Acoustic Research AW-871 Wireless Stereo Speakers - Best mp3 speakers site, right here

This is the second pair of wireless speakers I’ve purchased. I don’t remember the brand of first set, but I bought them at an electronics store. When I got them home, I discovered that the instruction manual was missing. I found it online and downloaded it, and then discovered that they were nearly incomprehensible. The instructions were extremely confusing and the diagrams unclear. I eventually determined that I needed an adapter (not included) in order to plug the speaker transmitter into my headphone jack. By this point, I was done trying to get these speakers hooked up so I returned them to the store.

All that to say, I took a chance on these speakers based on the rather thorough review written earlier and I have not been disappointed. The instructions are extremely easy to follow and even better, this set came with a headphone jack adapter. The transmitter sits next to my stereo in one room and the two speakers are in the next room. They have been great from the get-go. The sound quality is quite good for the price, I have zero problems with reception, and they are easy to use. You do have to press and *hold* the front button in order to turn them on and off. My only complaint, and it’s a minor one, would be that very occasionally I hear a soft popping noise from the speakers when they and the transmitter are on, but no music is playing. I don’t know what causes it, but since I don’t hear it when music is playing, it’s a very minor annoyance.

In short, wireless speakers seem to be hit or miss. I researched speakers extensively before buying this set (and was disappointed to find that Bose did not make any, because I felt that if they did, they would not disappoint). No one set of speakers seemed work well for everyone, but I have to say that this set has been great, and I recommend them.

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By 

Larry VanDeSande –

  

  

Even though my experience with wireless headphones were universally poor — I once overheard my neighbor’s cell phone conversation while listening on wireless headphones — I was very impressed by the plentiful good reviews for this product and decided to give it a try at Amazon’s wonderful low price. Amazon sells this product for up to $75 below the price stores ask.

However, once I got it home, hooked it up and turned on my stereo, my experiences with this set of wireless speakers was an exact replay of my expereince with wireless headphones. I set these up as the rear surround speakers in my living room as part of on my 5.1 system, fixing the speakers only about 25 feet from the transmitter. Even in that brief distance with almost no physical block between them, the left speaker consistently spit out static. The rightt speaker played fine all the time but had an annoying tendency to click while the music was turned off.

This is not what I had in mind for my home stereo! I moved the speakers around (as far as the power cords would go, anyway) and re-situated them, trying to gain greater proximity to the transmitter. This did nothing to improve matters. The transmitter indicated the signal was strong, yet that left speaker continued it staticky way throughout my experiment.

These speakers are easy to set up and easy to get working. You really don’t need the instructions if you’ve had any experience with anything wireless. Still, I consulted the booklet to see if there was anything I was doing wrong. At one point I had the setting on both speakers at “right”, so I changed that. No change in the outcome. I also re-set the transmitter from “1″ to “2″ and even to “3″. No change. I moved the speakers again. No change. I consulted the booklet and listened again. Same thing.

Perhaps my experience has something to do with my neighborhood, my home or my neighbors, but my experience was not nearly as good as those reported elsewhere on this page. On the plus side, these speakers sound pretty good for something that barely costs $100 and they are easy to use.

They are portable and can be set up anywhere a power source is near or set up anywhere using battery power. The transmitter is supposed to be good up to 300 feet and I know the speakers in my house received the signal. I simply was not going to pay for a product that resulted in my SACD signal being converted to static.

While the sound the speakers produced was pretty good for something so inexpensive, I was not impressed with them as surround sound speakers. With independent volume controls, they seem like just another set of speakers to me. Compared to the sound I get from my wired surround speakers in another room from my front three speakers, these did not sound much like surround speakers regardless of the amnount of fiddling I did with the volumer controls and transmitter.

Even though this experiment was a failure at my house, I am grateful Amazon accepted my return; not every company on the Web will take back electronics. I wish you better luck with this product than I had.

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 Comments (4)

The speaker system as mentioned in a prior review did not work immediately upon unpacking. Indeed, it took 30 minutes to derive sound from the speakers which I may attribute to having a rather complicated receiver that required a fair number of settings changes to make the speakers work. Probably because I know the quality of AR speakers from years ago(I used to own both AR-4s and AR-2as many many years go), I kept at it because I believed I was doing something wrong. After getting the speakers to work and they do emit a distintive AR sound, I moved them to my proposed location and plugged them in again. And lo and behold, no sound from one of the speakers. I returned the speaker to its original location and plugged it again and no sound. It seems that there is an on-off switch on the front of the speaker(read the brochure!!) that I had depressed. Also it is not a simple press and release but you are instructed to hold the button for 5 seconds and release. Once done, everything worked fine and is still working fine. I have moved the speakers several times with no deterioration in quality although I am sure the editors of The Absolute Sound would turn up their noses at my arrangement. I also subscribe to XM radio using one of their Delphi units which has a headphone jack. No trouble at all unplugging from the receiver and plugging the jack into the headphone outlet-immediate sound. I also have a wireless network and a wireless TV unit and I have not noticed any conflicts between any of the units. I will order another set so that I can have speakers in other locations throughout the house. I believe I will be able to connect the next set to the same transmitter. I see there is a single speaker being offered by Advent(Recoton) which does not appeal to me(white does not cut it) but it is cheaper if that is all you need. Since I have a stereo system that I would like to hear all over the house as well as XM, I will probably visit Radio Shack for a switch box that will allow me to plug in the stereo and the XM and control the output via the transmitter. I suspect I will lose some sound quality but as long as Stereophile magazine does not come knocking I will be happy.

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