One of a famous audio system maker, Harman Kardon, newly builded a home wireless speaker Aura. 36,000JPY on Amazon now. Beautiful look, powerful bass unit, but how it works?
Rees moved to Tokyo and rented a new apartment, by this chance, he bought this speaker, for his 17m2 large home-use.
Aura is not a small boy, looks like a big watermelon in size and feels like a watermelon in weight. It uses 6 of 1.5 inch sized small speaker around the base and a huge 4.5 inch bass speaker at the center of the base bottom.
The upper side of the speaker is just for Aerodynamic effect, only works for the 4.5 inch huge speaker, maybe add some power and quality of the bass performance.
The LED light inside the huge cell looks dreamily at night, it mainly shows the volume state, which can be changed by the touch edge around the black base. Anyway there is one color here of the light, and it can not dance with the music rhythm.
By the way, the power transform of the Aura is big, the maximum output power is 60 KW (6 small speakers 30KW at all, the center big one for 30KW). However the sound of the Aura is loud! Loud enough for a 20m2 room, barely enough for 30m2 in my opinion.
The input jackets of Aura are: USB 2.0 (setting and update), AUX IN 3.5mm input (nothing special), Opertical input (cool for this class). As a wireless speaker, Bluetooth 3.0 (Okay but not newest), available for AirPlay, DLNA and WiFi (better sound quality through air)
At last and the important part, what on earth does Harman Kardon Aura performance?
Sound volume, 4/5, big enough on the bass but lack of the other sector.
Middle tone, 3/5, no stereo feeling is a downside, also the 1.5 inch small speakers are too close to the ground for clear detail playing.
high tone, 2/5, is there any high tone there? Maybe a little bit.
Bass, 4/5, quantity really shocked me, not bad quality as well.
Balance, 3/5, suit for American style musics, not a choice for J-pop or concert hall style.
Connectivity, 5/5, perfect! Even several bluetooth devices online together, OK.
Build quality, 4/5, nice finish but plastic transparent cell is easy to get hurt.
Size and weight, 3/5, difficult to find a space for it at home. power socket is also matters.
Overall, 3/5. I recommend Harman Kardon Aura to big home, American music style letsener.