Edifier Airpulse A200 Active Speakers Review – Great Feast for the Ears at a proud Price

1 - Introduction and Unboxing 2 - Teardown: Cabinet and Speakers in Detail 3 - Teardown: PCB, Components and Concept 4 - Sound-Check and Conclusion

Stereo playback and sound correction

After all the technical details, we finally come to the most important thing: How does it sound? So I start exactly where it sometimes hurts: with the individual hearing test. I tested the playback without an additional subwoofer, since Edifier does not provide for that. So the boxes are on their own. Which brings us to the basic setting I use. If you want to listen with a bit more bass at low levels, you can happily boost that with a maximum of +3 dB on the rear. I did without it for my evaluation and also left the treble control in the center position. Some bass and treble boost would certainly be good for the light bathtub, especially at low levels in the background sound. But let’s finally get down to business…

Bass reproduction

The speakers fail very clearly and completely at the subcontraoctave, because a very restrictive filter has been set in the DSP for this. An audible low cut already starts at 45 Hz downwards, which then almost fully takes effect below 35 Hz. However, you have to listen more closely, because most sources do not offer such deep signals. The contraoctave is still fully present above about 45 Hz. Sonically, everything is still pleasantly deep and commendably raven black. All in all, the bass reproduction is very crisp and dry as dust.

Nothing hums or scrapes, not even in the slightest, but it also remains free of ugly resonances. The bass is simply there, which is exactly how it was intended and desired, even if it is not quite as dominant. However, due to the somewhat lower output power, you should forego all sound improvements for party sound reinforcement. The soft clipping comes into play rather abruptly and the onset of pumping and overdriving then sounds not so good including the distortions. That too, because then suddenly even the mids are missing.

This range sounds very natural and is certainly one of the highlights of the A200. Compared to the equally expensive Nubert SP-200, the range is kept much more neutral, but without being too lacking somehow. And you are not accompanied by the usual dripping grease eyes of the 100-Euro speakers in the upper bass, which are usually supposed to conceal a lack of volume. The A200s don’t need that at all. The male vocals are still pleasantly full and rich, though completely dry as dust, and the instruments are not distorted either. There’s something almost analytical about it, but it remains pleasant to listen to. For the cozy fireside scene after work, the bass can definitely be boosted a bit, especially at lower levels.

Overall, the resolution here is already very far above average and lets classical orchestral pieces, rock, pop and jazz of all stripes perform excellently in every situation. Especially in chamber music with a wind quartet, a bassoon sounds full, clean and rich. But a cello with strings can also please. The installation location is rather uncritical despite the bass reflex port at the back, but should be chosen carefully if you want to avoid annoying modes, but that’s not up to the speakers then. This also includes giving the bass reflex tubes at the back at least 20 cm of air to breathe, but more is welcome. You can forget about plugging here, it distorts the rounded sound image tremendously.

Midrange

There is no reason for criticism here either; on the contrary, the A200s are crushingly honest, which will certainly not be to everyone’s taste. Because they mercilessly expose every weakness of the reproduced one-shots, if you haven’t messed it up with the sound correction. Once again, everything remains so dry as dust that one rather feels reminded of studio monitors. Female vocals can shine freely and powerfully and get to the point without any problems. The timbre of the voices and recorded instruments is overall quite neutral, but never cold. However, the whole thing is somewhat analytical.

The further course upwards is free of any criticism. The precision is convincing and makes the system a good and unobtrusive companion for work and after work in equal measure, no matter if it should be the Tidal playlist for on the side or a relaxed music enjoyment with a good glass of wine after work. Here you also notice the price, whereby the sound always remains balanced and also a bit cooler. In any case, the resolution is more than adequate for the price, which fits.

The stage and the subjectively perceived quality of the spatial resolution are also on a very high and absolutely appropriate level for the price. A large orchestra seems (from a purely subjective point of view) extremely wide in width, very well staggered in depth and also very precisely positioned in total. This makes it very easy to locate individual instruments very clearly and unambiguously at a wide range of overall levels. If the speakers are very close together, the effect fades somewhat, because there is no electronic base widening.

Speech reproduction does not suffer any losses in this area, no matter how many different sources were mixed. The suitability on the desktop is underlined by the very good spatial reproduction in games with excellent audio material, but you also get along with the speakers very well in the deep room. The sweet spot is pleasingly wide as long as the tweeters can operate at about ear level. The tuning of the active crossover is very well chosen and so you have quite a balanced sound on very many positions, despite the active two-way separation.

Tweeter range

Again, the reproduction is extremely honest, very neutral, and it sits seamlessly on top of the very well modeled mids. The speech intelligibility as well as the quality of the vocals during recognition can convince in all points and the whole thing even works in the near field. It is also good that the active crossover has been tuned in such a way that there is no audible overemphasis or any level drops, neither here nor in the further frequency course. The transition between the two drivers is, as already described, pleasantly smooth and above all one thing: not or only barely perceptible, which might also be due to the excellent ribbon tweeters.

Unlike the nuPro SP-200s, you don’t have to contend with audible intermodulation products during the transition between drivers if you point your near-field listeners too close to the monitor and the level is well above normal. But let’s be honest, hardly anyone does that anyway. Nevertheless, it has to be mentioned, because there are supposed to be golden ears that can even hear phase shifts clearly here.

Highs and super-highs are brilliantly reproduced by the ribbon tweeters, especially since these tweeters never overemphasize, but confidently avoid any ugly peaks. Sibilants and breath sounds come cleanly and unagitatedly to the ear and you can live with them really well in total. However, despite the rather restrained playing style, it never sounds stuffy and certainly not spiky or metallic, but remains refreshingly natural. These are speakers that don’t steal your last nerve, although of course a bass trumpet blares more beautifully on Klipsch horns. But is that what you actually want?

String instruments are likewise not washed forward or even away, but they sit exactly where they belong according to the plan. This deserves my absolute respect. Chamber music or large orchestra in the Finale Furioso, it doesn’t matter – it all fits like a glove. The only thing that perhaps loses a bit of presence on top are various horns. But that’s complaining at the very highest level.

Summary and conclusion

Depending on the store, you will have to pay between 830 and 850 Euros, which sounds expensive at first. However, the parts also sound as they cost and you can glide over with it contentedly into the end of the day, if you like the interpretation. No, they’re not party boxes, and even the TV tends to get crowded when there are earthquakes or cannon impacts to admire. The speakers are never clamorous or over-present, but allow you to experience nuances that you don’t often find otherwise under 1000 euros.

Edifier’s Airpulse A200s might sound frighteningly neutral and almost too analytical for some mainstream listeners, but if you want to hear the difference between a normal MP3 file and a lossless source: the A200s do it frighteningly well. But whether you want to completely disillusion yourself with it, because the subscription for good streams is too expensive for you (because you suddenly don’t like Spotify anymore), I’ll leave it up to you. They are by no means Mediamarkt riot boxes, but rather gentle gliders that can also be quite loud. This is something to keep in mind if you’re toying with the idea of giving boxes a chance (and a new home).

They are quite close to my taste, otherwise I would not have privately put a couple of Nubert nuLine 334, which I use as they should actually play: as linear as possible and without much DSP fuss. Welcome to the club, even though the A200s are certainly one or two classes lower and, as active speakers, less flexible in terms of amplification. The balanced input relieves you from fiddling with adapters and is welcome if you have suitable players. From this point of view, the look, feel and connectivity fit the good sound picture here.

However, I still have to complain a bit in the end. The proprietary speaker plugs are not angled and the cable is quite rigid. This takes up a decent amount of space on the back and at least ensures that the bass reflex ports don’t get too close to the wall. But it’s an annoying source of error and doesn’t really look nice on freestanding boxes. The lack of a subwoofer output is another shortcoming that you can live with, but it is actually superfluous. The one socket would certainly still have found room. You can trick the input, because the accessories trade also offers suitable preamplifiers (I have also helped myself in this way), but in the end this is just unnecessary fiddling again. And seriously: the pill-shaped, really silly volume/quiet remote control with on/off switch, mute and channel selection is really outdated and haptically a disaster….

But that’s all I noticed negatively, which really annoys me in the upper price range. Sure, it’s rather peanuts, but it bothers me because it could have been completely avoided with little effort. Despite these minor criticisms, the overall experience was and is an event on a very high acoustic level. The very positive impression of the workmanship and component selection is in no way dimmed by this, even if I would have gladly done without this little cloud in the otherwise crystal-clear audio sky. But I’ve already written several times: you can’t have everything at the same time.

There was and is no influence on the tests and results. There are also no advertising contracts or other liabilities with Edifier. The boxes have been taken out of the daily audio work and still do their job dutifully.