When Audio T welcomed the arrival of the Advance Paris range of hi-fi components into our stores in August it was with a flurry of excellent product reviews.

But one product was rather overlooked – Introducing the AIR65 Connect Loudspeakers.

Overall, the Advance Paris range offers superb value for money by combining great sound and excellent connectivity. And the AIR65 Connect speakers fit right into that Advance Paris mould.

This is a pair of compact, active (2 x 55wpc amplification is built-in) speakers retailing for £500* (£550* for the Light Oak and Walnut finishes). They can be hardwired via optical and coax to a source and come equipped with a built-in (moving magnet) phono stage.

Just add a streamer, or a CD player and/or a turntable from, say, the excellent Rega Planar range to create a multibox hi-fi system.

Or, for an additional £100, you can buy the AIR65s with the WTX Microstream streaming unit which plugs into the back of the speakers to create an all-in-one streaming system.

the wtx miscrostream turns the air65s into streaming speakers

It is an incredibly neat and versatile solution for those who want a pair of active speakers for relatively little money.

Value

Bearing in mind that many powered hi-fi speakers can cost serious amounts of money (like the awesome ATC SCM50 ASLs) then the AIR65s are astonishing value.

Ok, comparing a speaker like the AIR65s with the SCM50 ASLs would be like comparing a cheap runaround car with a luxury motor on the grounds that both have built-in engines.

But for tight spaces and budgets the AIR65s may be just the thing.

The Bluetooth sound from the AIR65s is pretty decent and hooking my phone up to the speakers was a doddle.

Listening

When playing the intensely bassy trance track Sonic Masala by Zentura (Sacred Circuits Vol 3) the Bluetooth sound was detailed and pleasingly weighty. Switching to the same track streamed (CD-quality 16bit, 44KHz) via the Microstream from Qobuz the sound was instantly cleaner and more detailed.

The Bluetooth presentation of Honeymoon is Over by Malia (The Garden of Eve) had plenty of attitude and did justice to the singer’s wonderful bluesey rendition. Switching to a 24bit 96KHz stream of the same song on Qobuz added significant subtlety to the performance.

Alt-J’s track Get Better (The Dream) was very nicely rendered via Bluetooth with Joe Newman’s voice well projected and with great tone. A high-res Qobuz stream cleaned up the sound significantly, lowering the noise floor and allowing more of this sparse recording to be heard.

From sparse to frenetic, You’re Gonna Miss Me (2008 Remaster) by the 13th Floor Elevators is a gloriously raucous recording (it’s mono) in which everything in the recording studio (which appeared to have all the sound deadening of a tiled bathroom) felt like it was turned up to 11.

the air65s did a good job with the 13th floor elevators (image courtesy of International artists)

On Bluetooth the AIR65s did a great job at making sense of this noisy track. A CD-quality stream from Qobuz gave everything more polish, allowing you to hear more of what was actually going on musically – although part of me actually enjoyed this runaway train of a track more in Bluetooth.

The Long Ryders track Looking for Lewis and Clark nicely showed off the rhythm that these little speakers can bring to music, with the track’s pounding drum beat and driving guitar conveyed well via Bluetooth and streaming.

Conclusion

These are cracking little powered speakers at a great price. They offer better sound than most Bluetooth speakers around the same price, not least because the connecting cable between the two allows you to place them at least two metres apart giving you decent stereo separation, something that one box solutions would struggle to match.

The connectivity is excellent. Bluetooth, streaming (with the WTX Microstream plug-in or another third party streamer), digital in and even a built-in phono pre-amp give - all of which give you lots of options.

Of course these little boxes have some limitations due both to their size and their cost. However, you could easily imagine these speakers giving many hours of fuss-free musical enjoyment in a student accommodation, studio flat, in an office or anywhere else where space is at a premium.

Thanks for reading

Alan - Audio T Portsmouth

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Advance Paris can be found at the following Audio T stores

*All prices, credit terms and interest rates quoted are correct at the time of going to press but may be subject to change. E&OE

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Advance Paris hit the sweetspot with their keenly-priced active Bluetooth and streaming enabled AIR65 Connect speakers

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