Astell&Kern ACRO BE100 Bluetooth Speaker with Hi-FI Sound Quality (Black)

Exceptional sound quality. I’ve been building and buying audio gear for the last 20 years. This unit is a “mid master”. Highs are accurate and non-fatiguing. Freq response says 50hz I’d say in a small room you’ll hear those freq. in a large room it rolls of around 60-65hz. If you want stupid sloppy bass get the JBL Boombox 3. The Bluetooth 5.0 and DAC in this Astell unit provides CRYSTAL clear output. Reminds of the type of output of my Bluetooth receiver by Bludento puts out. I’m talking like CD quality. Don’t knock it till you try it. I use mostly lossless files and I’ve been impressed. I purchased for the kids room. The whole house is SET with my audio gear including Rotel amps and hand made SB acoustics, 3-way speakers,l. This unit puts a smile on my face listening to music in the kids room. This unit is pricey but will sound much better than it’s competitors, including the B&W zeppelin. Don’t waste your money on Bose. I also believe this will compete with the $1600 Bang & Olefson BeoSound Level. It’s sounds much better than the Beolit 20 ($500 portable 4.2 Bluetooth speaker) which I own and compared side by side. Sure, you could build a better system for $500, but not compact like this. Aesthetically, it matches its price point. Nothing cheap feeling at all. I wish the volume knob had more weight to it. If they lowered the price to $375 they would sell 100k of them. I also wish this had a sub out with some bass management features.

Surprisingly good sound from this little speaker. I'm an audiophile and I've been listening to audio gear since 1984. I like precise and clear musical reproduction. I also like a good bottom end. You don't always get everything in one box and this is certainly no exception. Astell certainly put the codecs in this box to good use ( SBC, AAC, aptX™ HD, LDAC) and while they certainly add dimension and clarity to the sound, as they say, there's no replacement for displacement. The use of all the codecs couldn't save the BE 100 from a thin bottom end. You can only do so much with a 4" driver even if it is made of kevlar. The midrange in this thing is surprisingly good if you have a good recording. As you can see from the picture, I also bought the new Marshall Woburn III Bluetooth speaker so I was able to compare both and although the Woburn only has the standard SBC codec, it's not far behind the BE 100 in the midrange dept and with it's 6" bass it driver destroys the BE 100 in the bass dept. Simply no contest. Neither of these are one box solutions. So who is the BE 100 for? If you like jazz, instrumental and vocals and want the latest codecs then the BE 100 is your speaker. If you like an all around good performer and livelier sound with more bass energy, an app to tailor your sound and a classic guitar look then spring for the Marshall Woburn III. Even without the newest codecs it performs amazingly well and you can pair two of them together for a stereo or ambient sound. You cannot pair two BE 100 speakers together and there's no app to tailor the sound to your liking. You really can't go wrong with the BE 100 as long as you're realistic as to how much bottom end you can expect from a 4" bass driver. It's simply amazing that these speakers are Bluetooth. FYI, my streaming service of choice is Tidal.