Airpulse A100 Phil Jones Designed Active Hi-Res Speaker System - Black

Following the successful launch of the A200 and A300, the all-new A100 miniature bookshelf speakers with a 5” woofer now joins the AIRPULSE active speaker family. The perfect combination of Hi-Res digital audio processing technology and an aesthetic of understated elegance creates a High-Fidelity audio system with intoxicating sound quality and visual appeal.

The A100 has an exquisite piano lacquer appearance, inheriting the appearance and sound characters of our flagship model 7001 near-field monitor speakers designed by Phil Jones. Using the same XMOS core as its bigger brother A300, this unassumingly small cabinet delivers outstanding performance beyond your expectation.

The A100 continues to use AIRPULSE’s unique horn-loaded aluminium ribbon tweeter and a proprietarily-designed 5” aluminium chassis low-distortion bass and mid-range driver. They are housed in an 18-mm thick high-strength MDF cabinet finished with attractive piano black(or red) lacquer.

The well-known AmericanTRANSPARENT cable is used in A100 for internal connection to ensure the minimum signal loss. The active speaker has a high-efficiency Class D amplifier with digital signal processing (DSP) system, powered by an also efficient power supply.

The system in the A100 supports multiple inputs, including Bluetooth, AUX, PC, USB and fibre optic. Frequency response ranges from 52Hz to 40KHz. It supports Hi-Res high-quality audio playback and has obtained a Hi-Res official certification.

 

 

Cabinet Construction

The A100 cabinet is built WITH 18-mm thick high-strength MDF finished with attractive piano lacquer. To further reduce colouration, the cabinet interior is fully lined with professional waved sound absorption material.

The oval-shaped vent tube in the A100 is carefully designed to minimize wind noise.

 

Horn Loaded Ribbon Tweeter
The A100 horn-loaded ribbon tweeter inherits the mechanism of the tweeter in our flagship 7001 near-field monitor speaker. The thin aluminium ribbon diaphragm has high sensitivity, superb transient response, extended frequency range and well-defined resolution.

The meticulously formulated horn shape produces directional and optimized high frequencies from the ribbon tweeter, so they are aimed at the listeners, minimizing unwanted effect from room reflection. This also leads to superior imaging of the speaker. The result is full and three dimensional sound with each detail well defined.

 

5” Aluminium Cone Low-Distortion Mid-Woofer
The Mid-woofer is a 5” unit with a hard anodized aluminium alloy cone suspended in a heavy, ultra-rigid cast magnesium alloy frame.

The Proprietary Aluminum Alloy Cone (PAAC) of mid-woofer was designed from painstaking analysis of all types of cone geometry and materials using a Klippel Laser-Doppler Interferometer.

The 35mm diameter voice coil is unusually larger than most loudspeakers of this size. It has been shown that larger voice coils have less power compression because they run at a cooler operating temperature. Sonically this means a more realistic dynamic representation of the music. It is dynamics in music that gives it emotion and exhilaration. The cooler running temperature of the voice coil also has the side benefit of a more reliable loudspeaker since cooler voice coil means much less chance of speaker failure.

Most loudspeakers use round copper wire in the voice coil but we use a far better single layer edge-wound copper clad aluminium ribbon. Ribbon voice-coil wire gives more electrical conductor in the magnet gap and increases efficiency, power handling and lowers distortion.

It features with an under-hung motor structure, a high power neodymium motor to provide a high magnetic flux to cover the whole voice coil of the loudspeaker. This type of magnet structure completely energizes the whole voice coil with allowance for extreme cone excursion giving far better bass and considerably less inter-modulation distortion.

For uncompromised performance, the A100 woofer uses a hyper-rigid cast-magnesium alloy frame. Its rigidity greatly reduces speaker colouration; and its material helps to dissipate heat efficiently from the voice coil much faster than a typical steel speaker frame, which all in combination leads to increased dynamics and power handling and ultimately, a satisfying musical experience rarely gained from a system of this size price range.

 

Internal Wiring Made By TRANSPARENT
The A100 cabinet is built WITH 18-mm thick high-strength MDF finished with attractive piano lacquer. To further reduce colouration, the cabinet interior is fully lined with professional waved sound absorption material.

The oval-shaped vent tube in the A100 is carefully designed to minimize wind noise.

 

Full Digital Amplifier
The power amplification part is built with 2 pieces of TAS5754 Class-D amplifier from Texas Instrument. This component is one of a handful of Class-D amplifiers in the market which combines high input sample rate support and high output PWM carrier frequency. These two characters are essential to achieving low background noise and low distortion. The up-to 192 KHz input sample rate support guarantees the entire link of digital processing run without any change of sample rate of the signal. Its 768 KHz output PWM carrier frequency, twice to 384 KHz of traditional Class-D amplifier, is even more suitable to drive the high sensitivity ribbon tweeter. One TAS5754 is connected in bridge mode for left and right channel woofer and the other amp is connected in bridge mode for left and right channel ribbon tweeters.

The analogue front end uses top-of-the-line components from Texas Instrument. With the special configuration, the chipset work at 96 KHz to offer a frequency response up to 40 KHz. The wide range input frequency response guarantees thorough signal acquisition with very low distortion. To avoid cross-talk between the two analogue ports, A100 uses a relay instead of a semiconductor switch.

The SPDIF receiver PCM9211 is also from Texas Instrument, which supports input sample rate up to 216 KHz. With very low output jitter, the unpacked audio signal can be delivered to XMOS processor with zero loss.

 

Bluetooth
The power amplification part is built with 2 pieces of TAS5754 Class-D amplifier from Texas Instrument. This component is one of a handful of Class-D amplifiers in the market which combines high input sample rate support and high output PWM carrier frequency. These two characters are essential to achieving low background noise and low distortion. The up-to 192 KHz input sample rate support guarantees the entire link of digital processing run without any change of sample rate of the signal. Its 768 KHz output PWM carrier frequency, twice to 384 KHz of traditional Class-D amplifier, is even more suitable to drive the high sensitivity ribbon tweeter. One TAS5754 is connected in bridge mode for left and right channel woofer and the other amp is connected in bridge mode for left and right channel ribbon tweeters.

The Bluetooth audio receiver is built on Qualcomm’s Bluetooth V4.1 chipset, which supports APT-X decoder, and offers a far better audio playback quality than what a traditional Bluetooth SBC codec can present.

The system reserves a subwoofer signal output in case of a situation that needs low-frequency rendering with strong bass. The volume of the subwoofer can be adjusted by the master volume control

AIRPULSE A100 Active Bookshelf Speaker system is a perfect combination of uniquely designed conventional loudspeaker and digital system of XMOS. Meticulous tuning work enables the A100 to accurately reproduce any type of music. Its XMOS integrated USB function makes life much easier, you can play high-quality sound sources without compression and then enjoy lossless music by simply downloading and installing the software packages.

A100’s independent treble and bass adjustment function can help the user to easily set the brightness of high-frequency and the amount of bass according to the size of the listening environment.

 

Airpulse A100 Specifications:

Tweeter: Horn Loaded Ribbon Tweeter
Mid-Woofer: 5-inch Aluminum Cone Underhung Design Neo. Power Mid-Woofer
Amplifier System: Digital Amplifier With Xmos Processor
Power Output:L/R(Treble)10W+10W, L/R(Woofer): 40W+40W
Frequency Range: 52Hz-40KHz
Signal-Noise Ratio: L/R:≥90dB(A)
Input Mode: AUX, PC, USB, Optical, Bluetooth.
Sample Rate Input Sensitivity: AUX:450±50mV PC:550±50mV, USB:400±50mFFs, Optical:400±50mFFs, Bluetooth:500±50mFFs, Sub Out: 800mV(max)
Mains Voltage: 100-240 V AC/50-60 Hz
Cabinet Size (WxHxD): 160x283x255mm
Net Weight: 11 Kg(24.2lbs)
Gross Weight: 13.4 Kg(29.5lbs)
Packing Size(HxWxD): 387x489x353mm