Great sounding medium sized 2-way!
Written: May 18 '00 (Updated Mar 05 '01)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Incredible sound, wide sweet spot and deep bass for the size. Great build quality
Cons: Midrange lacking slightly
The Bottom Line: A simple 2-way, medium sized speaker with a wider than average dispersion, a warm sound and deep bass for the size. Great speaker for half MSRP.
|
|
|
| livingplasma's Full Review: Acoustic Research AR 216PS Speaker |
Got these on sale at J&R for around $150 (list price is $300 and up depending on where you look). For a 2 way system, the sound is very impressive. It consists of a 6.5 inch woofer and 1 inch polycarbonate tweeter.
The sound of this system is quite a pleasant mix. Its horn loaded like tweeter design helps the high frequencies disperse over a wider area, making the sweet spot bigger. It's tweeter is very nice, with a smooth sound that leans towards being soft. This makes the speakers very easy to listen to, they are never harsh sounding or overly bright and sharp. The midrange seems to lack a bit in volume probably because of the woofer and tweeter not extending quite enough to overlap, but the two drivers still a do a good job on vocals and the such. Considering the size of the driver and enclosure, the bass is very impressive. It is taut and deep with good extension, never sounds boomy or artificially hollow. It does not seem to suffer from any strong box resonances. The sound overall is slightly warm with it's soft top end, slightly recessed midrange and mild emphasis on middle bass.
Build quality is very good with these. The enclosure is very solid feeling, with good quality parts used throughout. The gold plated 5-way heavy duty binding posts are very nice, allowing many ways to connect them to your system and accept pretty large gauge wire (my guess is 12 gauge). The whole system is finished nicely, with an attractive appearance. For $300, they would be a good value... for $150 and under, they are a steal. The only minor thing I don't like is the fact that the surround on the woofer is foam, not rubber, but the sound is impressive nonetheless.
UPDATE:
These speakers were originally auditioned in the livingroom, where the setup, though not ideal, was actually not bad at all. In my bedroom with the nearfeild and room interaction minimized setup, the sound still is great. The bass seems to slightly overpower the midrange and treble a bit, but it's not too bad. Midrange is still lacking a tad in volume, but is very detailed. Mainly it seems that female vocals lack a bit in volume, male vocals manage to sound loud enough. The treble is smooth and rolls off nicely, really enjoyable to listen to. What's interesting is that it sounds quite coherent somehow, maybe it's the more time aligned nature of the horn loaded tweeter and the woofer, or maybe it's the fact that the bass isn't lacking except for the deepest notes, but it somehow sounds big and complete. I can't detect any box colorations either, which I seem to notice with the smaller speakers I've reviewed in the same setting.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
livingplasma
|
|
Reviews written: 8
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Opinions, like people, will change and evolve. Expect updates with many of my reviews.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.