Acoustic Energy AE300 Series Arrives At Audio T Cardiff

With a gap in our shelves we set out on the hunt for a new pair of speakers to fill out our repertoire…

After reading and hearing glowing reviews of Acoustic Energy loudspeakers, we thought we’d have a listen to their AE309s that they kindly brought down for demonstration. The design is elegant, simple and most importantly sounds great, we were sold from a single listening session and had them on order immediately. The delivery times were brilliant and we had them on our hands right away, a pair of AE309s and AE300s both in walnut.

As metal domed speakers go I am usually a skeptic but Acoustic Energy now have me convinced that it can be done right with their aluminum domed tweeters.

There was still some of the sibilance that I attributed to the metal cones but as they wore in and when I replaced the NACA5 speaker cable with Chord it disappeared and became incredibly musical. What worries I had were simply washed away with the depth of bass and clarity of treble, I find myself quite literally hearing detail I have never before heard. I have to sometimes remind myself that these are a £1100 speaker and to stop comparing them to others way above their price range!

They have a forward sound much like Bowers & Wilkins, so if that doesn’t appeal to you then I would suggest listening to Dali or Spendor as an alternative. In comparing them to other metal dome loudspeakers in a similar price range, I’m surprised to find that I prefer the AE309s in many ways, they are great value for money for their size and are far less fussy about placement.

The Acoustic Energy 300 series have a few quirks that make them interesting, a rectangular rear port which reduces the affect of the rear wall (we had our placed about 30cm away), opposing rounded edges to reduce the number of veneer sheets used and a bottom weighted cabinet to improve stability and cabinet resonance. The 300s come paired with their own stands with a stylistic walnut stripe down the front and a solid design.

If any of my waffle resonates with you then feel free to come down to our Cardiff store and try them for yourself! They are a very refreshing take on the ‘modern’ speaker sound that might convince even the most old school of Hi-Fi enthusiasts.

Thanks for reading, Hefin, Nick and Kerrin.

Acoustic Energy loudspeakers are available from the following branches of Audio T: Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Online, Oxford, Portsmouth, Reading, Swansea, Swindon