If you’re short on time and just want the highlights of this article, here it is:
The Airpulse A300 Bluetooth Speaker System is a good choice for anyone looking for an affordable and reliable sound system with multiple connection options. It has a good sound quality, with decent soundstage, imaging, and bass and treble response, but it could be better. The connection options are solid, but they could use some improvement. Overall, the Airpulse A300 is a good choice for a home audio system, but it may not be the best option for those looking for a high-end sound system.
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Now let’s get to its bolts and nuts.
Airpulse A300 Review: Sound quality
Have you ever noticed that there often tends to be quite the opposite opinions about a speaker?
I can understand this for more "personal taste" kinda products like clothing, for example.
But for engineering products like speakers? Personal tastes and preferences probably still play a role. But shouldn't it be less?
Why is it that we can't set a universal metric for sound quality?
First time I asked this question to myself has been a pivotal day.
Because it turns out that in the mid 90's, Electrical Engineer PhD Floyd Toole came up with a method called Spinorama. This is exactly what he accomplished with this. Turns out that his book Sound Reproduction is like the bible of audiophiles.
Put it simply, Spinorama is a set of measurements that gives a comprehensive overview of a speaker's performance from various angles.
It allows you to compare the performances of different speakers before even laying your ears hands on them.
Isn't that amazing?
This is why Spinorama was apparently groundbreaking news for audio industry. Hence in the mid-late 2010's, most brands and magazines began publishing Spinorama measurements, despite the challenges of making such measurements.
Fortunately, now we have the Spinorama data for a bunch of quite popular speakers. Pierre Aubert put all this untidy data together and put it into https://www.spinorama.org/. This is a stunning source. Pretty valuable stuff from him right there.
All good up to this point.
Now there comes a caveat.
Since the sound speakers propagate are in the form of omnidirectional waves, all measurements are obtained in anechoic or semi-anechoic chambers (a super-quiet room where soundwaves don't bounce back, here's how different that room sounds [a mind blowing time-adjusted video]).
This is a problem because it means that Spinorama alone, unfortunately, won't give us all we need. Placement and reflections play an equally important role there too.
This is why most A-class brands (like SVS, Bang & Olufsen, etc) often come up with room correction features, adjusted either manually or automatically. The EQ adapts itself to the placement (room, corner, center, etc) for a better (deeper and more accurate) sound. Which is great.
Additionally they often emphasize the importance of placement, here is an example: https://www.svsound.com/blogs/subwoofer-setup-and-tuning/75365187-the-art-of-subwoofer-placement
Anyways...
The source code under Pierre Aubert's work is licensed under GPL (General public license). He didn't perform any of the measurements himself, and instead he compiled all of them into one place, so that makes sense.
At this point, I thought that if there was a tool that combined both the Spinorama with the room acoustics data, it'd be extremely useful.
Unfortunately, it turns out that there wasn't any.
This is where I stepped in and partnered with an Acoustics and Audio Engineering PhD in order to achieve this.
We combined Spinorama data with room acoustics and came up with Soundton. A very simple, 2D online tool that allows you to:
- Reveal optimal speaker positions in a room,
- Test with real speakers from real brands,
- Compare different speakers and different positions in the room.
It can be very valuable for the vast majority.
The colormap provides you the locations with the best (green) and worst (red) listening experience.
It works the best with subwoofers since Soundton processes low frequency response waves only.
- Soundton is going to be, say, 80% accurate. Not 100%.
- Because, other parameters such as the age/materials of the building, furniture/windows in place also have an impact on room acoustics.
- If you want absolutely the most detailed room analysis, then what you need is an acoustics consultant. Mind you that's going to require deep pockets and patience though... assuming you find the right person and they get the job done.
Anyways...
The Airpulse A300 Bluetooth Speaker System is designed to provide full-range audio at up to 80W per channel to fill your space with sound. When it comes to sound quality, the A300 is a good but not great speaker.
The A300 cabinet is built with 25mm thick rigid MDF with cherry wood veneer finished in a satin lacquer, and the interior is fully lined with 36mm thick waved sound absorption material to help reduce sound coloration. The oval shaped vent tube in the A300 is carefully designed to minimize wind noise, and the internal wiring is made by TRANSPARENT for enhanced accuracy and minimal signal loss.
The A300 features a 6.5″ mid-woofer and an aluminum ribbon tweeter, and it is powered by three TAS5754 Class D amplifiers from Texas Instruments. The dual clock structure at the output stage effectively avoids signal modification between different sample rates and can further reduce signal distortion.
For uncompromised performance, the A300 mid-woofer uses a rigid cast-magnesium alloy frame. Its rigidity reduces speaker coloration, and its material helps to dissipate heat efficiently from the voice coil much faster than a typical steel speaker frame, which all leads to increased dynamics and power handling. The horn-loaded ribbon tweeter of the A300 inherits the mechanism of the tweeter in the Airpulse 7001 near-field monitor speaker, and it features a large underhung motor structure with a high-gauss neodymium magnet and a 50mm diameter edge-wound, copper-clad aluminum ribbon voice coil to gain maximum linear excursion and control.
The sound produced by the A300 is good overall, but some may find it lacking in certain areas. The soundstage is decent, but some people may find it lacking in depth and width. The imaging is good, but again, it may not be as precise as some people would like. The low-end response is good, with decent bass and midbass, but the sub-bass could use a boost. The midrange response is clear and articulate, with good detail and sound separation. The high-end response is good, but the treble may be slightly subdued.
Overall, the Airpulse A300 Bluetooth Speaker System provides good sound quality, but it could be better. I would like to see more depth and width in the soundstage, more precision in the imaging, and more sub-bass and treble extension. With these improvements, the A300 would be a great speaker system.
Airpulse A300 Review: Connectivity
The Airpulse A300 provides multiple options for connecting your audio sources. It has optical, digital coaxial, balanced stereo XLR, USB Type-B, and stereo RCA inputs, plus Bluetooth connectivity with aptX for wireless connectivity with your compatible devices. All connectivity is via the powered right speaker, which connects to the passive left speaker with the included speaker cable. A remote control, optical cable, stereo RCA cable, and stereo RCA to 1/8″ adapter are all included for instant connectivity.
The analog front end uses Texas Instruments components. With their configuration, the chipsets work at 96 kHz, offering a frequency response up to 40 kHz. The wide-range input frequency response helps guarantee thorough signal acquisition at very low distortion. The SPDIF receiver is the Texas Instruments PCM9211, which supports up to 216 kHz input sample rates. The USB audio interface supports the UAC2 audio application and an input sample rate of up to 192 kHz. This audio application effectively avoids signal degradation and dynamic range loss due to the computer’s onboard DAC and provides a new method for high-definition audio playback. The Bluetooth audio receiver is built on Qualcomm’s Bluetooth 5.0 chipset, which supports aptX decoding and offers enhanced audio playback quality over SBC Bluetooth.
In terms of connectivity, the Airpulse A300 is good but not great. It has multiple options for connecting your audio sources, but the Bluetooth connection could be improved. The Bluetooth range could be longer, and the aptX decoding could be more reliable. Overall, the connectivity of the A300 is solid, but it could be better.
Airpulse A300 Review: Most & least ideal user profiles
The Airpulse A300 Bluetooth Speaker System is a great choice for anyone looking for a good sound system with multiple connectivity options. It has a good sound quality, with decent soundstage, imaging, and bass and treble response. The connection options are solid, but they could use some improvement.
For these reasons, the most ideal user profile for the A300 is someone who is looking for good sound quality at an affordable price and with multiple connection options. The A300 is a good choice for a home audio system, as its sound quality will be good enough for most people, and its multiple connection options will allow for easy hookup to any kind of device.
The least ideal user profile for the A300 is someone who is looking for a high-end sound system with crystal-clear sound and precise imaging. The A300 is not going to be the best option for this kind of user, as its sound quality could be better and its connection options are not the best. For this user, a more expensive and higher-end system would be a better choice.
Airpulse A300 Review: Conclusion
The Airpulse A300 Bluetooth Speaker System is a good choice for anyone looking for an affordable and reliable sound system with multiple connection options. It has a good sound quality, with decent soundstage, imaging, and bass and treble response, but it could be better. The connection options are solid, but they could use some improvement. Overall, the Airpulse A300 is a good choice for a home audio system, but it may not be the best option for those looking for a high-end sound system.