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Airpulse A100 Review (Powered Speaker)

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 14 3.7%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 149 39.2%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 205 53.9%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 12 3.2%

  • Total voters
    380

restorer-john

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So what’s it that the DIN connector is truly horrible for the user?

The DIN connector is garbage. Has been since day one, be it the 2 pin (speaker) used all over nasty European amplifiers and even the back of speakers, and all iterations of the circular DIN.

Low signal levels/high noise (a typical DIN input level was 2-5mV, whereas an RCA was 150mV), poor contact, crosstalk, corrosion, inability to stay seated. Anyway, if you'd grown up with them, used them and breathed a sigh of relief when they completely disappeared, you'd understand.

Consign them to trash heap of history, along with the Scart, the S-VHS connector, the micro USB, and hopefully the HDMI one day.
 

sarumbear

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The DIN connector is garbage. Has been since day one, be it the 2 pin (speaker) used all over nasty European amplifiers and even the back of speakers, and all iterations of the circular DIN.

Low signal levels/high noise (a typical DIN input level was 2-5mV, whereas an RCA was 150mV), poor contact, crosstalk, corrosion, inability to stay seated.
You are very wrong about the signal carrying capacity of the DIN connector. It’s not 2-5mV. It’s 34V and 3A. Try that with the phono connector! Now, that’s a horrible connector.

Anyway, if you'd grown up with them, used them and breathed a sigh of relief when they completely disappeared, you'd understand.
I wouldn’t because I like them. Proper German engineering. Besides, they are still used on modern equipment. There’s even a mini-DIN. Maybe they created that to annoy you? :)
Consign them to trash heap of history, along with the Scart, the S-VHS connector, the micro USB, and hopefully the HDMI one day.
You don‘t like anything much do you?
 
OP
amirm

amirm

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I notice there have been over 230 votes for this poll but I am confused (again and often).
Do these votes also equate to the number of owners who are also ASR members?
No. The only requirement to vote is to be a member, not an owner.

The motivation for the poll came from so many people looking at the measurements and saying, "I would have given it this panther instead of one I gave it." Now they can formally do that. They did not need more information than was in the review so they don't need to be owners.
 

restorer-john

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You are very wrong about the signal carrying capacity of the DIN connector. It’s not 2-5mV. It’s 34V and 3A. Try that with the phono connector! Now, that’s a horrible connector.


I wouldn’t because I like them. Proper German engineering. Besides, they are still used on modern equipment. There’s even a mini-DIN. Maybe they created that to annoy you? :)

You don‘t like anything much do you?

I am talking about the levels, used for DIN connectors on audio equipment when used as a two in, two out, as they have been unfortunately used for many decades. :facepalm: Again, if you'd dealt with 2-5mV high impedance tape loops with all the noise and poor connections, you'd get it.

Proper German engineering eh? The DIN plug. That's hilarious. They should be ashamed. The Japanese DIN connectors were the only ones that worked! Any DIN plugs that came out of the UK or anywhere in Europe in the 1970s were just utter garbage. The plastic was poor, the pins fell out and the housings cracked and broke. I have literally hundreds of pieces of gear with DINs on the back (thank goodness additional to RCAs) and NEVER use DINs. The performance is always worse than the RCA line levels.

I reckon about 85% of all the problems with vintage B&O gear I have repaired was due to DINs and the DIN cables connecting them. Take the wildly popular and very expensive Series 5000 sold in the 1980s. They mostly prematurely ended up in landfill because of DIN socket failures.

I like quality connectors. Start with the military grade connectors that made their way into the consumer space. Like the BNC. Fit for purpose.

And the screw down microphone connector which became a defacto standard for varying multipin connections is in every way superior to the horrible DIN (and thank goodness not compatible at all). It's still used on soldering stations all over the world because it can carry a high current, is secure, doesn't melt and can have a reasonable pin count. Compare this:

1634690232792.png


And this:
1634690375955.png


To this nasty DIN horror:
1634690453521.png
 
Last edited:

GimeDsp

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I almost bought these a couple times. Only ribbon speakers I am a fan of our my brothers he bought From D Murphy and the old infinity stuff.
 

Helicopter

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SpeakOn would have been my choice for the left speaker connection, but XLR-3 or 1/4" TS would have been acceptable to me as well.
 

wwenze

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That particular woofer family from Edifier (with the silver... phase plug thingy) seems to be consistently pretty poor in terms of max power handling.

ADD: I just noticed this has a sub out which will greatly alleviate that problem. (*Stares at S880DB*)
 

Maiky76

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the Airpulse A100 powered monitor. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $900 on Amazon including free shipping.

The fit and finish on the A100 is definitely a step above the average "computer speaker:"

View attachment 160058

The piano, high gloss finish gives it a nice feel. The port is in the back along with a myriad of connectivity:

View attachment 160059

I must say those are some of the nicest volume (and tone) controls I have seen on a powered monitor. Connection to the second speaker has high pin count indicating active crossover and dual amplification.

As indicated, speaker was designed by British speaker designer, Phil Jones.

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of roughly 1%.

Reference axis for measurements was the center of the tweeter.

Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.

Airpulse A100 Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:

View attachment 160061

This is not bad. We have the usual messiness around crossover but then things look good. A sharp high-pass filter seems to have been designed to keep bass distortion at bay.

There is a resonance around 1.4 kHz which we can easily identify in our near-field measurements:

View attachment 160062

Some kind of cabinet/port resonance is existing out of there and interfering with the response during the crossover region.

Early window reflections look messier than I expected:

View attachment 160063

Fortunately it sums reasonably well with on-axis to give us this predicted on-axis response:

View attachment 160064

Horizontal directivity is a bit narrow but otherwise good:

View attachment 160065

View attachment 160066

Vertically we have a ditch if you go above the axis of the tweeter so don't do that!

View attachment 160067

Due to tall tweeter, the vertical window closes as you go up in frequency --- another reason to stay at tweeter height.

Distortion is kept at bay at 86 dBSPL but not at 96:

View attachment 160068

View attachment 160069

During the measurement sweeps, I could hear a distinct modulation/abnormally at 96 dBSPL. Not sure if this is what is peaking between 2 and 5 kHz or is the cabinet resonance.

Finally, our waterfall shows a few resonances:

View attachment 160070

Airpulse A100 Listening Tests and Equalization
I listened to the A100 before computing the response. Sound was fine to me except maybe a hair too bright at times. Once I got the measurements and saw the resonance at 1.4 kHz, I decided to correct for that:

View attachment 160071

I always here the effect of this type of correction as improved clarity but it is very subtle. Other than the above, I didn't feel the need to fiddle with the response.

As far as dynamics, the A100 can play very loud due to the fact that it filters out all sub-bass. Music with such content plays as if those notes are not there. Interesting trade off that I tend to like but I think there is a bit too much filtering here.

As far as hiss, I developed a way to measure it. I was all happy with it until I went to process the data and found something odd. So I need to go back to drawing board. Subjectively, there is only a bit of hiss that disappears at 4 to 5 inches in front of the tweeter. So really not a problem.

Conclusions
The A100 is expensive for this category of "computer" speaker. But you do get better finish, very nice connectivity (including a remote and nice LEDs in front indicating which input is active), etc. Competing studio monitors have better response but lack the connectivity, remote, etc., forcing you to use a pre-amp (or deal with software controls which I don't like).

Overall, I am happy enough to recommend the Airpulse A100 speakers. There is now a poll where you can vote what rating this speaker should get. So use that to agree or disagree and let's see what you all's consensus is.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Hi,

Here is my take on the EQ.


These EQ are anechoic EQ to get the speaker right before room integration. If you able to implement these EQs you must add EQ at LF for room integration, that is usually not optional… see hints there: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...helf-speaker-review.11144/page-26#post-800725

The raw data with corrected ER and PIR:

Score no EQ: 4.6
With Sub: 7.1

Spinorama with no EQ:
  • Smiley curve?
  • Lots of resonances 500 - 2000Hz
  • maybe not the best bang for the buck...

Airplus A100 No EQ Spinorama.png

Directivity:

Better stay at tweeter height
Horizontally, better toe-in the speakers by 10/20deg and have the axis crossing in front of the listening location, might help dosing the upper range.
Airplus A100 2D surface Directivity Contour Only Data.png

Airplus A100 LW Better data.png

EQ design:

I have generated two EQs. The APO config files are attached.
  • The first one, labelled, LW is targeted at making the LW flat
  • The second, labelled Score, starts with the first one and adds the score as an optimization variable.
  • The EQs are designed in the context of regular stereo use i.e. domestic environment, no warranty is provided for a near field use in a studio environment although the LW might be better suited for this purpose.
  • Lots of fine EQ points might not translate well on different units

Score EQ LW: 5.8
with sub: 8.4

Score EQ Score: 6.1
with sub: 8.6

Code:
Airplus A100 APO EQ LW 96000Hz
October202021-100256

Preamp: -1.9 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 95.39,    -1.57,    1.45
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 679.31,    -1.45,    3.69
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 943.99,    -2.03,    4.19
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1390.69,    -6.84,    6.66
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 1411.66,    4.95,    1.43
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 1685.66,    -2.87,    5.09
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 4672.54,    -1.31,    1.03
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 13184.47,    -2.31,    2.95

Airplus A100 APO EQ Score 96000Hz
October202021-095141

Preamp: -1.5 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 98.74,    -1.49,    1.37
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 683.31,    -1.74,    2.53
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 938.95,    -1.78,    5.11
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1394.19,    -6.84,    5.54
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 1410.11,    4.74,    1.36
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 1725.52,    -2.87,    6.06
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 4789.33,    -1.95,    0.79
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 13186.47,    -2.85,    2.56

Airplus A100 EQ Design.png

Spinorama EQ LW
Airplus A100 LW EQ Spinorama.png


Spinorama EQ Score
Airplus A100 Score EQ Spinorama.png


Zoom PIR-LW-ON
Airplus A100 Zoom.png


Regression - Tonal
Airplus A100 Regression - Tonal.png


Radar no EQ vs EQ score
Some improvements
Airplus A100 Radar.png



The rest of the plots is attached.
 

Attachments

  • Airplus A100 2D surface Directivity Contour Data.png
    Airplus A100 2D surface Directivity Contour Data.png
    264.3 KB · Views: 72
  • Airplus A100 3D surface Vertical Directivity Data.png
    Airplus A100 3D surface Vertical Directivity Data.png
    473.9 KB · Views: 64
  • Airplus A100 3D surface Horizontal Directivity Data.png
    Airplus A100 3D surface Horizontal Directivity Data.png
    473.2 KB · Views: 77
  • Airplus A100 Normalized Directivity data.png
    Airplus A100 Normalized Directivity data.png
    306.3 KB · Views: 54
  • Airplus A100 Raw Directivity data.png
    Airplus A100 Raw Directivity data.png
    458 KB · Views: 63
  • Airplus A100 Reflexion data.png
    Airplus A100 Reflexion data.png
    139.3 KB · Views: 49
  • Airplus A100 LW data.png
    Airplus A100 LW data.png
    133.9 KB · Views: 65
  • Airplus A100 APO EQ LW 96000Hz.txt
    434 bytes · Views: 59
  • Airplus A100 APO EQ Score 96000Hz.txt
    437 bytes · Views: 83

Bruce Morgen

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Please go ahead and show us how you can get better with separates.

A pair of Kali Audio IN5s + a Topping E30 DAC = about $830 U.S. MSRP. Put the money you save toward a modest 10-12 inch active sub or, if you think you'd actually miss those tone controls, a little (Schiitt?) hardware EQ.
 

dfuller

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Getting very thin fabric to produce anything other than upper treble is a challenge. Speakers like the Emotiva B1+ are an outlier. I would typically only consider an AMT/ribbon/planar if it were a 3-way.
That's because the B1+ uses an AMT, which is much more forgiving than a true ribbon.
 

restorer-john

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It’s 34V and 3A. Try that with the phono connector!

OK. I'll see your 3A and raise you another 7A to a total of 10A! :)
1634704670604.png



I've found phono/RCA plug/sockets used internally for mains 240V voltages. They are almost indestructible.

Invented by Radio Corporation of America in the early 1930s. Still in use to this day.
1634705063099.png
 

Robbo99999

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I gave this speaker a "Not Terrible (postman panther)" rating. The reasons being it's too expensive given it's flaws - lack of bass, choppy frequency response from 800-2400Hz, and excessive brightness. I think it should be more like $200 max, although you might not expect the aesthetics, connectivity and features at that lower price point....still for for me "not terrible (postman panther) rating".
 

HiFidFan

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This speaker's performance does not 'look' very good on paper. The response curve looks like a semi-smile with a bunch of jagged teeth right in the middle. Directivity is 'meh' too.

Thanks for the review @amirm
 

pseudoid

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Proper German engineering eh? The DIN plug. That's hilarious.
The deragatory terminology used amongst the BMW motorcycle owners (at least, in my circles) used to be FFGE (as in "Fine Fookin' German Engineering")
We have used "M8" series of mating-connectors for some industrial applications, which some wish they'd become more widely used but $$$...

Features
  • M8 connector pin configurations: 3 pin, 4 pin, 5 pin, 6 pin
  • Non-removable Contacts
  • Meets IP67/IP68 water proof requirements
  • -40°C to +85°C Temperature Range
  • Available as loose piece or as pre-made M8 cables
Materials
  • SHELL: Brass-Nickel Plated or Stainless Steel
  • INSULATOR: PBT-Black, UL 94V-0 (Other materials available)
  • CONTACTS: Brass, Gold Plated
  • NUT: Brass-Nickel Plated or Stainless Steel
  • O-RING: EPDM - Black (Other materials available)
From <https://www.norcomp.net/series/m8-connector>
Samples are FREE for the asking but asking for the pricing means you (nor a manufacturer) can afford to use them in the consumer markets (1000pieces @$6.26)

202110_M8connector.jpg

These are about 1.5Amp current-carrying capacity@30V and higher amperage will require the M10 (or higher models) for pin current carrying spec.
I hope @sarumbear does not see this post.
 

sarumbear

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OK. I'll see your 3A and raise you another 7A to a total of 10A! :)
View attachment 160275


I've found phono/RCA plug/sockets used internally for mains 240V voltages. They are almost indestructible.

Invented by Radio Corporation of America in the early 1930s. Still in use to this day.
View attachment 160276
I was simply telling you that you were giving wrong data for signal levels to be 2-5mV, which you are admitting was wrong. Admit your error instead of using the “mine is bigger” argument. It’s childish.
 
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