Audioengine A5+ Wireless

Mostly heard as close to neutral. PCMag hears something near the flat response audiophiles want, Audiophile Heaven calls it flat and monitor-like, and headphone.guru hears it clean with a lean toward the upper frequencies. Digital Trends hears a 'tasteful' midrange scoop that makes it more fun than a studio monitor. ASR's measurement of the wired A5+ Classic is fairly flat on axis apart from a wide upper-bass valley, and Amir found it a bit dull until he EQ'd that region. A minority of owners hear it as muddy; Amazon's sound mentions run 126 positive to 30 negative, and an owner who swapped to the Klipsch R-51PM missed its 'full and soothing' sound.

“this is pretty close to the flat-style frequency response many audiophiles seek, which is rare in the wireless speaker realm”

PCMag

“The overall sound signature was clean and detailed with a tendency towards the upper-frequency ranges.”

headphone.guru

“The sound is mostly muddy and FLAT.”

Amazon owner (1★)

Generally enough for the size, with a subwoofer recommended for bigger rooms. PCMag hears palpable thump that is 'not thin' and doesn't think a sub is required, SECRETS and Digital Trends hear punchy, well-controlled bass on a desk, and Amir found 'higher than normal' bass capability. TechSpot hears it wash out in the deepest bass and says larger rooms need a sub; headphone.guru and Audiophile Heaven hear little sub-bass. Owners split in both directions: one with the pair close together on a dresser found the bass too much on 808-heavy rap, while a reply in the same thread calls it anemic, another owner was unhappy until adding Audioengine's S8 sub, and MacSources added the same sub for more bump despite calling the pair full-sounding.

“it may not be the thunder many bass lovers are used to, but it's not thin either”

PCMag

“If you want proper bass response in a larger room though, you'll need to get a dedicated subwoofer since the A5+ can't go down that low.”

TechSpot

“the bass is a bit too much for me especially on some dominant 808 songs”

r/audiophile owner (pair on a dresser)

“The bass on these is already so anemic…”

r/audiophile owner

Sources split. PCMag hears excellent, clear vocals, Audiophile Heaven calls the midrange the line's highlight and slightly forward, and SECRETS found it handled distinctive voices well at sensible levels. On the other side, Digital Trends hears a midrange scoop, headphone.guru found voices and instruments ran together once a mix got busy, and ASR measured a wide valley in the upper bass and lower midrange that Amir filled with a broad EQ boost around 300 Hz, plus a resonance near 900 Hz whose removal cleaned up vocals.

Smooth and clear. Digital Trends lists superb treble definition, TechSpot found the top end never turned harsh, PCMag hears crisp presence without sibilance, and Audiophile Heaven hears a silky silk dome that loses energy early rather than sparkling. SECRETS, on a desk about three feet away, heard vocals turn 'tizzy' only when the volume went up considerably. Amir notched a resonance near 4.4 kHz on some tracks after boosting the bass.

“The speakers retained quality even at higher frequencies without becoming harsh.”

TechSpot

“they got a bit tizzy, particularly with vocals, when the volume increased considerably”

SECRETS of Home Theater & High Fidelity (desk, ~3 ft)

A clear strength. Digital Trends was floored by the width of the stereo image, SECRETS heard the pair disappear on a desk beside an iMac, headphone.guru calls the soundstage immense but natural, and Audiophile Heaven hears a natural, evenly deep and wide stage that holds up with the speakers close together. An owner switching to the Klipsch R-51PM missed how the A5+ 'surround you'.

“we were floored by the wide stereo image and transparent response”

Digital Trends

“They disappeared well and enabled the sounds that sweep across the soundstage to do just that”

SECRETS of Home Theater & High Fidelity

Precise. TechSpot could pick out each instrument's position, SECRETS was surprised by the imaging even with the tweeters below ear level and heard it improve further over Bluetooth, and Audiophile Heaven notes good instrument separation. ASR's directivity data back it: the response holds within 6 dB out to about ±55° horizontally.

“The A5+ Wireless does a great job at this.”

TechSpot

“I was quite surprised by their imagining and ability to disappear”

SECRETS of Home Theater & High Fidelity

Sources split. PCMag hears clarity across the range and 'the true sound of the recording', Audiophile Heaven credits it with monitor-like resolution, and headphone.guru hears it clean and detailed. Digital Trends finds it less revealing than a similarly sized studio monitor such as the Yamaha HS5, by design, and a 1★ Amazon owner with high-end speakers hears it as muddy.

Sources split. Most say it plays very loud cleanly: PCMag says it gets 'insanely loud' before distorting, TechSpot filled large rooms with headroom to spare, and Amir got a single speaker surprisingly loud with its bass intact before 'scratching' set in. SECRETS found the power ample but heard vocals turn tizzy at high volume, headphone.guru heard busy orchestral passages compress, and a 1★ Amazon owner calls its dynamic range flat. ASR measured the distortion peak near 900 Hz even at 86 dB.

Desk use wants the tweeters raised or tilted toward your ears. PCMag recommends wedge stands because the drivers fire straight ahead, SECRETS found desk placement with the tweeters a foot below ear level 'not optimal' (though still impressive), and Maiky76's analysis of ASR's data says to stay at tweeter height and toe them in 10–15°. TechSpot finds the pair a little big for a computer desk and leaves at least six inches behind for the rear port. Audiophile Heaven found it unusually insensitive to placement, beside a monitor or wide apart on stands. Wall distance changes the bass: an ASR-thread owner found an A5+ full and punchy on a desk near the wall but poor on stands two feet out as TV speakers, and the owner who found the bass too heavy had the pair close together on a dresser.

“If you're using them as desktop speakers, the drivers aren't angled upward, so you'll want some wedge-style stands to aim the tweeters more directly at your ears.”

PCMag

“A5+ Wireless is not very sensitive to placement”

Audiophile Heaven

“They sounded terrible on stands out 2 feet from the wall when used as TV speakers, even with 2 subs.”

ASR forum owner (A5+, version unstated)

Sources split, and most of the noise traces to what's plugged in. Amir heard no hiss at all with his ear at the tweeter (wired Classic, same amplifier), headphone.guru heard no noise, and an ASR-thread owner credits it with a good noise floor. Because the analogue inputs are always live, Digital Trends got buzzing from a loose 3.5 mm cable resting on metal, and owners feeding it from a PC's headphone jack report hiss or ticks, which replies put down to the computer's audio output.

Well equipped for a simple system: aptX HD Bluetooth with an external antenna, RCA and 3.5 mm inputs, a variable RCA output for a subwoofer and a metal remote. TechSpot notes the internal DAC serves only Bluetooth, so wired sources use their own. Missing: a headphone output (SECRETS), an input selector (PCMag, Digital Trends), LDAC (headphone.guru), optical, USB and Wi-Fi streaming. Some Amazon buyers expected two wireless speakers and were surprised the right one is wired to the left.

“What the speakers lack is a headphone jack.”

SECRETS of Home Theater & High Fidelity

“Only one of the speakers is wireless.”

Amazon owner (1★)

Reviewers found setup and Bluetooth easy: headphone.guru calls it the most reliable Bluetooth pairing he'd used, TechSpot held a connection beyond 50 feet, and Digital Trends notes it remembers six devices. The quirks: with no input switch every source plays at once (PCMag calls it an oversight), the remote only does volume, mute and sleep, the volume knob can briefly jump the wrong way, and one owner found the front LED too bright with no way to turn it off. An owner notes it wakes by itself when music starts. Owners are less unanimous about Bluetooth than reviewers: Amazon's Bluetooth mentions run 26 positive to 14 negative.

“the simplest and most reliable Bluetooth wireless interfacing I have had the pleasure of using”

headphone.guru

“In the absence of a source switch, you can play multiple sound sources (like a Bluetooth streaming source and an aux input source, for instance) simultaneously.”

PCMag

“My bluetooth pairing constantly fails on an up-to-date iphone such that i have to reconnect.”

Amazon owner (1★)

Sources split along the line between loan units and owners. Reviewers praise hand-finished 13 mm MDF cabinets with rounded edges, heavy toroidal power supplies and quality cables: SECRETS calls them built to last and headphone.guru found no flaw anywhere. Owners report more trouble: Amazon's reliability mentions run 5 positive to 7 negative, a 1★ owner reports crackling and popping, and a Reddit owner's left (amplified) speaker kept dropping in volume, crackling and cutting out despite a service check.

Good value to most reviewers at $499 a pair: PCMag calls it the go-to wireless stereo pair despite the price, Digital Trends prefers it to the cheaper iLoud Micro Monitor for its wider image and looks, and Amir, at the Classic's $399, found it delivers for listeners who care about fidelity, though $100 monitors exist. An ASR-thread owner points to its strong price/performance on the charts, and TechSpot suggests waiting for a sale. On the objective side, a Redditor reading spinorama's rankings notes cheaper active monitors such as the Adam D3V and Kali LP-6 v2 score higher. Amazon's value mentions run 26 positive to 15 negative.

“It isn't cheap at $499, but it should be the go-to speaker set for anyone seeking high-quality wireless stereo audio”

PCMag

“it is a pretty good speaker, though falls somewhat short compared to some cheaper units like Adam D3V and Kali LP-6v2”

r/audiophile commenter (reading spinorama.org)