
You might compare the Majority D40X to small studio monitors or a set of classic hifi bookshelf speakers.
They look good at first glance too, particularity considering their aggressive pricing. However, the closer you look the more the Majority seem like what they are: budget speakers.
There’s a wood grain finish on the cabinets, but this is, of course, just a texture etched into the plastic. These speakers do not have wood or MDF cabinets.
The two-tone effect of the yellow speaker cones is striking, as is the woven appearance of those cones. But I doubt you’d see the super glossy, grille-free finish of the front in a much more expensive pair. It highlights dust like crazy, and will show up scratches if you’re not careful.
They are less likely to come to peril than most speakers I review, though, as these are purely plugged-in units. The right speaker has a figure-of-eight power connector, while the left is connected using a phono cable. This is not the classic active studio monitor style speaker where each box houses its own amp circuitry. And there’s no battery in either unit. Portability: nil.
Plenty of people want exactly this kind of speaker, though, and Majority goes above and beyond to try and make them useful.
The ideal use case is that you plug the Majority D40X into a laptop or desktop over USB, letting these speakers function much like a sound card.
You can also plug them in using a 3.5mm socket, connect over Bluetooth or use an optical connection. There’s even a microSD slot on the back for MP3 playback, although this seems doomed to go unused by many.
There is also a little control panel on the side of the right speaker. This provides a 3.5mm headphone jack, a handy little addition, alongside buttons to adjust the volume, the source and (for Bluetooth or microSD playback) track control.
A remote control comes in the box too. This uses classic IR transmission, and you can see the IR receiver just above the tweeter on the right-channel unit.
They just fall short of adding karaoke support and LED lights, for which we can all be thankful.
These aren’t high-end speakers that need to wow potential buyers with their amazing build quality. But they look good enough from arm’s length.
You do need to be careful with them, though. At the end of testing, the phono cable that joins the secondary speaker to the primary one broke off in the connector in my review unit. And this is gong to require some DIY fixing as the other end of the cable heads right into the other speaker. Not ideal.
Sound Quality
- Solid scale and stereo image
- Limited dynamics
- Mids sound somewhat inert
The Majority D40X have 4-inch primary drivers and 1-inch tweeters. There’s a bass port on the back, but these are ultimately quite conventional in their design.
That means you need to limit your expectations on their bass floor. The Majority D40X don’t have passive radiators or super-long-throw drivers to make up for the relatively small size of the main drivers here.
Toe them in properly, though, and the Majority D40X will provide the kind of proper stereo image an otherwise better one-piece wireless speaker could not hope to recreate. That’s kinda the point of the Majority D40X, to remind us that there are undeniable benefits to having two properly separated speakers. Like so many of us had back in the old days.
But, yeah, you can’t expect the kind low bass and sub-bass you might hear in a smaller unit that has a more proactive bass reinforcement system.
Similarly, the Majority D40X’s separated and, for the price, decent-size drivers, deliver sound with a certain scale and stature you just don’t get with a smaller PC speaker or wireless speaker.
However, the mids are quite sterile and inert-sounding here. They aren’t the best relayers of vocals, and the effect is more obvious in close quarters, where I think the Majority D40X are likely to be used. They look like they belong to each side of a laptop or PC monitor.
The most interesting tech to review is where a company manages to pull surprising performance out of something of a certain size, form or budget. Majority’s D40X aren’t an example of this. They deliver fairly respectable but unremarkable sound considering we’re dealing with a very traditional speaker design.
Its sound is not hugely revealing or three-dimensional, and despite not being super-bassy its lower mids and upper bass can sound a little soft and slow.
However, I can’t deny these speakers don’t do their job just fine, and Majority certainly hasn’t messed up the tuning badly here. They will be an epic sound upgrade from laptop speakers, or those integrated into the average TV. That they can also do so much their budget grade is a sign of how cheap wireless electronics are these days, and the Majority D40X would be a good fit for a home office, or perhaps a kid’s PC gaming setup.
There’s no obvious and annoying hissy noise floor either, which I’ve heard in some budget wireless speakers. That’s a massive benefit for PC use. But are they fit for a home studio? Not really.
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
You want a no-nonsense PC sound upgrade
These speakers will slot in perfectly to each side of a laptop or PC monitor, and crank out larger, louder audio than the typical piddly units sold as an upgrade for your home computer.
You have high audio expectations
Simply having proper speaker housings and a two-way driver array gets you a good way towards decent sound, but the Majority don’t have the dynamics and insight to reach beyond the basics of their stature.
Final Thoughts
The Majority D40X provide, and do, a lot for their money, in an overt way. They look neat, have wired and wireless support and even come with a remote control.
And with a built-in amplifier, all you need to add is something to play the music. You don’t even need that if you choose to use the microSD slot.
Build quality isn’t quite as good at it may at first appear, though. And while the sound will be a monumental upgrade from laptop speakers, or those of most TVs, it’s not as dynamic, open or refined as you might be after.
How we test
We test every wireless speaker we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Tested with real world use
FAQs
There’s no battery here, they need to be plugged in.
They have Bluetooth for wireless transmission.
They are rated at 70watts of power output.
Verdict
The Majority D40X are a potentially an ideal upgrade for those who want speakers to upgrade their laptop or TV sound. It’s advisable not to come expecting the hifi-grade audio their design seems to hint at, though. These are respectable performers, given the price, but the highlight here is the breadth of features and the (at arm’s length) alluring design.
Pros
- You get a lot of stuff for your money
- Feature-rich
- They look smart
Cons
- Questionable build quality
- Inert-sounding mids
- Limited bass floor and dynamics
-
microSD slotThese speakers have a microSD slot, to let them play tunes directly off a memory card. -
Kevlar coneThe Majority D40X have kevlar speaker cones, the clearest upgrade over the step-down Majority D40. -
BluetoothAs well as a cabled connection, you can send audio from your phone wirelessly over Bluetooth.
Introduction
The Majority D40X are affordable speakers ideal for use with a PC. They don’t cost too much, they sound decent. And unlike the average Bluetooth speaker, they will provide a great stereo effect.
As is common among these cheaper units, the Majority D40X also have a great abundance of features. They have Bluetooth, an aux input, an optical input and even a microSD slot.
These aren’t the last word in audio quality, with a soft mid-range you wouldn’t necessarily hear in the audio monitor these speakers kinda emulate. But for the price, £89.99, they are a solid deal.
Design
- Wood grain effect plastic housings
- Two-tone style design
- Wireless and cabled input options
You might compare the Majority D40X to small studio monitors or a set of classic hifi bookshelf speakers.
They look good at first glance too, particularity considering their aggressive pricing. However, the closer you look the more the Majority seem like what they are: budget speakers.
There’s a wood grain finish on the cabinets, but this is, of course, just a texture etched into the plastic. These speakers do not have wood or MDF cabinets.
The two-tone effect of the yellow speaker cones is striking, as is the woven appearance of those cones. But I doubt you’d see the super glossy, grille-free finish of the front in a much more expensive pair. It highlights dust like crazy, and will show up scratches if you’re not careful.
They are less likely to come to peril than most speakers I review, though, as these are purely plugged-in units. The right speaker has a figure-of-eight power connector, while the left is connected using a phono cable. This is not the classic active studio monitor style speaker where each box houses its own amp circuitry. And there’s no battery in either unit. Portability: nil.
Plenty of people want exactly this kind of speaker, though, and Majority goes above and beyond to try and make them useful.
The ideal use case is that you plug the Majority D40X into a laptop or desktop over USB, letting these speakers function much like a sound card.
You can also plug them in using a 3.5mm socket, connect over Bluetooth or use an optical connection. There’s even a microSD slot on the back for MP3 playback, although this seems doomed to go unused by many.
There is also a little control panel on the side of the right speaker. This provides a 3.5mm headphone jack, a handy little addition, alongside buttons to adjust the volume, the source and (for Bluetooth or microSD playback) track control.
A remote control comes in the box too. This uses classic IR transmission, and you can see the IR receiver just above the tweeter on the right-channel unit.
They just fall short of adding karaoke support and LED lights, for which we can all be thankful.
These aren’t high-end speakers that need to wow potential buyers with their amazing build quality. But they look good enough from arm’s length.
You do need to be careful with them, though. At the end of testing, the phono cable that joins the secondary speaker to the primary one broke off in the connector in my review unit. And this is gong to require some DIY fixing as the other end of the cable heads right into the other speaker. Not ideal.
Sound Quality
- Solid scale and stereo image
- Limited dynamics
- Mids sound somewhat inert
The Majority D40X have 4-inch primary drivers and 1-inch tweeters. There’s a bass port on the back, but these are ultimately quite conventional in their design.
That means you need to limit your expectations on their bass floor. The Majority D40X don’t have passive radiators or super-long-throw drivers to make up for the relatively small size of the main drivers here.
Toe them in properly, though, and the Majority D40X will provide the kind of proper stereo image an otherwise better one-piece wireless speaker could not hope to recreate. That’s kinda the point of the Majority D40X, to remind us that there are undeniable benefits to having two properly separated speakers. Like so many of us had back in the old days.
But, yeah, you can’t expect the kind low bass and sub-bass you might hear in a smaller unit that has a more proactive bass reinforcement system.
Similarly, the Majority D40X’s separated and, for the price, decent-size drivers, deliver sound with a certain scale and stature you just don’t get with a smaller PC speaker or wireless speaker.
However, the mids are quite sterile and inert-sounding here. They aren’t the best relayers of vocals, and the effect is more obvious in close quarters, where I think the Majority D40X are likely to be used. They look like they belong to each side of a laptop or PC monitor.
The most interesting tech to review is where a company manages to pull surprising performance out of something of a certain size, form or budget. Majority’s D40X aren’t an example of this. They deliver fairly respectable but unremarkable sound considering we’re dealing with a very traditional speaker design.
Its sound is not hugely revealing or three-dimensional, and despite not being super-bassy its lower mids and upper bass can sound a little soft and slow.
However, I can’t deny these speakers don’t do their job just fine, and Majority certainly hasn’t messed up the tuning badly here. They will be an epic sound upgrade from laptop speakers, or those integrated into the average TV. That they can also do so much their budget grade is a sign of how cheap wireless electronics are these days, and the Majority D40X would be a good fit for a home office, or perhaps a kid’s PC gaming setup.
There’s no obvious and annoying hissy noise floor either, which I’ve heard in some budget wireless speakers. That’s a massive benefit for PC use. But are they fit for a home studio? Not really.
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
You want a no-nonsense PC sound upgrade
These speakers will slot in perfectly to each side of a laptop or PC monitor, and crank out larger, louder audio than the typical piddly units sold as an upgrade for your home computer.
You have high audio expectations
Simply having proper speaker housings and a two-way driver array gets you a good way towards decent sound, but the Majority don’t have the dynamics and insight to reach beyond the basics of their stature.
Final Thoughts
The Majority D40X provide, and do, a lot for their money, in an overt way. They look neat, have wired and wireless support and even come with a remote control.
And with a built-in amplifier, all you need to add is something to play the music. You don’t even need that if you choose to use the microSD slot.
Build quality isn’t quite as good at it may at first appear, though. And while the sound will be a monumental upgrade from laptop speakers, or those of most TVs, it’s not as dynamic, open or refined as you might be after.
How we test
We test every wireless speaker we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Tested with real world use
FAQs
There’s no battery here, they need to be plugged in.
They have Bluetooth for wireless transmission.
They are rated at 70watts of power output.
