Compact powered speakers with a weighty presentation

The Audyssey name will be familiar to buyers of home cinema receivers, as its automatic set-up and equalization systems have become the de facto choice for those manufacturers unwilling or unable to spend the time and money required to develop their own software for this purpose. Hook up a microphone, press a button, and the Audyssey system measures speaker type, distance and level, and makes all the appropriate settings.

There’s more to the company than that, however: it has a mission to ‘EQ Everything’ with its Audyssey Tuning System, able to be applied to a wide range of products, and has useful TV technologies such as Dynamic Volume to level out programme and commercial sound levels, and EQ and Bass XT to get more out of the small speakers forced on manufacturers by today’s ever-slimmer TVs.

It’s worked with Toshiba to create a suite of technologies known as Audyssey Premium Television, used in the company’s latest sets, and even provided the technology for the set-up and calibration of the audio system in Jaguar/Land Rover’s Range Rover Evoque.

The company also has its own range of consumer products, with names acknowledging fashionable areas in US cities: its first, an iPod speaker dock, was dubbed SoMa after San Francisco’s South of Market area, and the speakers we have here carry the Lower East Side name, perhaps to keep the New Yorkers happy.

The Lower East Side Media Speakers themselves, selling for around £180 through the likes of the Apple Store, are of a compact powered design, standing some 23cm tall on their integrated stands.

They have a choice of analogue stereo or optical digital input, plus a headphone output, just one control – push for on/off, twist for volume – and come with both a 3.5mm stereo connecting cable and wire to connect the second, passive speaker to the one containing digital-to-analogue conversion, amplification and inputs.

Each speaker has a 19mm tweeter and 7.5cm mid/bass unit, the latter literally backed up by a 10cm passive bass radiator on the rear of each enclosure. And within is a sound tuned using the company’s Audyssey EQ system, BassXT – which monitors the signal and constantly adjusts to make the most of the bass drivers’ capabilities – , and Dynamic EQ, to compensate when listening at low levels.

PERFORMANCE
It’s important when testing products like this to realise exactly what they’re meant to do: these are desktop speakers, not designed to fill a room with sound, and indeed it’s even possible for their bass to dominate matters if you listen to them too far off-axis.

Fortunately the design, tilting the enclosures back on their integral stands, ‘aims’ the speakers at the ears of a seated listener when the Audysseys are used as intended, on a desktop. A little toe-in doesn’t go amiss in firming up the stereo image and increasing the sense of front-to-back depth, and if your desk is against a wall will also avoid those passive bass radiators over-reinforcing the low end.

That’s important as these Media Speakers certainly aren’t short of bass: their sound is big, rich and even a bit bloomy, with more than sufficient oomph in the lower frequencies to make orchestral works sound big and satisfying.

Arguably they've have been tuned more for rock and pop music, but Audyssey has resisted the temptation to partner that big bass with stinging treble, and has thus come up with a design able to deliver a lush but well-detailed sound even at low volume levels, which may well make them suitable for those who find themselves restricted to a desk in a small room for some of their listening, or like to have music on while working.

Comparing the two inputs was interesting: the analogue input, fed from the headphone output of my MacBook Pro computer, was enjoyable enough, if a little dry and gritty despite the best efforts of the speakers’ bass management system. Switching to the optical digital in, again fed from the computer’s combination 3.5mm socket using a 2m optical cable bought for the princely sum of £6, was rather more entertaining, with better detail and an increased sense of three-dimensionality to the presentation.

I especially enjoyed the ability of the speakers to create a soundstage picture apparently in front of one’s eyes and ears, rather than down at desk-level where the enclosures sat: you don’t have to ‘listen down’ to the speakers, which can prove fatiguing with some desktop designs. And of course if you’re viewing a video on a monitor while using the speakers, as one might when watching, say, a concert on YouTube, this characteristic also makes the viewing experience more comfortable.

The design of the packaging in which the Audyssey speakers arrive, and the red ‘go faster’ stripes wrapped around the enclosures, might suggest these aren’t speakers designed with the classical enthusiast as their target market. But their weight, balance and affordable price mean they’re well worth a listen if you’re looking for a desktop audio solution.

Audyssey Lower East Side Media Speakers
Type Desktop powered speakers
Price c£180
Drive units 19mm treble, 7.5cm mid/bass, 10cm passive bass radiator
Inputs 3.5mm stereo analogue in, optical digital input
Outputs 3.5mm headphone output
Accessories supplied 3.5mm-3.5mm interconnect, cable to connect speakers
Dimensions (HxWxD) 23x12.4x17.3cm
www.audyssey.com