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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

Bruce Morgen

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Let's move on from DIN connector talk....

OK -- but let's commit to a site-wide celebration when the centennial of the trusty RCA plug and jack arrives! Of course the 1/4-inch TS plug and jack -- which still dominates the electric guitar industry -- is even more ancient, having been borrowed from telephony back when making connections was still dependent on manual switchboards with human operators. :cool:
 

pseudoid

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OK -- but let's commit to a site-wide celebration when the centennial of the trusty RCA plug and jack arrives! ...
I would like to get an invite but only if reps/affiliates from either MonsterCable or MonoPrice are NOT invited to the celebration.
 

Chromatischism

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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".
I think it's a little pricey too, but we can't judge price based on frequency response, and certainly there's a lot of value in the electronics implementation.
 

Robbo99999

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I think it's a little pricey too, but we can't judge price based on frequency response, and certainly there's a lot of value in the electronics implementation.
Actually, in terms of price, I thought the cost was $900 for one speaker, but some people in this thread have said that's the price for a pair, do we know for sure which one? When I said in my previous post that these shouldn't be more than $200 then I meant for 1 speaker - so for me that would mean $400 for a pair. Yes, the electronics implementation re all the inputs and tone controls & remote are all good features.

EDIT: yes, the price is for a pair of speakers https://www.amazon.com/Airpulse-Certified-Speaker-Amplifier-Bluetooth/dp/B07JZGQP6S/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Airpulse+A100&qid=1634797472&qsid=147-8149582-7714955&sr=8-1&sres=B07JZGQP6S,B07JZD9MVH,B07FKH3VPV,B0793HNSQG,B01MFD7N5T,B07RH9457S,B077V8M4TG,B07ZVP9XBG,B07FKCP7PZ,B07B4Q5587,B07VQZ9GKV,B08GC5GXQ3,B0849M5JT5,B077R8MP6H,B07TK172FT,B08N4CW66B&srpt=SPEAKERS
So I would value these at $400 for the pair.
 
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Which was better? I'm assuming USB since that bypasses the ADC.
Yes it was one the most transparent sounds coming from a monitor id ever heard! But I sold them because they were to fatiguing to listen to. This was before I knew about eq so maybe was that ,but weren't as fatiguing via xlr...

Ive owned a few Genelec 2-ways , focal trio and focal twin shape as reference and these are much better in many respects but in sheer transparency and clarity of sound the airpulse via usb was a few notches better. That sound has always stuck in my head.

Rn I have some yamaha nx500 speakers that have a built in usb dac and built in streamer. I use these over my focal twin shapes rn for practical reasons and they sound good enough to my ear I can listen all day.
 

fragzone

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Yes it was one the most transparent sounds coming from a monitor id ever heard! But I sold them because they were to fatiguing to listen to. This was before I knew about eq so maybe was that ,but weren't as fatiguing via xlr...

Ive owned a few Genelec 2-ways , focal trio and focal twin shape as reference and these are much better in many respects but in sheer transparency and clarity of sound the airpulse via usb was a few notches better. That sound has always stuck in my head.

Rn I have some yamaha nx500 speakers that have a built in usb dac and built in streamer. I use these over my focal twin shapes rn for practical reasons and they sound good enough to my ear I can listen all day.
Never met another owner of the nx-n500.

They were my first pair of speakers I ever owned outside of 30 dollar logitech hot garbage.

They will always hold a special place in my heart. A great product really, way ahead of its time and with technology that blows most competitors out of the water to this day. It's far from the peak of hifi but they have very impressive imaging capabilities. Looking forward to listening to them again when I finally get to go home (bloody covid)
 

umbral

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Hello there,

First of all let me bring some enlightenment to this discussion. Phil Jones is a great engineer. Here - why he likes to use small woofers :


These speakers are really really fantastic good in sound quality.

I appreciate empirical evidence too but let me tell you that quality components and the sound they produce is what matters in the end.
Some technical measurements can be taken out of context and will provide an incorrect picture. Moreover flat speakers do not sound the best for human ears, and that is why headphones with harman kardon curve for example may sound better than flat ones.

Some information translated (read):


First of all Airpulse lineup offers 95% of the sound of flagship Airpulse 7001 that costs 14.000 euros for a fraction of that.
Phil Jones is legendary speaker inventor and innovator that made the Airpulse 3.1 that is known as the best speaker in the last 100 years in Japan (275.000 dollars) - 360 degree sound : https://airpulsepro.com/about/timeline

Now they plan the Airpulse A800 that will do 180 degrees with 3 tweeters.


Now, the Airpulse lineup despite being made in Edifier factory - {that is very good at manufacturing (mechanical engineer not audio engineer) but not so good in designing and the biggest speaker company in China that normally produces cheap multimedia speakers} - has a completely different line of production inside the same factory where Phil Jones & the President of Edifier have a joint venture company called Platinum Audio Systems. So basically this is an audiophile lineup with completely different internal design, quality materials & electronics inside.

Proof:

Now more info:
- Airpulse uses under-hung woofers - 99% of speaker companies use cheaper overhung design.

Read : https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/airpulse-a300

5” Aluminum cone Low-Distortion Mid-woofer​


The Mid-woofer is a 5” unit with a hard anodized aluminum alloy cone suspended in a heavy, ultra rigid cast magnesium alloy frame.

The Proprietary Aluminum Alloy Cone (PAAC) of mid-woofer was designed from painstaking analysis of all types of cone geometry and materials using a Klippel Laser Doppler Interferometer.

The 35mm diameter voice coil is unusually larger than most loudspeakers of this size. It has been shown that larger voice coils have less power compression because they run at a cooler operating temperature. Sonically this means a more realistic dynamic representation of the music. It is dynamics in music that gives it emotion and exhilaration. The cooler running temperature of the voice coil also has the side benefit of a more reliable loudspeaker since cooler voice coil means much less chance of speaker failure.

Most loudspeakers use round copper wire in the voice coil but we use a far better single layer edge-wound copper clad aluminum ribbon. Ribbon voice-coil wire gives more electrical conductor in the magnet gap and increases efficiency, power handling and lowers distortion.

It features with a under-hung motor structure, a high power neodymium motor to provide a high magnetic flux to cover the whole voice coil of the loudspeaker. This type of magnet structure completely energizes the whole voice coil with allowance for extreme cone excursion giving far better bass and considerably less inter-modulation distortion.

For uncompromised performance, the A100 woofer uses a hyper-rigid cast-magnesium alloy frame. Its rigidity greatly 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 in combination leads to increased dynamics and power handling and ultimately, a satisfying musical experience rarely gained from a system of this size price range.

- The cabinets are braced inside
- True ribbon twitter 10 times thinner than human hair
- The Horn is designed to avoid reflections on the walls that is why vertically and horizontally is weaker, to be more precise, so this is not a flaw but it is a clear intention by design !

Horn Loaded Ribbon Tweeter​


The A100 horn loaded ribbon tweeter inherits the mechanism of the tweeter in our flagship 7001 near-field monitor speaker. The thin aluminium ribbon diaphragm has high sensitivity, superb transient response, extended frequency range and well-defined resolution. The meticulously formulated horn shape produces directional and optimized high frequencies from the ribbon tweeter, so they are aimed at the listeners, minimizing unwanted effect from room reflection. This also leads to superior imaging of the speaker. The result is full and three dimensional sound with each detail well defined.

- using Klippel Laser Interferometer :


- Uses internal Transparent cables : https://www.transparentcable.com/pages/how-audio-cables

- Best models are (A80/A100 - with subwoofer output sending everything below 80 Hz to sub and can be adjusted by crossover on the sub to even lower, A300 PRO ) ... while with the first model A200 (discontinued) the music style is too much american bass and A300 is under-powered and has a strange relaxed style that was fixed in A300 PRO)

From Phil Jones :
" When I design a new speaker, I start with a blank page and design components that will fit perfectly together. For example; we design the enclosure and woofer to work together at the very beginning. You must understand that the enclosure is really only for woofers in a two-way system. As we use the same tweeter in all 3 models, then we need to design woofers that will perfectly integrate with that tweeter. The A300 woofer was a challenge because, as you increase driver size, the higher frequencies are much harder to get right on it. The woofer must be able to reach up to the operational band of the tweeter without any reduction in performance. - Phil Jones, speaker designer and sound engineer, Airpulse"

- I do not believe there is port resonating ( because it is oval in shape, maybe from the plastic material of the port ? ) and the cabinet has professional absorption material inside that should prevent cabinet resonating.

The A100 cabinet is built WITH 18-mm thick high-strength MDF finished with attractive piano lacquer. To further reduce coloration, the cabinet interior is fully lined with professional waved sound absorption material.

The oval shaped vent tube in the A100 is carefully designed to minimize wind noise.

- I do not find them bright, but very clear and transparent and dynamic and i am not deaf :))

- From what Hz are the sub-bass frequencies cut ?

Tear down :

Review page 1 : http://eng.soomal.com/edoc/10100000230.htm
Real-hearing experience page 2 : http://eng.soomal.com/edoc/10100000230.02.htm


 
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thewas

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umbral

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I would love to see a three way or three way with dual woofer setup would be a end game speaker most likely

They are working on a specialized sub-woofer of just 10" what will reach real 20 Hz AWS300 :
Such "feature" being advertised would rather worry me.

Also the here measured A100 doesn't show extraordinary performance so I would be rather surprised though if the others would.

Well Edifier used and uses crap thin cables on their cheap multimedia line of speakers. (all of them)

In an interview Phil Jones said that when the USA increased costs for metals to China, they tried to replicate in China quality cables but they never could reach the same performance, so they continued to use TRANSPARENT cables which are some of the very best in the world.


Most speakers do not use internal very high quality cables, but they influence the sound.
Regardless of the empirical measurements, please listen to them yourself, you can't judge the sound from a graph.
I listened to all of them.


In order to get better than Airpulse A300 PRO you need, as Phil Jones said to spend 10 times more for minimal improvements. That means from 1500 euros to 15 000 euros (similar to Airpulse 7001 14 000 euro) that is 100% sound quality and Airpulse A300 PRO is 95% the sound of that.

 
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They are working on a specialized sub-woofer of just 10" what will reach real 20 Hz AWS300 :


Well Edifier used and uses crap thin cables on their cheap multimedia line of speakers. (all of them)

In an interview Phil Jones said that when the USA increased costs for metals to China, they tried to replicate in China quality cables but they never could reach the same performance, so they continued to use TRANSPARENT cables which are some of the very best in the world.


Most speakers do not use internal very high quality cables, but they influence the sound.
Regardless of the empirical measurements, please listen to them you can't judge the sound from a graph.
I listened to all of them.

In order to get better than Airpulse A300 PRO you need, as Phil Jones said to spend 10 times more for minimal improvements. That means from 1500 euros to 15 000 euros (similar to Airpulse 7001 14 000 euro) that is 100% sound quality and Airpulse A300 PRO is 95% the sound of that.

Nice but would preffer a real three way and maybe add a sub to that.

Well if the transparent cables are like lower capticance something like ribbon cable it could make a noticeable difference in sound. The main difference I heard when I owend them in going from xlr to usb via xlr nothing exciting comapred to other monitors but via usb wow
 

Steve Dallas

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They are working on a specialized sub-woofer of just 10" what will reach real 20 Hz AWS300 :


Well Edifier used and uses crap thin cables on their cheap multimedia line of speakers. (all of them)

In an interview Phil Jones said that when the USA increased costs for metals to China, they tried to replicate in China quality cables but they never could reach the same performance, so they continued to use TRANSPARENT cables which are some of the very best in the world.


Most speakers do not use internal very high quality cables, but they influence the sound.
Regardless of the empirical measurements, please listen to them yourself, you can't judge the sound from a graph.
I listened to all of them.


In order to get better than Airpulse A300 PRO you need, as Phil Jones said to spend 10 times more for minimal improvements. That means from 1500 euros to 15 000 euros (similar to Airpulse 7001 14 000 euro) that is 100% sound quality and Airpulse A300 PRO is 95% the sound of that.


Cables influence marketing literature, which influence ideas of prestige. Cables only influence sound inasmuch as they are poorly designed or constructed for their intended purpose.
 

umbral

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Cables influence marketing literature, which influence ideas of prestige. Cables only influence sound inasmuch as they are poorly designed or constructed for their intended purpose.

Great cables provide better signal to noise.

I don't get it ?
U know very well that a system quality is made from the sum of all the components used. Everything influences the whole system !
Most crap speakers like Edifier use thin crap cheap thin internal cables.

Most speakers do not use internal very high quality cables, and the cables can influence the sound.


part 1 : http://eng.soomal.com/edoc/10100000040.htm
part 2 : http://eng.soomal.com/edoc/10100000040.02.htm
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/

- From what Hz are the sub-bass frequencies cut ? From how much to how much ?
- Also when you connect a subwoofer did your unit send everything under 80 Hz to the sub ? Or what exact measurment did you read ?
 
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Bruce Morgen

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Great cables provide better signal to noise.

Signal-to-noise ratio can be measured with great precision with SOTA test gear. Please provide measurements that demonstrate the above assertion or consider refraining from the repetition of audiophile folklore as if it is demonstrably true. Unless the internal wiring of a product is defective or inappropriately specified -- e.g. using unshielded hookup-wire in a relatively low level unbalanced audio circuit with impedance in the thousands of ohms -- there is no significant measurable or audible difference between purportedly "great cables" and their far less expensive, decent quality counterparts.
 

umbral

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Signal-to-noise ratio can be measured with great precision with SOTA test gear. Please provide measurements that demonstrate the above assertion or consider refraining from the repetition of audiophile folklore as if it is demonstrably true. Unless the internal wiring of a product is defective or inappropriately specified -- e.g. using unshielded hookup-wire in a relatively low level unbalanced audio circuit with impedance in the thousands of ohms -- there is no significant measurable or audible difference between purportedly "great cables" and their far less expensive, decent quality counterparts.

I was pointing to exactly that. I will try to find that piece of information form an audio engineer that states about difference between cables and results.
 

Steve Dallas

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I was pointing to exactly that. I will try to find that piece of information form an audio engineer that states about difference between cables and results.

There is a threshold of competency in the design and construction of a cable. Once that bar is reached, and it has been proven to be a very low bar, "improvements" become nebulous.

Cables have resistance, capacitance, inductance, shielding strength, and build quality. Those are all solved problems. You can vary the first 3 to create cables-as-tone-controls, vary the 3rd to create more or less of an antenna, or vary the 4th to create garbage or the illusion of luxury, but I don't know why you would want to do any of those things.

Our host has demonstrated that point more than once on this site, going as far as to prove inexpensive cables measure the same as very expensive cables.



Your only remaining avenue is to assert that human auditory pathways can "hear" the difference, and our minds are closed. Your move.
 
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umbral

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I agree.

And i would very much like and appreciate for you all to comment more on what Phil says on the video and the speakers qualities or defects, rather than making ironic comments about cables and connectors, and then after i give some simple answers to turn the discussion off topic.

The topic is about Airpulse and the A100 model. The Transparent cables they use are really great in quality and that is all that can be said about them. Nothing else.
The well-known American TRANSPARENT cable is used for internal connection to ensure minimum signal loss.
To ensure best signal transmission, we also chose the renowned US based, TRANSPARENT internal speaker cables.
 

Walter

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The cables are probably fine. They are also no better than much cheaper OFC cables available at Amazon or Walmart.
 
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