AQ Wireless speakers review

Go portable with wire free speakers

AQ Wireless speakers. Audio, Speakers, AQ, Wi-Fi 0
Reviewer
Stuart Miles
Review Date
17 July 2006
Manufacturer
AQ
Price as reviewed
£64.95
Latest price
compare

Our score

7/10 7/10 See more with this score

Full Review

Wires are a pain aren't they? Until builders fit speaker cable along side your electrics in the home, we've got to live with a plethora of cables under the carpets, or on show and basically clogging up our rooms. AQ's response to this is two speakers, a transmitter and a car boot's worth of batteries. We check them out.

In the box of the AQ Wireless Speakers are two 233 x 175 x 75mm (HxWxD) speakers and a base station that wirelessly connects to said speakers.

The base station, which is the size of a hard back book, can be connected to a host of different audio sources like MP3 or CD players either via the included 3.5mm headphone jack or via a phono out socket to an amp or home cinema system.

Once connected, it is simply a case of providing power to the two silver and wood speakers. If you want to be truly "wireless" you can opt to power the speakers via six (count them) AA batteries in each unit, although luckily you do get AC power adapters for both speakers in the box as well.

Once the speakers are connected music starts to steam automatically and in our tests the range of the speakers from the base unit was superb. AQ state in an open space you can get up to 100 metres away. In our tests, it was so good we ran out of space in the building before we ran out of signal.

AQ also says that there isn't a limit as to how many speakers you can connect to the system (we only tested it with two) but it does strike us as a simple and cheap way of getting sound around your house without the cabling to match. Of course you can't control the source unit via the system, but you can control the volume of each speaker via its own individual volume control.

As for sound quality, in our tests we did find the sound muffled when playing tracks from an iPod through the system. Adjustment of the sound volumes on both the speakers and the iPod did help, however it is clear that these aren't designed to replace your Hi-Fi.

And at £64.95 we wouldn't expect them to, however performance compared to specific wired docking stations or wired portable speakers is on par with, rather than better than.

Verdict

For ease of use the AQ wireless speakers are a good option, the lack of cables makes is easy to use and the fact that you can hide the base station out of sight is great for those looking for the minimalist look.

However, the payoff to a wireless world is the reduction in sound quality. Not enough to affect the performance for what these are designed for - i.e. in the kitchen or garden or maybe even as rear speakers as part of a home cinema setup, but enough so the pure audiophiles will no doubt be disappointed.

Full tags
Audio, Speakers, AQ, Wi-Fi
UK Shopping
advancedmp3players.co.uk, Amazon.co.uk, play.com, pixmania.co.uk, iTunes, apple.com/uk, ebay.co.uk
US Shopping
Amazon.com, bestbuy.com, ebay.com, apple.com

share Subscribe to RSS feeds email story save story print story pdf

Comments

  • J'ai acheté des AQ haut-parleurs sans fil et je pense qu'ils sont excellents. Il m'a fallu un certain temps, mais j'ai trouvé un site (aqudos.fr) qui a vendu une version "AQ enceintes sans fil deluxe" dans la couleur blanc brillant -la meme de mon i-mac. ils sont grands que maintenant je peux jouer de radio de l'internet et ma collection de musique mp3 et écoutez-le tout dans le jardin! cool:) - merci AQ! Posted by André, france

(Will not be published)

  (Next time sign in to bypass captcha)

Compare prices

Samsung HT-BD1255 Theater System
(Radio Tuner, 5.1 Speakers, 166 Watts, Wireless Ready, Dolby Digital®, DTS®, Dolby Pro Logic II, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, Dolby Digi...)

£530.00 (inc. VAT)
Compare prices for all sellers (£530.00 - £572.00)

Top 10 Broadband

Compare 50+
broadband packages

Home Broadband »

Pocket-lint poll

Q. Do you use the same password for everything?

Vote YES Vote NO

» LAST TIME
When asked Do you check emails, twitter or surf the internet in the loo? 65% said yes and 35% said no

About Pocket-lint

Pocket-lint is your one stop shop for gadgets, technology and consumer electronics, bringing you the low-down on the latest televisions, cameras, phones, GPS and much more. Whether it's learning about what's hot in the world of Apple, finding out about the latest home cinema kit from Samsung and Sony or merely seeing what not to buy, we have you covered. So check out our reviews, news, comment, hands-on photo galleries and videos. Enjoy.

Top products

tip us on news

reviews hub

Rss feed

Follow us on Twitter