MORE FROM THIS BRAND RESUME The Airpulse A 100 are good speakers. Especially if you purchase them for that specific purpose for which you are looking for that fairly analytical and direct representation. They really excel in nearfield rendering, but just aren’t for everyone. Although that actually applies to a lot of hi-fi.

PLUS POINTS Fast and energetic display Nice stereo image (nearfield) Nicely finished Complete package including good quality interlinks MINUSES Sometimes a bit nasty in the high

If I wanted to review a set of Edifier speakers? Isn’t that that brand that mainly focuses on audio with your PC? That’s right, for the most part ????  but the Airpulse sub-brand that is designed and produced under the Edifier banner is a bit more hi-fi oriented, in contrast to the Edifier speakers that you find on the shelves of the major electronics chains. Getting started with the Airpulse A 100 So!

What is more than worth mentioning is that musician and audio designer Phil Jones forms a partnership with Edifier. By the way, don’t confuse him with Andrew Jones, the renowned loudspeaker designer. Nor are they related. Phil Jones is, however, the man behind the legendary Acoustic Energy AE-1. For many, still the benchmark for floorstander performance from a much smaller, yet conventional housing. That creates certain expectations for me if I do a little reading before the speakers are delivered.

Today is red No, not Marco Borsato’s song … The Airpulse A pair 100, which is not made available to me for quite some time to my dissatisfaction, is what I am referring to. The A 192 is available in high-gloss white, high-gloss black and therefore also high-gloss red. And now let the latter show off with me on the speaker stands in my attic room. It is a color that I would never buy myself without seeing it. But now that they are set up in the listening room, I actually think they are very beautiful, and have a real own face.

They are seamlessly finished with rounded corners and the paint is of good quality. It all shines towards you and it is not without reason that a pair of white cloth gloves and a cleaning cloth are included. They are speakers that really should be seen. They are also nice and compact and measure only 25 cm in width, 28, 3 cm in height and 25, 5 cm depth.

The left speaker is the one that actually is passive. The judge is the one in which the electronics are housed. A black strip can be seen on the front of that active speaker that provides visual feedback which input has been selected. The IR eye has been incorporated into the same strip and a HiRes logo is displayed on the front. Fortunately, it does not look like a traditional computer speaker set, but really a bit more serious work. Personally, I would like to see that black strip on the passive speaker as well, but that’s more my slightly compulsive trait to see the same left and right.

Drivers, amplification and internal cabling

Ok, so the appearance is (as far as I am concerned) well together. And if you don’t like red, you still have the choice of neutral black or white. The technique is of course just as important. First of all, the horn loaded ribbon tweeter stands out. That is not an everyday tweeter. The very thin aluminum diaphragm provides high resolution and speed and the horn design ensures a fairly direct radiation behavior towards the listener. It is crucial for such tweeters to set them up correctly. That is to say fully turn in to the listening position and the tweeter at ear height. Because my speaker stands are a bit too low and in the beginning it was all just flat and boring. Once brought to the right height, it became a completely different story. There is also a set of coasters of dampening material included that allows you to place the speakers on your desk at an angle, but there was just not enough space on my desk, so that’s why I chose speaker stands on both sides of my desk.

The fact The fact that they must be well aimed at your ears makes these speakers perfectly suitable for near-field listening. As monitors in your home studio, for example, or as high-quality reproducers at your home workplace. The tweeters are connected by a 2 x 10 Watt class-D amplifier driven and go to 40 kHz, which is well above the human hearing range. This in turn ensures a lot of peace in the reproduction of sound in the audible spectrum. The woofers are 5-inch aluminum variants that look beautiful with their silver-colored dust cover. The woofers are controlled by a 2 x 52 Watt class-D amplifier and start at 52 Hz, which is very neat for this speaker size. The internal cabling and the fairly thick cable between the two speakers is from the American Transparent Cable, so that is also good.

Connectivity Options

The rear of the right speaker is well utilized with a large reflex port and control and input panel and offers quite a few possibilities to physically connect your sources, in addition to the invisible wireless variant called Bluetooth (aptX). There are two analog RCA connections, an optical input and a USB-B input with support for 192 kHz input sample rate to your PC, smartphone or tablet with the Airpulse A 100 to connect. Drivers are available for your Windows PC. There is also a subwoofer output and of course the connection point for the cable to the other speaker. There are also a number of rotary knobs to adjust the volume, treble and bass reproduction.

So it is not the most complete device in terms of connectivity options, but nevertheless there is most of them can be found sufficiently. In addition to the rotary / push buttons on the back, the operation can also be done with a great small remote control.

Hi-Fi Speakers? The enormously direct sound of the A 100 it’s noticable. They are not speakers that you use for background music. As far as I’m concerned, they demand too much attention for that. The lightning-fast mid-low, middle and high reproduction are merciless in displaying small details, even if the shot is a dragon. So I can describe them as quite analytical. The bass reproduction is not too fat. On the contrary, it is very tight, rhythmic and controlled. The reflex gate does not produce any annoying wind noise, so this has also been carefully considered. It turns out that they are really speakers aimed at nearfield listening and in my opinion not suitable for a medium-sized living room next to the television. They really lack some power for that and the sweet spot is too narrow.

With the current corona crisis, I have worked an enormous amount of hours from home â ???? and will I stick with it for many more hours â ???? and therefore these Airpulse A 192 for quite some time my regular reproducers when listening to music, right next to my desk on stands. If I really had to concentrate on my work, it was important to just switch off the speakers and put my headphones on at a low volume. The A 100 â ???? s grab you and don’t let go until you turn them off again. Your full attention is claimed and you are drawn into that sound bubble, whether you want it or not.

The stereo image is beautiful and has a nice placement that is wider and deeper than the rather narrow setup in which I tested them for most of the review period. Percussion is very tight and detailed and yet also delivered with a certain lightness with enough punch in the low end. It is the speed and transparency of the aluminum ribbon horn tweeter that provides that particular fast, airy sound. Don’t listen relaxed, but immerse yourself in the music you want to hear.

I leave the button for the treble display in the middle position. Turning down does not give more peace of mind when listening and that just removes those micro details and transient information. It is an intrinsic quality of these tweeters to fully demand your attention. You don’t need to turn it higher at all. Then it all becomes much too sharp. Even vicious. Like adding artificial sharpening to a photo. Jagged and ugly edges are plotted around your beautiful photo and that’s what happens to the sound when you turn the treble knob up. So the whole is sometimes a bit too much in the middle position, but turning that knob just doesn’t give a good result for my feeling.

Lovers of heavy and deep bass with a lot of pressure can do it it is best to connect a subwoofer, because the A 100 – you simply are not. The format is certainly not up to that. Which does not mean that the bass reproduction is bad, because it is perfectly fine and well dosed. In any case, no sub was connected for the review, because I didn’t need it, and I didn’t miss it either. I did turn the knob for the bass a bit up. Placing closer to the wall can offer some relief.

It is in any case nice that those rotary knobs are present. You can adjust them a little more to your will, but they retain that pit bull-like, bite-like character, no matter what you turn those knobs. Is that bad? It mainly depends on what you are hunting for speaker and also on your taste of course. I can imagine that they are fine speakers for a home studio, but in a living room setting I would not recommend them so quickly.

Conclusion The Airpulse A 100 are good speakers. Especially if you purchase them for that specific purpose for which you are looking for that fairly analytical and direct representation. They really excel in nearfield rendering. They simply are not for everyone. But that actually applies to so much hi-fi and is therefore no shortcoming of the Airpulse A 100.

Airpulse A 100

â ?? ¬ 799 Â | Airpulse

Rating 4, 5 out of 5

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