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Fluance Ai41 Spinorama and Measurements

napilopez

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Fluance Ai41. So they are kind of interesting. $249, 5 inch woofers. The tonality is poor(bright), especially given there's some DSP on board. But the speakers get most of the rest decent for the price, so I don't hate 'em.

I personally like the looks, they don't have much hiss, and they don't distort much noticeably, no port chuffing I noticed, lots of connectivity(Bluetooth, RCA, optical, sub out), solid imaging. Unlike the larger, older Ai60's I'd previously measured, the limiters don't kick in too aggressively, nor is there bad built in loudness compensation to the volume knob. Plus the subwoofer out has an 80hz high pass filter. So it's quite nicely featured for the price.

But tonality is just okay. I can see it being "impressive" for first-time fancy speaker owners, but they are bright on-axis and voices sounded a little hollow. More than anything, I noticed the unevenness when playing piano via some of my favorite VSTs, with some notes sticking out more than others. The spin, measured at tweeter axis via RCA.

Ai41 Spin.png
Still, it didn't sound terrible to me, just not great. Compared to something like the way smaller iLoud MM, the MM are much more neutral to my ear, but their SPL limitations are (unsurprisingly) easier to notice.

More data:

Ai41 Horizontal 90.png


Ai41 Hor ER.png


Ai41 Vertical.png


Maximum and minimum bass and treble settings:

Ai41 tone controls.png


You can see that no combination of settings will fully fix the tonality, and there are still broad dips and peaks within the adjustment range. Still, I found treble set to two notches above the minimum. sounded best to me and helped make the overall response neutral-ish in terms of overall tilt, albeit still uneven.

Long story short: good lifestyle features and overall 'tech' polish, middling tonality, though decent in other aspects and free from most cheap annoyances.

Though I definitely wouldn't recommend these to anyone here, I wouldn't be totally opposed to recommending them to someone as more of lifestyle speaker, if they wanted something with all these features and weren't too picky about the sound (truth is, I meet many people like this). Of course, you're better off with one of the many cheap good monitors for sound quality alone.
 
Last edited:

9cento

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Fluance Ai41. So they are kind of interesting. $249, 5 inch woofers. The tonality is poor(bright), especially given there's some DSP on board. But the speakers get most of the rest decent for the price, so I don't hate 'em.

I personally like the looks, they don't have much hiss, and they don't distort much noticeably, no port chuffing I noticed, lots of connectivity(Bluetooth, RCA, optical, sub out), solid imaging. Unlike the larger, older Ai60's I'd previously measured, the limiters don't kick in too aggressively, nor is there bad built in loudness compensation to the volume knob. Plus the subwoofer out has an 80hz high pass filter. So it's quite nicely featured for the price.

But tonality is just okay. I can see it being "impressive" for first-time fancy speaker owners, but they are bright on-axis and voices sounded a little hollow. More than anything, I noticed the unevenness when playing piano via some of my favorite VSTs, with some notes sticking out more than others. The spin, measured at tweeter axis via RCA.

View attachment 181635Still, it didn't sound terrible to me, just not great. Compared to something like the way smaller iLoud MM, the MM are much more neutral to my ear, but their SPL limitations are (unsurprisingly) easier to notice.

More data:

View attachment 181636

View attachment 181637

View attachment 181639

Maximum and minimum bass and treble settings:

View attachment 181640

You can see that no combination of settings will fully fix the tonality, and there are still broad dips and peaks within the adjustment range. Still, I found treble set to two notches above the minimum. sounded best to me and helped make the overall response neutral-ish in terms of overall tilt, albeit still uneven.

Long story short: good lifestyle features and overall 'tech' polish, middling tonality, though decent in other aspects and free from most cheap annoyances.

Though I definitely wouldn't recommend these to anyone here, I wouldn't be totally opposed to recommending them to someone as more of lifestyle speaker, if they wanted something with all these features and weren't too picky about the sound (truth is, I meet many people like this). Of course, you're better off with one of the many cheap good monitors for sound quality alone.
Great in-depth review, thanks a ton for sharing. I happen to own these bad boys and I would like to equalize them (for what is possible) in order to get the most out of them. The problem is that I'm a total noob on the matter, all I can do is to pick a pre-packed preset and applying it through EqualizerAPO. I know that there's no such thing as a solution that suits them all and, to name one, you have to take into account how the room distorts sound etc; but still I would enjoy a lot making them sound "as less bad as I can get" with the lowest effort. So here's the question: do you happen to own some config file to kindly pass to me? If not, would you mind pointing me in the right direction to accomplish my goal. Thank you in advance.
 

B-Flow

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Thanks so much for doing the in-depth assessment! I had heard (no pun intended) that these and the larger Ai61 has "less" DSP/Dynamic Loudness shenanagins (compared to the previous iterations) and I was really hopeful: I really like the idea of a powered bookshelf I can connect a couple devices to, plus Bluetooth... but I think that dymic reshaping will drive me nuts.

Although significantly more money, I'm now looking at pairing a Topping DAC with something like KRK Rokits (which I have as PC speakers and like very much).
 

salanmh3

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but they are bright on-axis and voices sounded a little hollow.
That's my experience too with Ai41 that I purchased recently, I wish if I was able to find your review before purchasing, and I thought I did a lot of research. A lot of reviews claim that those speakers are warm, natural, and comfortable (I even asked here before purchasing!)... but that is not true, they are bright, and vocals are fatiguing.. I still find myself going back to my HD6XX to feel more relaxed when listening to music, podcasts, streams, and gaming...

I also usually play games and listen to music or streams at the same time... using my HD6XX, I can hear and distinguish everything clearly while also being relaxed... using Ai41, not so much, I feel audio from different channels are fighting each other and getting fatigue quickly.

I am thinking to return my Ai41 as they do have 30 days listening guarantee.... I don't think they are terrible speakers, but they are not for me.

Do you have any recommendations within the same price range and same size for a pair of speakers that is really warm and comfortable (even if they are boomy)? I hate fatiguing or bright sound texture really... I was thinking about getting Eris E5 BT but not sure anymore. I used to have similar to those Edifier speakers, and while they were relaxing and I liked the sound texture, but they were low, have no wow elements, and I didn't want to have a sperate woofer in my setup.
 
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