This is what great loudspeakers with the best technology deliver. A pristine voice, perfectly rendered layers of instruments you can lose yourself in, sound so clear it’s as though the artist is there with you. We also listened to typical pop tunes, such as Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” to make sure the bass didn’t drown out voices and other instruments.KEF LS50 Meta SpeakersReally great loudspeakers simply melt away, leaving you with just the music. We tested the speakers’ bass by playing bass-heavy tunes such as Lil Baby’s “Woah” at loud volume, listening for the “tearing” sound of distortion, as well as the “chuffing” sound when a speaker is trying to push too much air through its bass port both of those noises can make listening intolerable. The bass must also be reproduced at a level consistent with the mid range and treble, otherwise the sound becomes boomy or thin. Bass: Research shows that listeners prefer speakers that can play deep bass notes cleanly and loudly.Often, a speaker system does imaging well but doesn’t sound spacious, or vice versa we preferred speakers that did at least a pretty good job on both. Spaciousness, or soundstaging, is the feeling of envelopment that stereo speakers can produce, with the sound seeming to wrap around the listener and reach far beyond the wall behind the speakers ideally, this characteristic gives some sense of the space where the recording was made (or of the reverb added during mixing). Imaging and spaciousness: Imaging is the ability of stereo speakers to produce focused sonic “images” of the various singers and instruments positioned between the speakers, and sometimes even outside the speakers. Voice reproduction is the toughest thing to get right on a speaker, and all of our picks performed better in this area than their competitors did. Many musical instruments, such as saxophone and guitar, cover a similar frequency range. Because humans hear other people’s voices so much, people are especially sensitive to the naturalness of voice reproduction, and the human ear is most sensitive to the frequency range where the human voice resides. Voice clarity: Unless you’re testing subwoofers, any evaluation of an audio device should focus heavily on its voice reproduction.Extra features: All powered speakers include at least one analog audio input, but we tried to find models with other useful features, such as a phono input, digital audio inputs, and a remote control.Some of the models we tested offered support for more advanced Bluetooth codecs, such as aptX or aptX HD, but we didn’t require those. Wireless connectivity: Among powered speakers, we looked only at models that include Bluetooth.We didn’t consider single-driver models because good, affordable two-way models can easily outperform them. The addition of a mid-range driver or extra woofers generally pushed a speaker above our price range. Configuration: All of the models we looked at are two-way designs, with one tweeter (for high frequencies) positioned above one woofer (for low frequencies) or vice versa.Previously we had set a floor of $100 per pair, but readers have requested something practical to use with an inexpensive mini stereo amplifier, so we eliminated that criterion. Above that price, you’re getting into models for serious audio enthusiasts, who have probably already developed strong ideas about the kinds of speakers they want.
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