Acoustic Energy AE26-06B AEGO M 2.1
For these who haven’t heard of Acoustic energy they are a well respected British hi-fi manufacturer and they bring a great deal of that expertise to these speakers. They have innovations such as a cone to remove unwanted sound from the back of the driver; the satellites are made from cast aluminium to reduce cabinet vibrations; the speaker cable is flat rather then round to improve the magnetic field strength which means that less of the signal is lost down the cables and the amplifier has better control over the drivers.
The satellites are high excursion due to there small size; reviewers have often comment that the mid-range sounds unrealistic, which I agreed with until recently however after about 6 months they do start to improve massively as a result of run in and system changes which I will talk about later.
Only until recently I had placed them straight on a table. However now they are on top of something soft to prevent it from vibrating the table, this gave an all together more coherent sound and improved the sound staging due to the treble improvement. On well recorded music I could pick out where the singer was and also where the saxophone and clarinet where coming from, something I didn’t expect in this price range.
Another alteration was the additional current a change in my sound card offered. This helped to fill out the mid-range and make it sound allot more realistic.
To conclude these are an excellent upgrade to the cheap speakers often thrown in with most PC purchases. Another product worth consideration is the B&W Zeppelin, however it is around 300 compared to the egos £120, but I would recommend auditioning them both and then make your mind up from there.
I am and have been running a pair of these for a while now.
I have them placed on axis toed in around 45 degrees. The sub is on the floor.
They are great for low level listening and I listen to alot of ambient electronica. I love the tweeters (titanium dome I believe, so fast, so pure). The sub im not sure about. Sure it creats ambience, but it isnt powerfull enough when I know it should be and doesnt create enough impact.
The sub is placed on the floor and is corner loaded to get every last drop of output. At high volumes its just boomy on the third setting and lifeless on the other two. Great satellites, bad subwoofer
Lifeless ??
In my experience the sub-level is a tad too loud - even with the switch in the lowest position !
I find it the bass response very good; deep and well controlled (here it actually matter to use the word ‘fast’) - and I feel it’s actually filling the ‘gap’ up to the tweeters that many similar systems struggle with.
Since the sub also cares for the low-mid frequencies you will benefit from placing it a little closer to the tweeters (and not on the floor!)
Ciao, Henrik