Acoustic Energy AEGO5 Home Cinema Speaker System > Reviews > Acoustic Energy Aego P5.

Author's product rating:   

Sound Quality	Excellent
Bass Quality	Excellent
Treble Quality	Excellent
Look & Design	Excellent
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Superb Sound Quality, Small Satellites
Disadvantages:	Slight hum from subwoofer, no Dolby Prologic 2 support

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Acoustic Energy 5.1 system is available in two configurations - one with and one without a Dolby Digital / DTS decoder. The version without the decoder is less expensive and would be suitable if your system already has some form of surround sound decoding capability. I went for the version with the decoder.

The system is very easy to set up. All amplification is perfomed within the subwoofer so this forms the 'hub' of the system.

There is a single cable from the decoder to the subwoofer, then 5 single cables from the subwoofer to each of the satellites (one each for the left, right, centre, surround left and surround right channels)

The decoder itself has a coaxial and a digital input for digital sources, as well as three line level standard stereo inputs for connecting non-digital equipment.

The subwoofer is powered by a large transformer attached by a trailing cable from the subwoofer (which unfortunately cannot be unplugged from the subwoofer.)

When all set up, the first thing I noticed was there is a very slight 'hum' from the subwoofer. I was a little disconcerted that I hadn't been made aware of this by any of the 'rave' reviews in hi-fi magazines and after a little searching on the internet I found that indeed, they all do this and mine isn't faulty.

This 'hum' problem could have been partially rectified by the product's 'auto power off' feature which is supposed to switch the subwoofer off after a period of inactivity on it's audio input and back on when sound is detected again. This feature does not work however (and an erratum page in the manual details this.)

However, once sound is played through the system the slight humming is soon forgotten (it is quiet enough to be inaudible when in use) as the sound the system produces is simply wonderful - far better than any other satellite system I have heard in this price range.

The decoder will handle Dolby Digital and DTS digital signals and will convert stereo signals to Dolby Prologic (providing four channel surround sound from a two channel source) if appropriate. Unfortunately, there is no support for Dolby Prologic 2. Switching the Prologic off and simply playing stereo music through the system also produced very pleasing results.

Overall I am very pleased with the purchase and have learned to live with the slight subwoofer hum - although I would have liked to have been aware of it before purchasing - hence this review!