Review of the Airpulse A100 active acoustic stereo system

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The Airpulse A80 is a smart set of desktop/bookshelf speakers that offer competent performance at a price that's lower than higher-end competitors. With good detail and a pleasant overall sound profile, they are well suited to a variety of music genres and will fit easily into most settings. But with disappointing bass performance and no particular strengths, they don't do enough to justify the price hike over cheaper devices on the market.

Design

• Constructed from MDF
• Walnut or Electric Blue finish
• Offers horn tweeter

Speaker design is a strange game because there are two approaches you can take. Either your design is bold and eye-catching - a feature of the room; or the complete opposite approach is taken, with the ultimate goal of blending into the background.

The Airpulse A80 loudspeakers fit both sides of the divide with two options available. For those who want something special, there's an interesting Electric Blue option, and for everyone else, there's a classy Walnut finish.

Both will fit well in most spaces, especially on a table or shelves, as you'd expect. Measuring 14 x 25 x 22 cm, the speakers look good, but are lightweight and small enough to not attract too much attention. Covered in 18mm thick MDF, they also feel like they'll take a few knocks.

A nice touch is the horn-loaded ribbon tweeter, which is usually only found on higher-end models - no doubt a benefit of Edifier's extensive supply chain. Rounding things out is a 4.5-inch midrange driver with a magnesium-ferrite aluminum cone, an 11.5cm driver and a subwoofer, with the right unit acting as a controller.

Unfortunately, both devices are connected by a 6-foot optical cable. This is a fairly thick layer that is difficult to hide. So, those looking for the cleanest configuration will need to jump through a few extra hoops to get the look they want.

Overall, these are smart speakers that will fit into most spaces with relative ease. There is no design aspect to the A80s that will spark conversation, but they are nonetheless well thought out and mature in appearance.

Review of the Airpulse A100 active acoustic stereo system

Edifier is well known for its relatively inexpensive multimedia products. Most recently, we talked about the Edifier R1280DBs acoustics, which turned out to be a very worthy representative of its class of devices. But budget speakers have not been the only direction of the manufacturer’s work for many years; they have solutions in their line that are both more expensive and more interesting.

True, they are produced under a subsidiary brand, which is quite logical and helps prevent confusion. It all started when, ten years ago, the company’s management decided to develop new market segments and invited several well-known foreign specialists to collaborate. One of them was Phil Jones, a musician and speaker designer with extremely extensive experience.

He is most widely known as the creator of the Acoustic Energy AE-1 near-field monitors, which are actively used in famous studios - the legendary Abbey Road is often cited as an example in marketing materials. While at Boston Acoustics, he launched the Lynnfield line of acoustics, and in the late '90s he created American Acoustic Development (AAD), which designs and manufactures acoustics and amplifiers. In 2002, Phil founded another company, Phil Jones Bass, which specializes in the development of amplifiers for bass guitars.

In general, Phil Jones provided knowledge and skills, Edifier provided production facilities, and the result was acoustics under the Airpulse brand, which inherited a number of features from professional monitors. First of all, of course, a horn ribbon tweeter of our own design. At the same time, the system is completely adapted for home use: it has a remote control, a range of wired connection options, its own DAC and even Bluetooth support. Today we will talk about the most compact and relatively affordable model in the line - Airpulse A100.

Specifications

Packaging and equipment

The manufacturer approached packaging as responsibly as possible - even some of the “premium” devices that came into our hands were packaged much more simply. The speakers came to us in a box made of unpainted cardboard, on which the name of the acoustics and brief characteristics were printed.

Inside this box we found... another box - a practically complete clone of the first. We don’t know what this is connected with - maybe the manufacturer cares so much about safety, maybe the Russian distributor adds another package of his own for some internal reasons...

The speakers in the package are held in place by foam inserts and are additionally packed in fabric bags - given the glossy finish, such a precaution will obviously not be superfluous.

Cables and remote control are supplied in a separate box with a plastic tray, where they are neatly laid out. Everything is covered with a transparent lid on top - it looks great and is convenient.

The delivery set includes two speakers themselves - active and passive, plus many accessories:

• interconnect cable
• power cable 2 meters long
• USB A to USB B cable
• RCA to RCA cable
• RCA cable - mini jack 3.5 mm
• optical cable
• documentation
• stands for speakers made of dense foam rubber
• Velcro cable tie
• remote control with battery
• additional speaker legs
• fabric gloves
• cleaning cloth

In general, the manufacturer took maximum care of the user, which is nice. There are even spare feet and gloves, not to mention very useful stands made of dense foam rubber, which allow you to get rid of unnecessary vibrations and slightly tilt the front plane of the speakers.

Let's go over all the cables offered. It's worth starting with interblock. Its length is 3 meters, this is enough to widely space the speakers and achieve a pronounced stereo effect. Everything is done very solidly, 5-pin connectors are used, the total diameter of the cable with braid is about 8 mm.

The optical cable also looks decent; silicone plugs allow you not to worry about the cleanliness of the connectors. Length - 1.5 meters.

The RCA cable - 3.5 mm minijack is 1.7 meters long, the connectors are “gold-plated” - everything is as expected.

The same can be said about the RCA-RCA cable. True, for some reason it is shorter: 1.5 meters.

The USB A - USB B cable is quite standard, it looks the same as millions of its brothers that we are used to connecting external audio cards or printers, for example. Length - 1.7 meters.

The remote control is compact, with nice rounded edges. It is powered by one CR2025 element, which is included in the kit. We'll talk more about the remote control in the chapter on device control.

Well, a nice bonus - fabric gloves and a napkin for wiping the glossy case. It is no more prone to stains from touch than other varnish-coated surfaces, but such care from the manufacturer is quite touching. Well, it also works as a way to emphasize the “premium” nature of the speakers, of course.

Design

The speaker system is manufactured in three colors - black, white and red. We tested the white version. The design is discreet, but at the same time very attractive due to the rounded corners of the body, varnish coating and contrasting color of the emitters.

As we mentioned above, the speakers come with stands made of thick foam rubber, which help get rid of unnecessary vibrations and at the same time tilt the front plane of the speaker. The latter will be useful when placed on a tabletop in close proximity to the listener, in order to direct the speakers towards his head, rather than his chest.

The tilt angle of the speakers when placed on stands is 15° - just enough for the purposes described above.

At the same time, let's look at the side walls. It seems that the gloss is very unstable to scratches, but, naturally, we did not check this. In any case, it makes sense to handle acoustics as carefully as possible.

There's nothing particularly interesting on top either - just a glossy surface. Nice, but requires regular maintenance; dust on the speakers is visible immediately and from afar.

Small rubber feet are glued to the bottom. They are glued well, evenly, and perform their function. On the active speaker you can see four screw fastenings of the power supply, which we will look at a little lower.

The front panel contains emitters; the active one is also equipped with a row of indicators, to the right of which the Hi-Res logo can be seen. The name of the device is printed on the bottom of the passive part.

The top horn ribbon driver with neodymium magnet is designed directly by Phil Jones. The inner hole of the horn is covered with a metal mesh.

Below is a five-inch woofer/midrange driver with a high-strength magnesium-aluminum alloy diaphragm.

Below the speaker is a small screen that shows the active input. And no other information - not even volume, which is a little strange for a device of this class and price segment, of course.

On the back wall of the active speaker there is a connection and control panel, which we will discuss in detail below.

The passive speaker has a small panel in this place with a port for connecting to the active one.

The oval bass reflex hole is located on the rear panel, so it is clearly not worth placing the speakers close to the walls.

Design

It's time to look at the internal structure of the speakers. First of all, let's take a look at the drivers. They are secured with screws and can be easily removed.

The markings on the ribbon horn tweeter say that the model is called 32NT, and it was designed by Phil Jones - even signed by the author. There is little information about it in the manufacturer's materials: aluminum tape, neodymium magnet... And, of course, high sensitivity, wide frequency range, high resolution, and so on.

The woofer/midrange speaker is labeled F51NT, and we also see that its impedance is 4 Ohms. The completely cast aluminum basket looks very solid, and from the manufacturer's description we also know that the coil has a diameter of 35 mm and is wound with flat wire.

Below the speaker you can see the power supply board, shielded with a copper plate. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to return it back after dismantling - I had to leave it in place.

But nothing prevents us from taking a closer look at it - at a minimum, we can examine the parameters indicated on the board. Everything is assembled reliably, but due to numerous traces of hot-melt adhesive it looks a little sloppy; we will come across this later.

The A100 body is made of 18 mm thick MDF, the inside is completely covered with foam rubber with a wave-like surface.

Having removed the back panel, we again see the power supply, but from the other side. It is secured conscientiously, of course.

The wires are placed in foam tubes and secured with clamps - it is clear that the design was thought out and the manufacturer approached the assembly responsibly. But there are nuances.

Let's look at the board from the back side. That's all, it seems great. But numerous traces on it were not left by our photographer. As they say, “does not affect speed.” But coupled with glue smudges, it looks somehow untidy, and the device is not from the budget segment.

And finally, the board itself. Let's take a quick look from the side, and then move on to the most interesting part.

The system uses two Texas Instruments TAS5754M Class D amplifiers, delivering 40 W each in stereo mode. A relatively large 16-core XMOS processor is visible in the center. Above is the Texas Instruments PCM9211, which solves several problems at once in ensuring the reception, processing and transmission of a digital signal. In English descriptions it is called Digital Audio Interface Transceiver (DIX) with Stereo ADC and Routing, which can be translated as “digital audio interface transceiver with stereo ADC and routing.” Bluetooth support is implemented on the basis of the Qualcomm CSR8645 located in the upper left corner with support for the aptX codec, we will return to this later.

Hidden behind the cable in the photo above is an ARM microcontroller STM32F072 manufactured by STMicroelectronics - we’ll show that too.

Connection

We connect the speakers to each other, turn on the power - everything is as usual. We have already noted above that it is not worth placing them close to walls or other obstacles, since the bass reflex hole is brought to the rear. The Airpulse A100 has many options for connecting to sound sources; all connectors are located on the rear wall. There are two analog inputs with different sensitivity - Aux and PC (450±50 mV and 550±50 mV, respectively). Plus an optical digital input and, of course, a USB-B connector.

When connected to a PC via USB, the speakers are immediately identified as an audio device and do not require the installation of additional drivers. The maximum supported sampling frequency is 192 kHz, as stated by the manufacturer.

Wireless connection via Bluetooth 4.1 is supported - the version is not the latest, but the acoustics were not released yesterday, we’ll forgive it for that. But aptX is supported, which we checked using the Bluetooth Tweaker utility, just in case.

The connection is carried out in a standard way: after activating Bluetooth, the system tries to connect to “familiar” devices, and if that doesn’t work, it activates the pairing mode. Well, in the end, we note the presence of an RCA output for connecting a subwoofer, which will certainly be useful to lovers of “deep bass” and those who want to use the Airpulse A100 as a home theater component.

Control

The rear panel also houses the power button and three controls. The topmost one - the valkoder changes the volume without limiting the angle of rotation, and when pressed, switches the inputs. The bottom two are potentiometers with rotation angle limitation and are responsible for adjusting the level of high and low frequencies. Accordingly, it will not be possible to adjust these parameters using the remote control. Which is a little inconvenient, given the location of the handles on the back wall.

The control panel is extremely simple and small in size. At the top is the power button, then we see a “wheel” that allows you to select inputs with one click. Below are three more keys - volume control and mute. The remote control fits well in the hand, the buttons are pressed with a pleasant force and a noticeable click. But they are located almost flush with the body; people with large fingers may find it slightly uncomfortable.

Sound and frequency response measurements

Our expectations from the sound of the Airpulse A100 were initially quite high - the manufacturer’s constant emphasis on the great name of the creator, the presence of a ribbon tweeter and the not-so-low price did their job. And, I must say, for the most part these expectations were fully justified. Let's start, as always, with the low-frequency range.

It’s clearly not worth demanding too much from a ∅127 mm speaker - there is only a hint of “deep bass”, nothing more. As noted above, if you really need it, an active subwoofer can help, there is a corresponding connector. But the low-frequency range itself is perfectly developed and completely devoid of “mumbling” - on the contrary, it has punch and speed, which show themselves perfectly both in the playing of the double bass of some Ron Carter, and in the continuous hits on the bass drums of the masters of blast beat - Nick Barker , For example.

At the same time, the low-frequency range does not upset the overall balance of the mix and does not interfere with the perception of the midrange, which is delivered quite smoothly. The musical material does not sound very “even” - after all, we are not dealing with studio monitors, but you cannot deny its naturalness. At the same time, the detail is much higher than we are accustomed to expect from acoustics of this size and price category - here the Airpulse A100 directly surprised us.

The ribbon tweeter, about which we have already said a lot, and the manufacturer even more, also knows its stuff. The high frequencies are not too bright, are completely devoid of their traditional problems and produce a very “detailed” sound - the case when you can hear the smallest nuances of the tracks, but at the same time do not feel annoying accents in the high-frequency range. The tonal balance as a whole is very well adjusted, the sound is soft and comfortable. Well, from impressions to frequency response graphs.

They were obtained in the traditional way for our reviews: by placing the microphone normal to the plane of the speaker speaker at a distance of 60 cm. The first one quite clearly illustrates what was said above.

When changing connection types, the schedule changes, but very little. Here you should focus more on the comfort of use in a given situation.

Let's look at the graph of the cumulative attenuation of the spectrum (aka “waterfall” or waterfall). It can be seen that the “hump” in the low-frequency range is quite extended. I don’t want to think that the case is “humming” like that - as we saw above, the manufacturer has taken all measures to get rid of unnecessary resonances. And it was not possible to detect any “buzz” by ear. We will assume that this is a feature of the operation of a bass reflex with an oval bell.

There are frequency controls on the back wall of the active speaker - let's check their operation. Judging by the markings, they give changes in the range of ±3 dB, in practice it turned out even less. First, let's try to turn the low-frequency control.

It can be seen that the regulator works delicately, but there is no sound distortion even in its extreme positions. You can slightly adjust the tonal balance to suit yourself, but there is no need to change it greatly - as already noted, the acoustics sound balanced. Much the same can be said about the treble control.

Finally, let's look at the horizontal dispersion of sound. Everything is very good, you need to point the speakers towards the listener, but you can’t monitor this too strictly.

Results

Only owners of large tables can consider the Airpulse A100 as a tabletop speaker, although the manufacturer opaquely hints at precisely this use by adding stands made of dense foam rubber to the kit, allowing the speakers to be slightly tilted. But if you manage to place them, otherwise they are unlikely to disappoint. The equipment is extremely rich, the connectivity options are extensive, and the appearance is also pleasing. Well, the sound is what is called “all the money”, and maybe even better. Of course, you can’t call budget acoustics, but in terms of cost and quality ratio, it clearly outperforms most competitors in its price segment.

Functions

• Bluetooth 5.0 with aptX
• Multiple input options
• Hi-Res Certificate

It's not enough for speakers to be versatile in terms of design, they also need to offer a variety of connectivity options. Nowadays, even more high-quality options that focus solely on high-definition audio reproduction should offer at least Bluetooth connectivity to a smartphone.

Luckily, the Airpulse A80 is well equipped in this regard, covering a glut of inputs and formats with the hope that it can be used anywhere. They offer AUX, RCA, USB, optical input, and support for Bluetooth 5.0 and aptX, meaning they'll fit well into any desktop setup, as well as under a TV or on a bookshelf.

We did experience some jitter when connecting via USB, although this may be due to the computer in question rather than the speakers themselves.

The Airpulse A80s are also Hi-Res certified and feature a Texas Instruments amplification chip that delivers up to 192kHz sampling rates. This latest part promises the ability to easily handle high-quality files that exceed CD quality, with a frequency range of 52 Hz - 40 kHz.

The speakers also come with a small infrared remote for controlling inputs and volume, as well as plenty of cables and accessories.

I found that the remote didn't work well without line of sight to the speakers, but in general the units responded to rapid changes in volume and input. The inclusion of various entry accessories to eliminate the need for post-purchase shopping is also welcome.

Data sheet

• HF Speaker: Horn ribbon driver with phase correction;
• LF-MF speaker: 6.5″ driver with aluminum cone and neodymium magnet;
• Power: L/R(HF): 10W + 10W, L/R(LF-MF): 70W + 70W;
• Signal to noise ratio: L/R: ≥90dB(A);
• Input sensitivity: Balanced input 1150±50mV, AUX input 700±50mV, USB 550±50mFFs, Bluetooth input 500±50mFFs, optical input 500±50mFFs, coaxial input 500±50mFFs;
• Frequency range: 40Hz-20kHz;
• Input interfaces: AUX, USB, balanced, Bluetooth, optical and coaxial inputs support input signal sampling frequency up to 192 kHz;
• Interconnect cable length: 4.5m;
• Speaker cabinet dimensions (WxHxD): 225 x 385 x 340 (mm);
• Net weight: 24kg(53lbs)

The characteristics, delivery set, color and appearance of this product may differ from those indicated or may be changed by the manufacturer without being reflected in the Edifier Russia catalog. Information about product prices and configurations indicated on the website does not constitute an offer in the sense defined by the provisions of Art. 435 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

Advantages All in one with wide functionality, stage, depth, everything is there. Good package. If you are looking for universal speakers with good sound, these are for you.

Disadvantages: More suitable for near-field listening (for me). When connecting the tulips to a PC, they catch all the interference coming from the computer with other inputs, no such complaints. The signal-to-noise ratio does not correspond to the declared one. They are rather weak, they won’t rock a normal room (and that’s not what they are for (nitpicking). The unit’s plastic tone controls could have been made better for that kind of money.

Comment: Well, what can we say, how some bloggers praise them, it’s all an outright lie, any more or less hospital outplays them in an easy way, but this is a slightly different price category, so based on the functionality and sound, these are excellent speakers that combine everything in one with great opportunity connections to the inputs, the sound is also good, where who sits, the movement of chairs, all this is there, depth, width are included. The vocals sound really great. As they say, buy it, set it and forget it, the sound will not leave indifferent either the average person or the person who is already sick of good sound. If not one thing, when buying a defect from two systems, the first pair clicked when switching the signal to the SC, the second pair caught interference and made an extraneous squeak and noise. With the third pah-pah everything is ok. Check before purchasing, good luck to everyone.

The advantages would be very high-quality sound, if not for the defect.

Disadvantages: mass defect of 3 pairs of speakers

Comment: I took the speakers, connected them and was horrified - at low frequencies, an extraneous sound was emitted from the right (active speaker) similar to chirping or crackling. It was emitted due to the leakage of the digital display on which it is indicated what type of connection is being used now, and the left speaker played quieter than the right , about half the volume, and if you increase the volume, it also made overtones at low frequencies. I gave it back to the store and ordered 2 more pairs of speakers. We arrived, checking in the store, the seller and I heard extraneous sounds at low frequencies (crackling, as if there was garbage there under the cap or in the gap of the coil) from the woofer. We give the second pair. and exactly the same problem, crackling in the bass of both speakers. I refused these speakers and took the money. Conclusion: if you are lucky and get high-quality speakers, then their sound is really very chic and you will get a buzz, but I was not lucky. I'll have to use my r2700s (and for 5 years they haven't made any overtones and play cleanly) because the Chinese couldn't do it with these A300s. so screwed up that 3 pairs will not be listenable. a month of worries and spent nerves. SHAME on Edifier.