Speakers

Yes, they're that good

We’ve reviewed a number of great speakers, but we haven’t been this excited about a set of boom boxes since we laid hands on the eponymous Cambridge SoundsWorks MicroWorks in the very first issue of boot magazine—way back in September 1996.

Listening to Peter Gabriel’s new album Scratch My Back on Bowers & Wilkins’ MM-1 computer speakers sent chills down our spines, a sensation rapidly followed by slack-jawed awe. We downloaded the album from B&W’s Society of Sound music club, which has the exclusive rights to distribute the album in studio-master quality: losslessly encoded in FLAC with 24-bit resolution at a 48Hz sampling rate. The MM-1 delivers audio quality that’s so exquisite, so pristine, that it makes the mighty AudioEngine A5—our previous favorite 2.0-channel speakers—sound almost muddy in comparison.

B&W tells us it didn't need to move a lot of MM-1s to earn a profit—no surprise there—but would the system sound as sweet if it were produced en masse?

We were particularly impressed with the MM-1’s bass response: There’s no subwoofer, so this system will never rattle your floor joists; in fact, frequency response bottoms out at 57Hz. But those lows are absolutely clean, lusciously well rounded, and perfectly balanced with the most scintillating highs and midrange frequencies we’ve ever heard from desktop speakers. In fact, this system is already pushing the Klipsch Pro Media 2.1 off our Best of the Best list—and that product took up its perch only last March. And yes, we’re taking games and movie soundtracks as well as music into consideration.

The MM-1 sounds so magnificent that we don’t even mind that it’s a USB speaker system that bypasses the PC’s audio circuitry; in fact, that’s a major plus—unless you’ve invested in a high-end soundcard like the kick-ass Asus Xonar Essence STX we reviewed in June 2009. Our only other mild criticism is that B&W decided to use a proprietary cable hardwired to the right speaker (which contains the amplifier and DAC) to connect the left speaker, and the cable is just long enough to position the speakers on either side of a 30-inch display.

If you ever needed proof that sheer power doesn’t necessarily ensure great sound, give the MM-1 a listen. The amp delivers just 18 watts to each of the four drivers (two one-inch Nautilus tube tweeters and two three-inch glass-fiber woofers), and while B&W considers them strictly near-field monitors, we found they had no difficulty filling our 80-square-foot home office with music. The speakers look as gorgeous as they sound, too, wrapped in stretchy black fabric with spun-aluminum tops and surface-mounted volume and power buttons embedded in the aluminum band around the right cabinet. You’ll find a line-in jack for a digital media player and a headphone jack there, too. A flat, ovoid remote controls volume and the transport mechanism for your favorite music software (we tried it with Media Monkey, iTunes, and Foobar 2000). Thick rubber bases on both speakers isolate them from your desktop.

We’d like to tell you that the MM-1 is comparably priced to speaker systems made by the likes of Logitech, Altec Lansing, or even Klipsch, but 500 clams puts it at the opposite end of the spectrum. If you’re as passionate about audio quality as you are about the rest of the components in your rig, on the other hand, that’s not such a high price to pay.

UPDATE: We selected the MM-1 speakers to accompany our 15th annual Dream Machine build. You'll find our first Dream Machine 2010 story here.

Sonos ZonePlayer S5

It's a party in a box

The Sonos ZonePlayer S5 is a fabulous addition to the multi-room Sonos Digital Music System, even if the company’s engineers did make some sonic compromises in the name of delivering an all-in-one model at a friendlier price point.

The passive ZonePlayer 90 sells for $350, and the ZonePlayer 120—which features an excellent integrated 55-watt-per-channel amplifier—goes for $500. The ZonePlayer S5 packs both an amplifier and speakers, and is priced at just $400. This low price, coupled with the company declining our query about the amp’s power and total harmonic distortion specs and the material used in speaker fabrication, leads us to believe that Sonos is looking for a bridge to a more proletarian market.

Be that as it may, when we integrated the S5 into our existing Sonos system (ZonePlayers form their own wireless network, but at least one of them must be hardwired to your router), we were bowled over by its ability to fill two adjoining rooms (680 square feet in aggregate) with jangling guitars and the plaintive wail of Gillian Welch’s voice singing “Burn My Stillhouse Down.” The box houses five speakers altogether: a pair of 0.75-inch tweeters, two 3.0-inch midrange drivers, and a 3.5-inch subwoofer that delivers a lot more bass than you’d expect from a driver of that size.

Changing things up to test the S5’s bass response, however, revealed a problem: When we cranked up the Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush duet “Don’t Give Up,” the cabinet began to rattle in sympathy with Tony Levin’s prominent and sustained bass work. As it turns out, a screw inside the enclosure apparently worked its way out during our listening test. We finished our evaluation with a second unit and the issue didn’t repeat itself.

Several hours of critical listening left our ears feeling a bit fatigued—an issue we didn’t encounter with B&W’s Zeppelin (not entirely an apples-to-oranges comparison, since the Zeppelin is a non-networked iPod dock), but the S5 was a huge hit when we had weekend guests over to listen to tunes and play pool.

Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 Wireless Speakers

Klipsch storms its way onto our Best of the Best list

Every portable computer, from the brawniest desktop replacement to the tiniest netbook, has one thing in common: terrible speakers. There’s no shortage of powered speaker systems on the market—some of which are very good—but what’s the point of using a laptop if you have to tether it to a box to get good sound?

Klipsch has a better solution: The ProMedia 2.1 Wireless uses a USB transmitter to send audio from the host PC to the speakers over the airwaves. The speakers themselves are all hardwired, with the amplifier tucked inside the subwoofer. And lordy, what a subwoofer it is. There’s a 6.5-inch long-throw, side-firing driver housed inside a bass-reflex enclosure with a front port. The sub cabinet also houses the wireless receiver and the 200-watt amplifier that powers all three channels. Klipsch claims line-of-sight range of 30 feet and our experience backs that up. If you’re looking for a wireless audio system that will send audio from a computer in one room to speakers in another, this isn’t the right solution.

The two-way satellite speakers consist of 25mm polymer tweeters mated to Klipsch’s well-known MicroTractix horn. Mids are produced by three-inch long-throw drivers. The right-hand satellite cabinet houses a master volume control and a separate control for bass volume, a 1/8-inch headphone output, and a 1/8-inch auxiliary input. This input provides +6dB input sensitivity to compensate for the low output voltage that many portable digital media players deliver; take heed if you’re feeding it from an AC-powered source. The satellites can be mounted on either the included desktop stands or on a wall using an optional Klipsch accessory (model WB-1 wall brackets, which sell for $22 a pair).
 
We predict few people will go the wall-mount route. You could splice more wire to the hardwired speaker cables that connect the satellites to the subwoofer, but there’s no way to lengthen the 10-foot proprietary control cable attached to the right-hand satellite. There is no remote control, either included or available as an optional accessory, but that’s not all that uncommon for speakers in this price class.
 
We like our bass like we like our beef—served up in thick, juicy slabs—and the ProMedia 2.1 Wireless certainly didn’t disappoint on that score. The subwoofer was a kick with games (exploding Left 4 Dead Boomers practically pushed us back in our seats), but we also auditioned the system with a range of music (everything from Lucinda Williams to Herbie Hancock) and it managed to deliver a tight and coherent bottom end with everything. The satellites are a touch bright for our taste, but that just reminded us that we probably didn’t need to crank the volume quite so high. Most people will use these speakers as near-field monitors, but they filled our 13x9-foot media room with well-balanced sound and plenty of headroom to spare.

These are great speakers and they’re reasonably priced; they’ve certainly earned a spot on our Best of the Best list.

Logitech Speaker System Z520

Damn-good cheap speakers

We haven’t auditioned many cheap speaker systems lately. Why? Well, let’s just say we don’t enjoy subjecting our ears to the sonic equivalent of waterboarding. But Logitech has a knack for packing big sound into inexpensive boxes, so we agreed to review its new two-channel Z520 system.

You’ll have to decide for yourself if the Z520 system’s $130 price tag really puts it in the “cheap” category, and we imagine the folks at Logitech will cringe to hear us describe them as such; but you can cut only so many corners before we begin to ask, “Why bother?” Judging by these speakers’ performance, Logitech’s engineers know just how low they can go.
 
When we see small speakers, we usually pigeon-hole them as near-field monitors: short-throw speakers that produce a small stereo soundstage that collapses as soon as you move more than three feet away from the cabinets. There’s nothing inherently wrong with near-fields, especially in a PC environment, but they have their limitations. So we were surprised to hear Logitech boast that the Z520 could provide a “great listening experience throughout the room.” We decided to put that claim to the test as soon as we took the speakers out of the box.

We connected the set to Asus’s kick-ass two-channel soundcard, the Xonar Essence STX, which meant we had to find an adapter to convert the speakers’ six-foot hardwired cable. The cable ends in a 1/8-inch stereo plug, but the soundcard’s jacks are stereo RCA. The six-foot cable connecting the left speaker cabinet to the right, which houses the amp, is hardwired to the left cabinet. We realize that renders setup fairly idiot-proof, but it also limits where you can put the speakers.

We played a number of tracks that we’d ripped from CD and encoded in FLAC, starting with an old favorite: Joe Jackson’s “Rant and Rave” from his Blaze of Glory release. We expected the speakers to be bright, since there’s no subwoofer (and no way to add one), but we were pleasantly surprised with their range and definition. Listen to a song like this on most inexpensive speaker systems and the acoustic piano, horns, and vocals will peel your ear drums. The Z520 produced the congas, acoustic piano, trumpet, and vocal as thoroughly distinct elements. The system even delivered respectable bass response from its three-inch woofers, without having to resort to devices such as reflex ports and passive radiators. The cabinets are fabricated from thick plastic and flare out with a wide bottom that renders them very stable. There’s not enough bass here to satisfy hardcore gamers or movie buffs; but for the price, we think most music listeners will be satisfied.

The Z520’s integrated amp produces just 26 watts per channel, so don’t expect it to fill a large room with sound, especially if you’re throwing a party. With the volume control knob turned about three-quarters full, however, it did manage to fill our 14x8-foot home office. But the speaker’s ability to present a stereo image almost anywhere in the room is what really impressed us; in fact, the soundstage didn’t begin to decay until we were standing at a nearly 90-degree angle to the speakers. Remarkable.

Focal-JMlab Focal XS Multimedia Sound System

Never content to leave well enough alone, we’ve spent a lot of time looking for an audio system that could topple B&W’s mighty Zeppelin off its perch as our favorite iPod sound system. And now we've finally found it -- in Focal-JMlab’s Focal XS Multimedia Sound System.

The Focal XS is the logical follow-up to Focal’s awesome iCub powered subwoofer, which had a 2.1-channel amplifier but didn’t come with satellite speakers. The new system includes not only a pair of excellent near-field satellites, but also an integrated iPod dock and a USB interface so you can sync your iPod to iTunes, and convert digital audio from your PC’s USB port.

To be entirely fair to the Zeppelin, these two devices are really designed for different applications: Where the Zeppelin system is designed to fill a room with sound, the Focal XS is more of a near-field system that’s best enjoyed when you’re sitting in close proximity to it. And that probably explains why, unlike the Zeppelin, the Focal XS does not have an analog video output that would allow you to watch movies stored on your iPod on your big-screen TV.

An amp in the Focal XS’s subwoofer cabinet puts out 30 watts to each of the satellite speakers and 70 watts to the sub. The Focal iCub’s amp, by comparison, produces 75 and 150 watts, respectively. The Zeppelin’s amp, meanwhile, sends 25 watts to its full-range speakers and 50 watts to its sub.

The satellites in the Focal XS are two-way speakers with 3-inch mid-range paper cone drivers and 0.75-inch mylar dome tweeters; the sub features a 6.5-inch paper cone. The satellites are permanently mounted to anodized aluminum stands that put the drivers just about at ear level when placed on a desktop. Hard-wired cables, each about five feet long, connect the satellites to the subwoofer cabinet.

A dock in the base of the right satellite can host and recharge an iPod, or you can plug the analog output of any other audio device into the dock’s 1/8-inch aux input. You can also pipe digital audio from your PC to the speakers via a USB cable, using the Focal XS’s integrated Burr-Brown DAC. Connect the dock to your PC, push a button on the back of the base, and you can synch the iPod to your iTunes library.

When not in synch mode, you can use either the iPod’s control wheel or the wireless remote control to play your tunes. The remote has buttons for power, volume, play/pause, and skip forward/back, as well as a magnetic back that can “stick” to the speaker stand. An on/off switch and a set of volume control buttons are also located in the right-hand channel’s base.

The subwoofer is a down-firing design with a large vent in front and an independent volume control. It doesn’t put out the gut-punching bass of the iCub, but it’s easily the Zeppelin’s equal. The Focal XS’s $600 price tag matches the Zeppelin’s sticker, but is $150 lower than the iCub’s.

Listening to good self-powered speakers isn’t about loudness, it’s about definition. The Focal XS system proved to be adept at sussing out all the complex layers of acoustic and electronic instrumentation present in the tracks that make up the spectacular 2001 recording "Global A Go-Go," from Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros (we ripped the CD and encoded to Apple Lossless for the iPod and FLAC for the PC).

We were particularly impressed with the system’s performance with “Bhindee Bhagee.” This high-energy track has so much going on (vocals, flute, violin, guitars, Wurlizter, and numerous effects processors) that it can devolve into a distorted mish-mash on lesser systems. It sounded positively glorious on the Focal XS.

Logitech Squeezebox Boom

The Squeezebox Boom is another solid entry in a long line of great audio streamers. Logitech has mastered the art of building inexpensive, good-quality powered speakers, and the ones integrated into the Boom are no exception.

The Squeezebox Boom’s closest competition is Roku’s SoundBridge Radio, but it’s not much of a contest. Both devices can function as an alarm clock, waking you with music streamed from your PC or Internet radio stations (and both have an all-important snooze bar), but the Boom sounds better, supports more audio formats, and consumes much less room on your nightstand.

The speakers utilize a two-way design consisting of a pair of three-quarter-inch soft-dome tweeters and two three-inch long-throw woofers. Listening to the opening of “Fortune Teller,” from the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss collaboration Raising Sand (which we’d ripped from CD and encoded to WMA Lossless), we were pleasantly surprised by the small woofers’ ability to reproduce the boom of the traditional bass drum (which sounds distinctly different from a drummer’s kick drum).

If you want even more low end and have a powered subwoofer lying around, the headphone jack in the back of the device can be reconfigured as a subwoofer output. The tweeters, meanwhile, deliver pleasingly crisp highs. Logitech doesn’t disclose the amplifier’s output, but it delivers enough power to fill a moderate-size bedroom with sound. Push the amp too hard, however, and it will shred your eardrums with unpleasantly grating highs. There’s also a line-in jack in the back, which is handy for plugging in an MP3 player.

Given the proliferation of 802.11n Draft 2.0 routers, we’re disappointed that this Squeezebox remains limited to 802.11g. It’s not that music requires the extra throughput, it’s just that having a Squeezebox on your network prevents you from running the network in 802.11n-only mode.

The Squeezebox Boom echoes the design of the Squeezebox 3, but with a smaller display, a collection of buttons, a large knob on its face, and, of course, those built-in speakers. Most of the buttons perform typical playback functions (play, pause, skip forward/back, and volume control), while the knob and a few buttons are used to navigate the onscreen menus (the knob can also be used to adjust the volume). You can store favorite tracks, radio stations, or albums in six preset buttons beneath the display, so they can be recalled with a single button press.

One thing that’s sorely missing from the front panel (it’s on the infrared remote) is a Home button that takes you to the device’s root menu. The only way to get there using the front-panel buttons is to repeatedly mash the Back button. You can also control the Boom using the remote that comes with the Squeezebox Duet, which is outfitted with a color LCD.

If you’re looking for a general-purpose audio-streaming box, as opposed to an alarm clock, you’ll be better served by the Squeezebox Duet or the Squeezebox 3 paired with high-quality self-powered speakers (Axiom Audio’s Audiobyte and Audioengine’s A2 or A5 are good choices). One reason is that the Boom lacks a digital output, so you can’t use an outboard DAC or integrate the Boom into your hi-fi system. And if it’s a multiroom system you’re after, no one does it better than Sonos.

TBI Audio Systems MMD-1R

TBI Audio Systems bowled us over last year with its passive Majestic Diamond speakers; the company recently sent us the follow-up to those speakers (the Majestic Diamond IR) along with the new hybrid-powered Millennia MG3 Class D amplifier. (Buying the components as a package shaves $100 off the cost of acquiring them separately.)

Hybrid power means the amp can operate on either A/C power (using the included power supply) or eight AA batteries (not included). Plugging in the power adapter shuts off the batteries (but it won’t refresh any rechargeable batteries you might be using). Add a set of strong passive speakers and a digital media player capable of playing tracks encoded using a lossless codec (we used Cowon’s FLAC-friendly A3) and you have a fabulous audio system you can listen to just about anywhere.

The $500 amp’s faceplate features an oversize volume control knob, a power switch, and an 1/8-inch stereo input, which makes it easy to plug in a digital media player if the amp is on a bookshelf. An LED glows blue when the amp is running on AC power; red while using batteries. There’s a set of RCA inputs in back, along with a pair of five-way binding posts. The provided power supply is designed to drive eight-ohm speakers, but the amp can handle a four-ohm load if you use the optional 12-volt power supply.

The new single-driver Majestic Diamond IR speakers ($600) look exactly like the first-generation Majestic Diamonds, but they feature a new port design that TBI claims delivers improved low-end frequency response (60Hz, compared to the earlier design’s 70Hz) and drivers that deliver much better frequency response at the upper end of the scale. After extensive listening tests using FLAC files played on the Cowon A3, we agree with TBI’s claims.

Although the brick-sized amp produces just 40 watts per channel (with less than one percent total harmonic distortion), it puts out such full-spectrum sound it rivals much larger systems. (The unit produces 10 watts pwer channel while running on batteries.) Audiophile-quality sound systems, however, aren’t as unusual as they once were. B&W’s Zeppelin iPod powered speaker dock, for example, set the performance bar very high: It’s about $400 cheaper than the $1,000 Millenia/Majestic Diamond IR combo and it sounds better. That makes it tough to give the Millenia/Majestic Diamond IR combo a higher recommendation.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct an error in pricing (we had reversed the prices for the amp and speakers if purchased separately). We also needed to clarify that the amp produces 10 watts per channel while running on batteries; it produces 40 watts per channel when plugged into an electrical socket.--mb 8/27/2008

Axiom Audio Audiobyte Speakers

Axiom Audio’s Audiobyte speakers have convinced us it’s time to retire the M-Audio Studiophile LX4 system we’ve long used as a reference point for speaker reviews. They also surprised us in a number of ways: They’re made in Canada, not China; the amplifier comes in its own enclosure, as opposed to being hidden in one of the speaker cabinets; and the subwoofer is passive!

Actually, the subwoofer is optional, but we wouldn’t recommend buying the satellites solo—as sweet as they sound—because they just don’t deliver enough oomph on their own. The amp and satellites sell for $350 and the EPZero sub goes for $180, for an as-reviewed price of $530. If your budget tops out at $350, the Audioengine A5 system is a better value.

The Class D amplifier delivers 55 watts per channel to the satellites (there’s a 1-inch titanium dome tweeter and a 3-inch aluminum cone woofer in each). The subwoofer consists of a front-firing 6.5-inch aluminum-cone woofer inside a vented cabinet. The sub delivers sweet, tight bass, but if you’re looking for something that will beat you over the head, pick up a powered sub—the amp will accommodate that configuration as well.

We’re delighted when a set of speakers reveals an element of a song we’ve never detected even after hundreds of listening sessions (and with very good speakers). While playing Dire Straits’s “Private Investigations” (from the group’s epic CD Love Over Gold), we picked up the sound of shuffling footsteps at one transition. This isn’t unintentional noise, but it’s so deep in the background we’d never noticed it. We went back and listened to the track on M-Audio’s speakers and, sure enough, it was there—but we really had to listen for it.

Audioengine A2 Speakers

If you think deploying a subwoofer is a prerequisite to obtaining big-time bass, you haven’t heard Audioengine’s A5 speakers. And if you’re convinced you need huge cabinets for thumping bass, you haven’t heard the company’s new diminutive A2 system.

We’ve been using Audioengine’s A5 speakers as our reference point for speaker evaluations for many months—and they’ve been on our Best of the Best list ever since we laid ears on them—so we couldn’t wait to see what the company’s A2 system would deliver.

The A2’s cabinets are about one-third the size of the A5’s, which means they’ll fit just about anywhere, and they feature an absolutely luscious black lacquer-like finish that reminds us of a concert grand piano. The drawback to the glamour is that dust and fingerprints show up instantly, and the latter are hard to obliterate.

The A2 features the same 20mm silk tweeters as the much bigger A5, and we were pleasantly surprised that Audioengine didn’t overpower the 2.75-inch Kevlar woofers. The walls of the MDF cabinets are about a quarter-inch thinner than those in the A5.
The amp, located in the left speaker, delivers 15 watts RMS and provided more than enough power to fill a good-size bedroom. The amp has two sets of inputs in back, one RCA pair and one 1/8-inch stereo. Audioengine provides about 6.5 feet of 16-gauge speaker wire with bare ends, but the binding posts will also accept banana plugs if you roll that way. The company also includes drawstring pouches for the speakers, cords, and power cables.

While an all-around solid system, the A2’s volume control would be much handier if it were located on the front of the cabinet, and we miss the convenient USB charging port that the A5 boasts. But we have no complaints with the A2’s sound—it rocks, delivering spectacular sound with a wide variety of tunes. These speakers don’t get as loud as some larger systems we’ve auditioned lately, but that’s the only thing that holds us back from giving them a Kick Ass award.

Soundcast OutCast Outdoor Speaker

Soundcast has embedded its wireless iPod streaming technology inside a fantastic battery-powered, self-amplified outdoor speaker. It’s pricey, but building a good wired outdoor system would cost as much—even if you do the work yourself.

The system includes an iCast transmitter, which captures the analog output from your iPod and streams it to the OutCast on the 2.4GHz frequency band. If you rock with an MP3 player other than an iPod, or if you want to stream music from your PC, the 1/8-inch headphone jack on the back of the iCast automatically becomes a line-level input when there’s no iPod in the dock.

Membrane switches on the top of the speaker enable you to control a docked iPod, although you’re limited to track forward/back, play/pause, and volume (there’s no way to control any other source). There’s no display, so you’ll want to build a playlist or leave the iPod in shuffle mode. You can also get around the display issue by plugging any player directly into the OutCast and stashing it in the cradle built into the handle.

A 100-watt amp delivers plenty of volume to the four 3-inch high-frequency drivers arranged around the top of the columnar device, while an 8-inch down-firing woofer delivers lots of beefy bass. The speaker sounded great on our enclosed patio, only slightly less so when we moved it out into our yard (where it was deprived of walls and a ceiling to provide natural reverb). The system delivered impressive range, too, streaming audio outside within a 135-foot radius of the transmitter inside the house. But the amp doesn’t like to be pushed; it distorted badly long before we reached its maximum output.

The OutCast is thoroughly weatherized, as long as you don’t leave anything plugged into it. Soundcast says the NiMH battery pack will deliver 10 hours of audio on a charge, but we were able to squeeze out 15 hours playing at lower volume (and leaving the cheesy mood lighting turned off). We dig it, but the price tag denies it a Kick Ass award.