If you’re short on time and just want the highlights of this article, here it is:
The Audioengine A1MR wireless speaker system is an impressive speaker that offers great sound and a range of features. It has Wi-Fi technology, AirPlay, DLNA, and UPnP capabilities, as well as a 3.5mm input for wired devices. It has a 2-way design and outputs up to 15W RMS per channel, with a 2.75″ aramid-fiber woofer and a 0.75″ silk dome tweeter to produce clear, full-range audio.
The A1MR is great for those who want a reasonably-priced speaker with great sound for a small to medium-sized room. It’s also great for those who want to stream music from their home network, or for those who want to create a multiroom sound system. However, the A1MR isn’t ideal for those who are looking for a powerful, loud speaker, as it doesn’t have enough power to get loud enough for a larger room and doesn’t have a particularly powerful bass response.
All in all, the Audioengine A1MR is a great sounding speaker with a lot of great features. It’s perfect for small to medium-sized rooms, and the sound quality is really outstanding. With a bit more powerful bass and higher volume, it would be even better.
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Now let’s get to its bolts and nuts.
Audioengine A1MR Review: Sound quality
Let me tell you something right off the bat.
The sound quality performance you'll end up getting from a speaker will always depend on your room acoustics - particularly room dimensions and speaker positions.
The impact of the combination of these two is actually so strong that in most cases, it doesn't even make sense to utter a single word on sound quality without speaking of them.
This is also why it's not unusual to see completely different reviews of the same speaker.
In one case the speaker might be placed in a sweet spot inside the room and hence the user might be satisfied. In other cases the same speaker might be ill placed and hence user might even have returned it.
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The point most people miss here is that it mostly isn't even about the engineering behind the speaker itself. It's about where you place the speaker inside which room.
So, in order to solve this problem, I've partnered with Acoustics and Audio Engineering PhD Andrea Cicero from AC Acustica and created Soundton - a simple, 2D, browser accessible online speaker placement calculator.
With Soundton, now there's a way to figure the sound quality of most speakers before you buy them.
Read more about its working principles at soundton.com.
The end colormap provides you the locations with the best (green) and worst (red) acoustics.