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The guys at Edifier are know for making some really great audio gear, so when I was given the opportunity to go ears-on with their latest reference speakers, I was pretty excited. Well after spending two weeks listening to their Airpulse A300 speakers, I’m totally spoiled.
Designed by musician and audio expert Phil Jones, the A300s are on the larger end of bookshelf speakers, and are capable of pushing out an enormous amount of distortion-free sound. The speakers have built-in amplification, which means they work right out of the box without any additional hardware. Simply connect your favorite audio sources – be they analog or digital wired, or Bluetooth wireless, and you’re up and running.
As soon as I cracked open the box from the A300s, I knew it was going to be a quality affair. Each speaker is wrapped in a cloth pouch to protect its cabinet, and it even comes with gloves for handling them without fingerprints or sc. Edifier includes all the wiring you need too, with high quality cables for RCA stereo, optical digital, and USB digital. The only cables not included are XLRs, if you want to go with balanced analog inputs.
Each speaker cabinet measures appx. 8.85″(w) x 15.15″(h) x 13.39″(d), and is crafted from weighty 25mm MDF, finished with cherry wood veneer. The speakers are lined with a thick sound absorption material to minimize unwanted vibrations. They each pack a 6.5″ woofer, along with a 65mm ribbon tweeter, capable of hitting frequencies as high as 40 kHz. Each tweeter is driven by a 10 watt digital amp, while the woofers get 70 watts of power a piece. There are analog controls for input level, bass, and treble on back, while the infrared remote controls overall system volume, inputs, and can be used for skipping tracks via Bluetooth.
The back of the right speaker is where all of the inputs connect, and a fat, 5-pin shielded cable sends audio to the left speaker. That cable measures roughly 15 feet long, so you can place the two speakers nice and far apart for maximum separation. Even placed fairly close together, the ribbon tweeter produces a wide soundstage that opens up both horizontally and vertically.
Moving on from specs and features, what really matters is how speakers sound, and the Airpulse A300s are simply brilliant. No matter what style of music I threw at them, they produced an incredibly clean and vibrant sound, with enough available volume to easily fill the entire 450 square foot room I was testing them in at the kind of level you’d use if you were throwing a party. Distortion was undetectable to my ears, even at the highest volume levels.
Reproducing bass all the way down to 40Hz, they can shake the walls without the need for an external subwoofer, and even the thumping deep lows of Run the Jewels’ banger Call Ticketron and Missy Elliott’s Get Ur Freak On couldn’t scare them off. But these speakers aren’t just for party people. They sounded just as phenomenal playing Oscar Peterson’s C-Jam Blues as they did with Kraftwerk’s synthtastic Tour de France. Whatever type of music you enjoy, the A300s are up to the task.
For speakers with built-in amplification, the A300s are shockingly good, with big volume, razor-sharp clarity, studio-like imaging, and broad and smooth frequency response across the board. In other words, they’re worth every penny of their $1099.99 price tag. If you’re shopping for a standalone audio system, and have the budget, I highly recommend that you go for the A300s. They’re available for purchase right now from the Airpulsepro.com
