Verdict
The Ai81 isn’t perfect but any criticism has to be seen in the light of just how much physical speaker it offers for the money. This is the chance to enjoy big speaker thrills at small wireless speaker prices and many people are going to jump at the chance.
Pros
- Big, confident and surprisingly nuanced sound
- Well-made and reasonably attractive
- Very keenly priced
Cons
- Can sound a bit lumpen at times
- Limited connectivity
- Limited Bluetooth spec
-
Design2.5 way floorstanding powered speaker -
ConnectivitySelection of analogue and digital inputs -
Power75 per channel Class D amplifier
Introduction
For better or worse, the laws of physics do not take a day off. This is good insofar as a sudden lack of gravity would be inconvenient but less beneficial when it comes to other areas. One of these is speakers.
If you want to have a big, hard hitting sound from a speaker, this is most easily achieved by having a large cabinet that can support large drivers. The catch with this is that this costs more money to do. Big speakers are generally rather pricey things, which in turn limits smaller budgets to smaller speakers.
Fluance might not have an answer to the physics aspect of this but their sales model is exceptionally good at keeping prices down. The Ai81 is a pair of hefty speakers that come in at a price where most of the competition are offering something rather smaller.
What’s more, thanks to having amplification on board, they don’t need very much in the way of partnering equipment either which makes them even better potential value. Of course, it’s one thing to get such a thing into the market but it’s another thing altogether to ensure that they are good. Can Fluance deliver big speaker thrills on a shoestring and does the Ai81 work for you?
Availability
The Ai81 is available in the UK for £429.64 when ordered from the Fluance website. It can also be ordered bundled with the company’s DB10 subwoofer for £610.09, giving you a small saving over ordering them separately.
In the US, the Ai81 is available for $499.99 as a standalone and $709.99 with the DB10 subwoofer. It is not completely clear if the Fluance is available in Australia but it was not possible to find verifiable pricing in AUD.
One of the reasons why the Fluance can sell the Ai81 at the price they do is down to a direct sales model. Order a pair and they ship direct from the company. This removes a layer of retail that would otherwise need to be priced in but does mean that your opportunities to listen to them and see how they sit in your room will be limited unless you order them and make potential use of their returns policy.
Design
- Selection of finishes
- Input indicator LED
- Outrigger feet… but no spikes.
Fluance makes the Ai81 available in four different finishes which should give you at least one option that will suit your room. At one end of proceedings, there is an all-black finish, while at the other is the same curiously named ‘Lucky Bamboo’ that I saw on the RT-82 turntable.
The review samples showed up in the ‘White Walnut’ option that combines a dark (and I really do mean dark, it’s almost black in some light) main section with a white front baffle. This looks very good against the contrast of the black drivers and does a good job of making the Fluance look more expensive than it actually is.
As the Ai81 is powered and has multiple inputs, it needs a way of showing what input is selected at the time and Fluance has hit on an LED fitted to the front of the main speaker that changes colour to denote your choice. This takes a little bit of time to learn but it’s a neat and tidy way of getting the information conveyed. A small but logically laid out remote handset is your main point of control and it works well.
As a tall and fairly narrow device, the Fluance would be at risk of falling over from a good hit delivered by a small child or large dog. To this end, the Ai81 is fitted with outrigger feet that increase the stability. Where a more expensive speaker might have carpet piercing spikes fitted to the bottom of these fit, the Fluance does without. This and the absence of any form of grille are the only real signs of cost cutting on the whole speaker though.
Specification
- 2x 75 watt Class D amplifier
- 1 inch soft dome tweeter and two 6.5 inch mid bass drivers
- Selection of analogue and digital inputs… but no HDMI ARC
Key to what makes the Fluance a self-contained device is the presence of an amplifier on board. Fluance lists this as a 150 watt device but this actually translates to two channels of 75 watts rather than 150 watts being available to both speakers. This is a healthy amount power though and means that the Ai81 shouldn’t struggle in all but the largest listening rooms. This amplifier is mounted in the base of one of the cabinets and connects to the other speaker via a run of speaker cable.
This power is made available to a trio of drivers; one of which is a 25mm soft dome tweeter and the other two are a pair of 6.5-inch mid bass drivers made of woven glass fibre that operate as a linked pair and gives the Ai81 a claimed low frequency roll off of 30Hz which is well beyond what most similarly priced rivals can manage.
A bass port on the bottom of each cabinet helps this process and ensures that the Ai81 isn’t too seriously affected close to walls. This is further helped thanks to an on board DSP that ensures the Ai81 can make the most of its available power and deliver hefty low end. This also allows for bass and treble to be adjusted via the remote control. You can then add a subwoofer too should the fancy take you.
The inputs that the Ai81 offers to the outside world are reasonable at the price but not that extensive. One optical and one analogue input on an RCA connection are joined by Bluetooth. It should allow you to use the Ai81 in a variety of ways but it means that useful features like HDMI ARC are not fitted and, if you use the optical connection for a TV, you will have to route audio via the RCA connection whether you like it or not.
Sound Quality
- Big, confident and powerful sound
- Decent tonality and surprising delicacy
- Bluetooth is stable but a bit flat.
- Bass can be a bit too much of a good thing
I set the Fluance up to run with a WiiM Mini streamer connected to the RCA input. The WiiM is priced at the sort of level that might be partnered with the Ai81 and is small enough that you could physically stick it to the back of one of the cabinets if you wanted to be tidy. This allowed the optical output to be connected to an LG OLED TV.
Right from the start, the Fluance shows the benefits of that larger cabinet and hefty drivers. Listening to the 24/96-bit Qobuz stream of Peter Gabriel’s The Court, the Fluance is able to give a commendable sense of impact and scale. This is more than just ‘bass’, it’s the weight of bass guitars and a feeling that everyone and everything on the track is the size they are supposed to be. Very little competition at the price can do this as effectively.
What I’ve found more interesting than this clout is that the Ai81 can be usefully delicate when you ask it to be. Listening to the stunning Storm by the Black Lilys, the Fluance does a fine job with Camille Faure’s wonderful, almost ephemeral vocals. The three drivers hang together beautifully and produce a performance with no audible sense of crossover to it.
So long as the speakers are placed with any degree of care and attention, you also get a convincing and three dimensional soundstage. A slight limitation is that the Bluetooth input does without some of the more sophisticated codecs so it sounds a bit flat and congested compared to the WiiM into the analogue connection.
There are limitations though. The Fluance can deliver impressive bass weight but it can lack a bit of speed and articulation. Listening to the utterly bonkers Jdid by Acid Arab; a heady combination of traditional North African instrumental styles and the sort of bass that can vibrate your vision, the Fluance is powerful but a bit ragged. The speed and energy of the material is sapped a bit, robbing it of some of its power.
This is where the adjustable bass and treble really comes into play. Roll the bass off slightly and while you lose a bit of out and out power, things tighten up nicely and the Fluance gets a bit more agility. Then, when you turn the music off and decide to watch a film with plenty of explosions; and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare filled this role brilliantly, you can wind it back up and enjoy some serious clout when things go boom.
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
Bang for your buck
The Fluance is a huge amount of speaker for your cash. Very little else under £500 will go as deep, hit as hard and sound as big and convincing as the Ai81 will and not many other things look as smart or are as well finished.
Some economy measures
The Fluance has to give ground in order to meet its keen price and the slightly limited connectivity and some detail economy measures on the finish are part and parcel of it coming in at the price it does. If you want niceties like that though, you’ll need to spend more money.
Final Thoughts
If you have a significant space to fill and not a huge amount of budget to fill it with, very little can touch the Fluance for effortless headroom and decent low end shove.
Any rival that offers better connectivity; from companies such as ELAC or Triangle is far smaller than the Ai81. In rooms that don’t need a big speaker, this might make more sense but the Fluance delivers headroom and impact that some people will find irresistible.
How we test
We test every wireless speaker we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Tested with real world use
FAQs
You’ve got a choice of four colours: Black Ash, Natural Walnut, Lucky Bamboo, and White Walnut.
UK RRP
USA RRP
Manufacturer
Size (Dimensions)
Weight
ASIN
Release Date
Model Number
Driver (s)
Ports
Audio (Power output)
Connectivity
Colours
Frequency Range
Speaker Type
›
