Page 4 - Conclusion
What do you get when you take the Audioengine A2+, rotate it sideways, duct taped them together at the base, plus a Bluetooth chip? Do not look any further -- the Audioengine B2 continues the company's tradition of building high quality speakers at an affordable price (Well, affordability is relative). They took the same 2.75" Kevlar woven glass aramid composite woofer with rubber surrounds, 0.75” ferro fluid cooled silk dome tweeters with neodymium magnets, and installed them into an 18mm thick, high resin reinforced MDF cabinet with real wood veneer. With Texas Instrument's PCM5102A DAC, and some epic range Bluetooth wireless setup, everything adds up on paper. However, just like how baking something at 200 degrees for thirty minutes is not the same thing as 400 degrees for fifteen minutes, the principle of superposition did not necessarily apply in this case either. Do not get me wrong; the Audioengine B2 is still a great portable wireless speaker. It produces sound way better than any other system in the category, and for this, I will have to give props to the company. What I am trying to say here is do not expect any physics-defying magic. Due to packaging differences, the B2 behaves quite differently compared to the A2+; mainly losing out on the soundstaging realm. Acoustically, it retains a lot of technical elements of the A2+, but trades the perfect harmony and immersive experience of the A2+ for more perceived flatness in frequency response. At the end of the day, Audioengine got a lot of things right with the B2. For $300 at press time, if you are looking for something of quality to take with you on the go, this will be the one. In the future, I think the company can experiment in seeing how to overcome the physical limitations of the B2 to make something as mind blowing as the A2+ once again. After all, we pay engineers big money, right?
Atlantia provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
APH Review Focus Summary:
7/10 means Great product with many advantages and certain insignificant drawbacks; but should be considered before purchasing.
-- Final APH Numeric Rating is 7.0/10
Please note that the APH Numeric Rating system is based off our proprietary guidelines in the Review Focus, and should not be compared to other sites.
The Audioengine B2 is a powerful Bluetooth speaker built with some of the best hardware by some of the best people in the business.
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Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware
3. Subjective Audio Analysis
4. Conclusion
