Audioengine HD6 Wireless
FOR Subtlety; composure and organisation; articulate AGAINST Short on bass presence and drive “Each textured element finds its own spot in the soundstage, with space, scale and almost trifle-like layering”
If it weren’t for Audioengine dabbling in everything from passive speakers to Bluetooth receivers, you could reasonably assume that its name was dreamt up by The Cheesecake Factory or Muffin Mix school of literal branding.
The ‘engine’ driving the company’s 10th-anniversary flagship powered speakers, the HD6 Wireless, is a 50W Class A/B amplifier. This is housed in the left-hand speaker, driving the 14cm Kevlar mid/bass and 25mm silk tweeter.
From le to right
The signal for the right channel is fed to the passive right speaker through a banana plug-terminated cable – the ‘wireless’ name shouldn’t be taken too literally here – and you have two thirds of a system in just two boxes.
While optical, RCA and 3.5mm inputs are at our disposal, we find ourselves swayed by the HD6 Wireless’ name and begin with Bluetooth. This requires screwing the correct antennae into the left speaker’s back panel and pressing the nearby button to initiate pairing.
It’s hardly a taxing procedure, and within seconds we’re reminded of the performance of the brand’s A5+ speakers – these Audioengines are also quick on their toes, engagingly subtle and dynamically expressive.
Mids are particularly eloquent, the guitar plucking throughout Conor Oberst’s Ruminations album drenched in natural reverb, with weight well distributed to the piano keys. It handles the folky instrumentation and his country-twanged crooning well. It sounds bold and focused, yet full of intimacy.
Impressive dynamic range
We’re impressed by the Audioengines’ resilience to keep moving dynamically – from enthused blows to softer prolonged draws, the varying intensity of harmonica playing is forever fluctuating – and by how their rendition remains faithful as we stream from Spotify.
Each textured element finds its own spot in the soundstage, with the space, scale and almost trifle-like layering allowing these speakers to deliver with a sense of coherent order. That sense of refinement extends to the treble, so any crashing percussion is well judged too.
The presentation isn’t obsessed with grabbing you immediately, but instead eases you into music and uses the HD6’S precise, insightful nature and unfolding subtlety to keep you there.
No firestarters
But, as if just out of finishing school, the HD6 Wireless can come across as a little too polite and disciplined, lacking some of the fire exhibited by the rival Triangle Elara LN01AS that makes tracks such as R.E.M’S Radio Free Europe sound more appropriately impassioned.
We want to be startled out of our seats by the intro of SBTRKT’S Wildfire, but the Audioengines’ low-end kick isn’t quite able to oblige. Adding an external subwoofer via the RCA output helps matters, but that’s scant consolation.
Think of the typical size of standmounts, and then of desktop speakers, and the HD6 Wirelesses fall somewhere in between – a size of speaker that could just as easily flank a telly as bookend a bedroom shelf. They’ve the sonic versatility to give you free rein too, sounding clean and balanced near or far from walls.
Functional yet fancy, the choices of satin black paint, cherry wood veneer or walnut wood veneer finish make these speakers to be seen as well as heard. It seems only fitting the aluminium remote is both pretty and practical too.
The HD6 Wirelesses need to fire up the sonic engine a little more to get us tapping away as feverishly as some rivals do, but otherwise these refined, pleasant-sounding and well designed speakers are a credit to the brand.