Although I've heard an Aperion sub, I've never heard their speakers. I decided since the sub sounded good, I'd give a listen to the speakers. FedEx dropped off a box after several days of delays due to lazy FedEx drivers. I've had these hooked up for a couple days and have a pretty good idea what these new Aperions are all about. I thought I’d share my impressions as these are very new speakers.
First, the packaging is excellent. Two boxes in one, good foam, and blue,velvet bags. Nice touch. I did notice some adhesive on top of one of the speakers, but it wiped off with no issues.
Build quality is excellent. Rock solid. I do have a minor gripe over finding some adhesive on one of the speakers and some hairs of glue on the drivers. Nothing that would affect performance, but my Monitor Audio's arrived absolutely clean with zero residue of any kind.
The piano, black gloss is absolutely beautiful. My wife wants to keep these speakers because how they look. The real wood is nice as well.
Dynamics are better than on my own Monitor Audio BR2's. They had me jump a few times out of surprise. They shift from quiet to rocking smoothly and quickly.
The Aperions concentrate a bit more on the upper frequencies than the BR2's and the midrange felt a hair more reserved, but the speakers are well-balanced overall. This surprised me as Aperions use a silk tweeter and MA a metal tweeter. Just goes to show that overall design is what counts.
Aperions certainly play loud without distortion. I pushed these speakers pretty hard and they didn't show a hint of strain. Certainly took more juice than my MA's.
The MA's beat the Aperions out when it came to disappearing in the room. The Aperions were also excellent, but the MA's edged them out slightly here. It was easier to locate the Aperions in the room. To be fair, the 6B probably would have been on par with the BR2’s due to the larger driver.
The MA's also edged the Aperions out in overall detail. Listening to recordings that I listen to regularly, I noticed minor things missing from the Aperions and did not notice anything new I hadn't noticed with my MA's.
I feel Aperions offer a good value, but not astounding. Considering the 5B's sell for $450 a pair, I didn't feel they were superior to my BR2's ($300/pair) or say the PSB Image B25 ($300/pair); and the models using similar 5" drivers from MA and PSB sell for even less. However, the customer service and warranty from Aperion is tough to beat and they offer a tradeup program. Also, considering Aperion offers shipping both ways, they're certainly worth a listen.
Overall, Aperion certainly takes its place as one of the best loudspeaker companies around. They didn't disappoint. They sounded good with all genre of music; great for HT too. Although some speakers will edge them out slightly in particular categories, they do so at the expense of something else. The Aperions don't seem to do anything wrong. If you need speakers that do everything well across the board, Aperions may be the ticket.
