Athena AS-F2 Main/Stereo Speaker.
Written: Oct 17 '04 (Updated Oct 17 '04)
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Pros: Audiophile-quality sound in an attractive package and a bargain basement price!
Cons: They're big and heavy. But what high quality floorstanding speaker isn't?
The Bottom Line: Try to find any speaker that performs as well as the AS-F2 and costs even twice as much. An incredible speaker for an incredible price.
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| androoos's Full Review: Athena AS-F2 Main / Stereo Speaker |
Time for Speaker Shopping
I have to admit, I was surprised to discover Best Buy carrying Athena Technologies Audition series speakers. Best Buy carries some nice equipment, but Athena's speakers are relative unknowns compared to the big boys like Bose, JBL, Klipsch, Polk and Yamaha. These speakers are very popular with budget-minded audiophiles, which is another reason why I was surprised to see them at Best Buy. Unless your an audiophile, you've probably never heard of Athena.
Some background on Athena Technologies
Athena Technologies is a division of Audio Products International Corp, which was founded in 1975 in Toronto, Canada. API distributes products to 60 countries worldwide, and has been contracted to work with the Canadian National Research Council to create speakers that achieve high performance and high quality in a typical home listening environment. The Athena AS-F2 is part of the "Audition" series of speakers which include a center channel speaker, surround bookshelf type speakers, and a subwoofer all specially matched to reproduce to most accurate and aurally satisfying sound possible.
More shopping...
There are a few home theater specialty stores in the area, and they all sell ridiculously overpriced systems. I hate going to those stores, because even though the systems are high quality, unless you're prepared to buy a $2,000 set of Wharfedale floorstanding speakers, the salesmen won't answer your questions, and in some cases will be so rude as to cause you to leave the store. Therefore, Best Buy to my rescue. I already know the salespeople at Best Buy are useless, so I go in fully armed and ready to test speakers right there in the store.
I can honestly say the Athena AS-F2 speakers outperformed EVERY SINGLE SPEAKER that Best Buy stocks. I could just say "Go try them for yourself" but that won't do here. You're in for a good, detailed review of Athena's heavenly AS-F2 floorstanding speakers.
The Athena AS-F2 beat the pants off of the following speakers...
Klipsch Synergy Series SF-2 (overpriced and tinny sound) $349.99 each
Whichever Yamaha speakers the local Best Buy stocked (junk)
Sony SSMF750H (no contest) $199.99 each
JBL Northridge E90 (less bass) $399.99 each
JBL Northridge E100 (equal bass but 3X the price) $499.99 each
Bose Acoustimass (no contest as well)
For comparison, the Athena AS-F2 speaker costs $179.99 each.
If you've seen the speaker setups at Best Buy, you'll know they have an entire system made up of each manufacturer's types of speakers (mains, surrounds and subwoofer). For my testing, I only listened to the main speakers, since that's what I was shopping for. You can choose the type of music that's played over an amplifier set up to run the system, in this case it was a Yamaha amp (model number unknown). I used the "Rock" song, which turned out to be a personal favorite, Audioslave's "Gasoline". This song is a great choice for speaker testing thanks to the very beginning of the song - high guitar notes and booming, thundering bass create a great intro to the song - and a great test of a speaker's capabilities. The rest of of the song is a great test as well - I can thank Chris Cornell's wonderful high, screechy voice for that.
The Athena AS-F2 was consistently the clearest-sounding speakers in the store. The JBL Northridge E100 speakers were the only speakers really comparable to the sound that the AS-F2's produced. The E100's could keep up with (but didn't exceed) the AS-F2 on bass thanks to it's 10" woofers, (the Athena only uses 8" injection molded woofers.) The AS-F2 outperformed the JBL's in the high range, producing a clearer, crisper sound. The Athena AS-F2 uses a 1" Teteron (synthetic) tweeter to produce it's highs.
More Specs...
Here are the specifications for Athena'a AS-F2 speakers:
Black ash finished cabinets
1" Teteron Dome, magnetically shielded
Dual 8" Injection Molded Polypropylene with Rubber Surround, also shielded
Frequency Response: 35Hz - 20kHz +/- 3 dB
Power Handling: 250 watts per channel
Sensitivity: 93dB
Impedance: 8 ohms
Dimensions: 41-1/2" H x 9-1/2" W x 15-1/2"D
Weight: 50 lbs each
Silver front finish with large bass reflex port
Removable mesh fabric black speaker grill cover
After auditioning Best Buy's array of floorstanding speakers, I decided on the Athena AS-F2 due to it's incredible price and even more incredible performance in the face of such strong opposition from JBL's Northridge series. I brought two home for a grand total of $360, less than the price of just one JBL E100.
Setting them up and breaking them...in of course!
I quickly connected these speakers to my wonderful Sony STR-DE995 7.1 surround receiver using some high-quality 10 gauge speaker wire. Each speaker comes with 4 heavy-duty carpet spikes which thread into holes in the bottom of the speaker. If you will be using the speakers on a hard floor, some rubber feet made to fit the spikes are included. That's it, other than the spikes, rubber feet and instruction manual, there's nothing else to setting these bad boys up. Piece of cake!
The break-in period
I'd done a good amount of reading on the internet about these speakers, and even the factory manual recommends a break-in period for the AS-F2s. Athena recommends 50-100 hours of moderate-volume music playback before you really stretch the legs of the speakers to high volume levels. Even though it's agonizing, I will comply.
The first home tryout
After I broke in the speakers (using a Metallica CD and the repeat-disc option) I sat down to finally try out these speakers in the setting where they'd spend their life...my home theater.
The most surprising aspect of these speakers is the bass. The bass produced by these speakers is just incredible. I could turn off my powered subwoofer and still hear deep, rumbling bass as if I hadn't turned anything off. Simply incredible for a speaker using only 8" woofers and no internal subwoofer. The highs were crisp just as I experienced in the store. The listening experience in my living room pretty much mirrored my experience at Best Buy, which was surprising considering the usual racket going on all around a typical Best Buy store. I was very pleased with my decision.
Music
These speakers strength is most certainly music. They can reproduce such an incredible range of frequencies (see specs above) that you'll get a much more pleasing experience with these speakers than your run-of-the-mill Sony home theater-in-a-box setup. The music is much more accurately reproduced with these speakers, there is no gap in the range of these speakers, no dead midrange, no empty bass, no tinny highs. The sound is perfect and evenly spread through the aural spectrum. Listening to music, from any source, be it CD, tape, iPod, or even the Digital Cable music channels, is a delight.
Movies
I was torn between my two favorite system-testing DVDs - Pearl Harbor and Saving Private Ryan. I chose Pearl Harbor, since being more dialogue-based, would exercise the AS-F2's more than Private Ryan (which is more for exercising the surround speakers). Dialogue was crisp and clear, I set up my system to route the dialogue through the AS-F2's by disabling the center channel speaker. I didn't even notice the difference (which means I might be upgrading my center channel soon...oh no!). The DVD was being played on my LG LST-3510A HDTV Tuner/DVD player with 1080i upconversion and DVI output. It was connected through a Monster optical cable to my Sony STR-DE995 and I used Pearl Harbor's DTS 5.1 audio option for my test.
Conclusion
I'm extremely satisfied with my purchase. Athena's AS-F2 is exactly what I've wanted for years regarding a floorstanding speaker. I love quality, but I love something that is high quality and that will save me some money even more. The Athena AS-F2 speakers certainly fit that bill. For the money, these are some of the best speakers available in the entire world. You'd be hard pressed to find a speaker that can compete with the AS-F2 for even three times the price. These speakers are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 360
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androoos
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Member: JC Andrews
Location: Chesapeake, VA
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