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Acoustic Energy AE 520 – The new flagship

A little more patience will be needed, as the new flagship of the reference loudspeaker line from Acoustic Energy Loudspeakers Ltd. will not be available until October 2020, namely the new Acoustic Energy AE 520, for which the English are already revealing initial details.


In March last year, the English loudspeaker manufacturer Acoustic Energy Loudspeakers Ltd. announced the new Acoustic Energy AE 500 Series for the first time. This product line has been given the responsible task of taking the new reference class in the wide range of products offered by the Gloucestershire specialist, and in keeping with the company’s philosophy of offering them at a particularly attractive price, the company even made the promise of offering a reference-level solution at a premium price.

The Acoustic Energy AE 500 Series has so far consisted of two loudspeaker systems, a floor-standing speaker system and a compact speaker, and is now presented in the form of the Acoustic Energy AE 500 and Acoustic Energy AE 509 models.

Acoustic Energy Loudspeakers Ltd. is now extending the Acoustic Energy AE 500 Series with a model that is positioned at the top end in the form of the new Acoustic Energy AE 520, thus taking on the role of the new flagship within this product series designed as a reference line. The innovative features of the smaller siblings Acoustic Energy AE 500 and Acoustic Energy AE 509 are naturally adopted here, but are presented here in a form that is intended to form the basis for a further increase in performance.

According to the manufacturer, the new Acoustic Energy AE 520 is a floor-standing speaker system which, although quite powerful and imposing in appearance, has been deliberately designed to be integrated into the living space in the best possible way. It is therefore a very tall and slim construction. After all, the height is 1,130 mm, the width is only 185 mm and the depth is 320 mm.

The baffle presents itself amply equipped with drivers, no less than six of them are used here, all of which have been specially developed for the Acoustic Energy AE 500 Series and optimised for the respective models.

The so-called D’Appolito arrangement is immediately noticeable, with the tweeter flanked by the mid-range drivers. Already in the little sister Acoustic Energy AE 509 by a Mid Tweeter Mid Bass Driver Layout, briefly called MTM.

The tweeter is designed as a 25 mm carbon fibre dome tweeter and as a special feature has a so-called waveguide, specifically an aluminium Dy-cast WDT waveguide, which is supposed to guarantee an optimal radiation. It starts already at 2.8 kHz and is flanked, as already described, by the two midrange drivers with a diameter of 125 mm each. The developers used drivers equipped with carbon-fibre reinforced diaphragms, which are supposed to cover the frequency range between 373 Hz and 2.8 kHz. Three additional 125 mm drivers with Kohefaser-reinforced cones are responsible for the low frequency range.

A particularly important feature of the midrange and bass drivers is an oversized voice coil with a diameter of 35 mm. This is intended to make a significant contribution to ensuring very low thermal compression and thus very high dynamics.

All the essential details were also taken into account in the design of the cabinet, for example, the new Acoustic Energy AE 520 is equipped with specially sealed chambers in the mid-range drivers for optimum acoustic insulation, especially from the woofers.

A great deal of attention was paid to the construction of the cabinet, for example by using a special sandwich construction, known as the RCS resonance suppression composite material. In practice, this means that an outer wall made of 9 mm MDF and an inner wall made of 6 mm MDF are used and connected by a 3 mm bitumen layer. As a result, one speaker weighs in at an impressive 30 kg.

As already mentioned, this is a deliberately slim and thus elegant design, but this also means that a correspondingly solid base is required. For this purpose, the designers rely on metal struts and aluminium spikes on which the housing stands securely.

The crossovers are also assembled using only high-quality components such as polypropylene filmwound capacitors, which are mounted on two separate boards. A separate board for the low-frequency drivers should minimize crosstalk between the components.

Finally, a few key data: The new Acoustic Energy AE 520 has a frequency response from 30 Hz up to 28 kHz, an impedance of 6 ohms and an efficiency of 90 dB. It should be capable of handling up to 300 Watts and achieve a peak level of 113 dB.

The new Acoustic Energy AE 520 is available in high-gloss white and high-gloss black, with an additional version in American walnut veneer.

As already mentioned in the introduction, this new flagship of the Acoustic Energy AE 500 Series will unfortunately require a little more patience. It will not actually be available in specialist shops until October 2020. The recommended retail price is given as € 4.000,-, whereby this is already to be understood as a pair price.

Getting to the point

Acoustic Energy Loudspeakers Ltd. is now expanding the Acoustic Energy AE 500 Series with a model that ranks at the top end, taking on the role of the new flagship within this product series designed as a reference line. The innovative features of the smaller siblings Acoustic Energy AE 500 and Acoustic Energy AE 509 are of course adopted here, but are presented here in a form that is intended to form the basis for a further increase in performance.

Manufacturer:Acoustic Energy Loudspeakers Ltd.
Distribution:M.A.D. HiFi Anja Hobbs
Price:€ 4.000,-
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Michael Holzinger

Michael Holzinger, founder and editor-in-chief of HiFi BLOG and sempre-audio.at, has been working for years as a journalist in the fields of IT, photography, telecommunications and consumer electronics.

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