Edifier AirPulse A300 Premium Speakers Review

Every one time in a while you get a product that makes you lot realize you've been missing out on something for a long time. That could be upgrading to a new 4K monitor, switching to an SSD, or in today's case, switching to truly premium speakers.

While high-terminate speakers may not be practical or worthwhile for everyone, for those with a discerning ear and deep pockets, they tin can make all the difference in the world. A while back we reviewed the AudioEngine A5+ Wireless and while they were a keen set of speakers, as with all audiophile gear, you can always spend more than and movement up in quality.

Today I'll be testing out the AirPulse A300 by Edifier. Coming in at $1,100, this two channel bookshelf speaker pair is aimed at the more demanding user and sit at the elevation of Edifier's speaker lineup. Permit's see if they are worth that toll tag and what you get when you movement up to this price tier.

The A300 were developed past famous audio engineer Phil Jones. They characteristic 6.v" woofers with 65mm ribbon tweeters as well every bit a wide variety of analog and digital inputs. The ribbon tweeters are an interesting feature, so I'll take a moment to explicate how they work and why they are common on high-cease audio gear.

Traditional speakers work by pulsing a cone in and out with electromagnets co-ordinate to the music. Ribbon tweeters are different in almost every way. The sound is created past vibrating a slice of thin plastic film with a microscopic coating of aluminum vapor. These strips aren't physically held in place similar dome tweeters which allows for a greater degree of movement. Instead, they are suspended inside a magnetic field. They are too up to 10x lighter which means there is less resistance to movement when compared to a traditional tweeter.

Ribbons may sound superior, but they aren't perfect. Since they are extremely light and don't have a normal voice curlicue, their internal resistance is very low. This makes driving them difficult without a particularly designed amplifier. Being so small, they can't movement a lot of air either which means they are only constructive at loftier frequencies. To compensate, a wider range woofer is required. All that being said, ribbon tweeters are a considerable upgrade. Notwithstanding, their high toll ways they are simply institute on very expensive systems.

Back to the A300 now, the speakers themselves measure out 225mm x 385mm 10 340mm and weigh in at 53lbs together. They have a total output power of 160W which is split 70W for each woofer and 10W for each tweeter. The amplifier has an SNR of 90dBA and the whole arrangement has a frequency response of 40-40KHz. I'll get into the frequency response later on.

The speaker cabinets are fabricated of 25mm MDF finished with a cherry veneer. They are just available in this finish, but I call back it looks corking, and so I'm not too worried. These speakers don't come with a front cover either, merely I think most people who spend this kind of coin on a set of speakers would want to show them off.

Moving effectually to the dorsum, nosotros notice an air inlet on both speakers for improved bass response. The correct speaker has all of the connections and circuitry, while the left speaker is passively connected with a single cable. To connect the 2, there is a 16ft interconnecting cable. It looks like a MIDI connector, just those certainly won't be able to deliver 80W, so your mileage may vary if you want to supersede it. I would have liked to take seen a more standard connector hither like traditional assistant plugs. This as well means you lot may not be able to exercise an in-wall installation since I don't believe the included cable is certified.

Looking at the back console, nosotros discover many inputs including balanced XLR, RCA, USB, Coax, and Optical. The A300 besides has a built-in Bluetooth receiver for wireless playback. For those interested in the technical details of the speakers, they use the PCM9211 Digital Audio Transceiver and TAS5756M Form-D Amplifier. The rear likewise has volume adjustment as well every bit depression and high frequency EQ settings. I always prefer the book knob to be on the forepart though since that makes information technology much easier to find. I plant that the bass and treble adjustments didn't do too much since they but allow up to 3dB adjustments.

These speakers are terrible fingerprint magnets, so make sure you get some white gloves to handle them during installation. Likewise included in the package is the very thick interconnect cable, a remote command, an optical cablevision, an instruction transmission, a high-quality RCA cablevision with gold plated connectors, and an RCA to 1/viii" adapter.

In what seemed similar a small mishap with our review unit, we received the user transmission for the A100 instead of A300. The remote was as well a fleck of a letdown. Information technology looks fancy, only is actually made of inexpensive plastic and feels flimsy. I would have much preferred a metal design given the price point for these speakers.

The speakers take 4 rubberized feet on the lesser. Depending on your setup, you volition probably desire to place these speakers on some sort of stand. They sound best when placed at ear level then if yous don't have stands, you can identify a wedge in the front to bending them upwardly slightly. Edifier also makes a speaker represent the A300 that sells for $200.

On to sound quality now... judging audio quality is always hard given its subjective nature. I don't currently have whatever similarly priced speakers to compare the A300 to, so I compared them to the Audioengine A5+ which happen to be highly regarded $500 speakers. And then hither come my impressions of what you get when you lot movement upwards the price tier a notch or ii.

Starting with some objective analysis thanks to our friends over at miniDSP. Ane of import feature of a speaker or headphone system is how accurately it reproduces sounds. This is chosen the frequency response and ideally, it should be very flat. That means the sound coming out of the speaker exactly matches the signal going into information technology. To examination this, y'all play a known audio signal through the speaker and measure the amplitude of the signal coming out. To do it accurately, y'all need a specialized measurement microphone that has been calibrated to ensure it has a perfectly flat frequency response itself. I used the Room EQ Wizard (REW) to produce the frequency sweep and perform the analysis and the UMIK-i from miniDSP as my measurement microphone.

This showtime graph represents the frequency response from 20Hz to 20KHz. The A300 isn't designed to go below 40Hz so that dip can be ignored. The human being ear can only hear upwardly to 20KHz on average and then any results in a higher place that range won't matter either. I measured with a indicate targeting 80dB and the microphone placed 1ft from the speaker. This produced a very flat response. There is some slight boost in the lows and a small-scale gyre off upwards towards the high end of the spectrum, merely overall I'thou impressed. If you detect the depression finish to be likewise much or the loftier terminate to be lacking, the speakers do accept depression and high EQ adjustment knobs.

Next we accept a look at the crossover between the ribbon tweeter (blue) and woofer (green). I conducted this measurement by placing the microphone 1/ii" from the the drivers and running through the sweep to find what range the driver is about active in. This measurement isn't equally precise as the total spectrum sweep since there is always a bit of drain between the ii drivers no matter how close you identify the mic. However, nosotros tin encounter that this bespeak for the A300 is around 2 kHz.

For comparison, the AudioEngine A5+ had a full range frequency response that was not quite every bit flat. There was a much more pronounced cut in all frequencies in a higher place 1kHz, but it stayed a bit tighter at lower frequencies.

On to the more subjective listening feel, as expected the AirPulse A300 were a pleasure to mind to and I was distressing to see them go when the evaluation flow was over. Describing a fix of speakers on their ain won't mean much, then I'll compare them again to the A5+ as an example of what an extra $500 gets you. Before I say anything, think that the A5+ is an outstanding pair of speakers themselves and this is a bit of a lopsided comparison. These results don't take anything abroad from the A5+, they merely add to the quality of the A300.

To perform these tests, I listened to the same music on both speakers at the same volume using the same DAC. I used an sound switcher to perform A/B testing during songs and was able to tell them apart afterward just a few minutes of listening.

While both speakers accept very broad soundstages, I constitute that the A300's were more vibrant and articulate. The A5+ tended to practise well with positioning on the far left, right, and center, but some particular was lost in between. The soundstage on the A300 was more cohesive from left to correct and a fleck more wide. Thanks to the ribbon tweeters, the high end actually sparkled likewise. Cymbal hits had an extra shimmer that got lost on the A5+. I also noted that there was more definition and distinction between guitars and drums on the A300 compared to the A5+. This is a difficult affair to achieve since the middle frequency range often gets very crowded in rock and pop music. Both speakers can get painfully loud and easily deliver room filling audio.

When it comes to vocals, the A5+ emphasized them a scrap better in terms of loudness, only the A300 was much more clear. I ended upwardly turning the high EQ setting upwards slightly on the A300 to compensate and was very pleased. The woofer on the A300 is a bigger speaker, then naturally it sounded better in the depression end than the A5+. Both were equally punchy on bass drum hits, but lower frequencies between 50Hz and 200Hz were noticeably more than muddy on the A5+. Overall, the A5+ sounded more mellow than the A300 which was articulate and crisp even into the height of its range. I would say the A300 sounded more similar you lot were stepping into a smooth bubble of sound instead of just listening to 2 individual speakers.

To wrap information technology up, information technology's hard not to be impressed past the sound quality of the AirPulse A300. When you are spending more than than $one,000 on a pair of speakers though, anything less would be a disappointment.

While the jump from $500 speakers to $1,100 speakers was very noticeable, I'm sure there are $5,000+ speakers that brand the A300 sound terrible just the aforementioned. Yous can keep going upwardly and upwardly in price including some speakers in the 6-figure range. How do you know when is enough? To become the best out of loftier quality speakers similar these, you need loftier-quality inputs. I'g not talking about $400 power cords or gold plated USB cables; I hateful lossless loftier-bitrate audio. If you purchase these speakers but to listen to YouTube music videos, you're wasting your coin. These speakers will brand depression-quality recordings sound really bad and bring out the particular in loftier-quality ones.

The AirPulse A300 are not perfect though. You lot'll need a stand for these and the 1 that Edifier sells is an extra $200. Some other complaint I had is the not-standard interconnect between the ii speakers. While information technology'southward probably fine for most setups, it may mean these speakers are not an selection for larger, more spread out ones. The included remote control as well feels like a toy..

Information technology's difficult to requite speakers an objective score and definitive recommendation, but thankfully Edifier offers a thirty-day render policy if y'all don't like them, and then you lot tin can requite them a try if they're within your budget. So if you lot've had some nice speakers in the past and are looking to upgrade, you won't be disappointed with the AirPulse A300.

If possible, I'd recommend finding a pair at a domicile theater store and scheduling a listening session to brand sure they are right for you. The asking price is steep, only this is ane instance where you definitely go what you paid for.