Fluance Ai41 Powered Stereo Bookshelf Speaker Review

The Ai41 speaker won’t quite fill the largest of rooms with deep bass or incredibly dynamic sound, mind you. But in smaller rooms, and especially as desktop speakers, they sound pretty darned good, especially given their meager price. And all you need to add for a complete sound system is a source device like a turntable or smart TV, or even just your phone.

About the Fluance Ai41 Bookshelf Speakers

• Price: $249.99
• Height x Width x Depth: 10.9 x 6.5 x 7.6 inches (x2)
• Weight: 15.96 lbs.
• Amplification: 2 x 45 watts RMS
• Wireless connection: Bluetooth 5.0
• Wired connection: Stereo RCA, Optical Toslink
• Warranty: Two years

The Ai41 system consists of two small bookshelf speakers, each of which measures just 10.9 inches tall, 6.5 inches wide, and 7.6 inches deep. Each cabinet has a single 5-inch woven-fiber woofer and a 1-inch silk-dome tweeter. What sets them apart from your standard bookshelf speaker system, though, is that the right cabinet also contains enough amplification for both speakers, along with analog, digital, and wireless audio inputs. You will need to plug that speaker into power, and you’ll also need to run speaker cable between the two cabinets. But that’s it. That’s the entire setup. You don’t need a separate receiver or anything of the sort, there’s no app to worry about, and you don’t even have to remember your Wi-Fi password.

Since the speakers are in separate cabinets, that means you have the flexibility to set the system up in a way that makes sense for your room and your habits. If you’re using the Ai41 as a desktop speaker system, you can place each cabinet on either side of your display. Same goes for your TV. If, on the other hand, you’re setting the speakers up on the other side of the room, perhaps to deliver sound from your turntable, you can spread the cabinets apart for a wider soundstage.

What we like

Surprisingly good performance

While no one would confuse the Ai41 for a big pair of tower speakers driven by massive amplifiers with power to spare, when you simply close your eyes and listen, it’s also difficult to believe what you’re hearing is a small pair of powered speakers that retail for $250 per pair and often sell for quite a bit less. They deliver rich and detailed sound with nice punch and more bass than you’d expect. Unsurprisingly, given that this is a two-piece system with separate stereo speakers, they’re also capable of delivering a nice wide soundstage and good imaging, as long as you’re able to put just a bit of effort into their positioning.

Where this system really shines is in a desktop setup. You’d have a difficult time finding significantly better-sounding computer speakers for this price. With movies, music, and video games alike, the Ai41 system offered up good clarity, plenty of punch, nice detail—just an overall ear-pleasing sound. Dialogue and vocal clarity are never compromised, and the speakers’ crisp, forward sound is a good match for games running the gamut from Overwatch 2 to Sid Meier's Civilization VI.

Out of the box, the sound is a bit too bright, but you can turn the treble (and bass) up or down using the tone controls on the included remote. When I brought the treble all the way down to its lowest setting and then increased it two steps, the overall balance between the midrange and upper frequencies was much better, and that bright edge was greatly reduced.

I also tested the Fluance as a typical music playback system in a bedroom or dorm room—one that might be connected to a phone or tablet via Bluetooth, turntable, or music streamer. I found that it held its own here, so long as I didn’t crank the volume loudly or sit too far away, although I did still need to decrease the treble from the default. From about six feet, the Ai41 delivered a nice, casual listening experience, but the speakers did run out of steam a bit when I pushed the volume knob up to drown-out-the-world listening levels.

They have a good bit of bass

Fluance claims that the overall frequency response of the Ai41 speakers is 35Hz to 20KHz (DSP Enhanced). You only have to spend a few minutes listening to know this specification is a bit misleading, as the speaker’s actual, meaningful, usable bass in relation to the rest of the audible spectrum starts to drop off closer to 50Hz. Still, for a small bookshelf speaker, that’s really impressive. That’s deeper than the lowest notes played by a guitar, cello, or bass trombone, and it’s plenty deep enough to deliver all the bass from a kick drum.

The only thing I could really criticize the Ai41 for in terms of its bass output is a bit of a recess in the upper bass/lower midrange, which frankly a lot of people will probably like. Dialing back the energy in this range means that the music never gets muddy, even with less-than-pristine recordings or idiosyncratically mixed movies or TV shows. I actually found the Fluance system’s delivery of Little Feat’s “Dixie Chicken” preferable to that of my big hi-fi stereo system, largely thanks to its enhanced clarity and presence and some taming of the recording’s “honk.”

If you want, you can also add a subwoofer to augment the Ai41’s bottom end. It features a dedicated subwoofer output on the back panel of the right speaker (the one that houses the amp and all the inputs), and surprisingly, plugging a sub into that output engages a high-pass filter set, as best I can tell, right at 80Hz. What this means is that when you add a sub to your system, the main speakers themselves no longer attempt to output any deeper bass, which frees them up and opens their sound up a little more.

Mind you, subwoofer outputs aren’t out of the ordinary on powered speakers, even in this price class. But an automatic crossover function isn’t expected, even with powered speakers selling for much more.

Simple setup combined with loads of installation flexibility

Depending on how you intend to use the system, odds are good that you’ll have it out of the box and making a joyful noise within just a couple of minutes. The Ai41 is a powered speaker system—as distinct from an active speaker system. That may seem like a pedantic distinction, but it’s a consequential one. Active speaker systems have an active crossover feeding separate amps for each driver in each speaker cabinet, and typically—though not always—require you to plug both speakers into a power outlet. Active speakers also often have a proprietary cable that runs between each cabinet.

With the Ai41, all of the connectivity and all of the power is housed in one speaker, which is the only one that needs to be in reach of a wall outlet. What’s more, the left speaker connects to the right using bog-standard speaker cable. You can use the cable included in the box, or cut your own speaker cable to the length of your choosing. The Ai41’s speaker connectors are pretty standard binding posts that can handle either bare-wire or banana plugs just fine.

The system’s single optical digital input and analog RCA input, along with its built-in Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, give you room enough to connect perhaps a smart TV and a turntable, along with your wireless devices. It’s probably enough for most people in the market for a speaker system in this price range.

The system isn’t fussy about placement

Each of the Ai41 cabinets feature a rear-firing bass-reflex port, which is tuned to enhance the bass output of the speakers. That does mean you’ll need to position them at least a few inches away from the wall. But that aside, the speakers are incredibly forgiving in terms of placement. I tried them out in everything from my home office to my bedroom and even my kitchen, and I was surprised by how well they performed in each environment. In my kitchen in particular, the architectural asymmetry and lack of soft surfaces tends to make a lot of speakers sound brash. But the output of the Ai41 was controlled well enough that the quality of sound wasn’t as room-dependent as it tends to be with many speakers.

What we don’t like

Its DSP can be too aggressive and inconsistent

One of the benefits of a speaker with its own built-in amplification is that the manufacturer can add digital signal processing to make sure the drivers don’t receive more power than they can handle. The hope is that such processing is subtle enough that you never notice it, and indeed, if you’re going to use the Ai41 as a desktop speaker, you might not. But when you put the speakers out into the room and crank the volume, the processing starts to reveal itself in a few different ways.

The most obvious is that any loud, dynamic elements of rowdier music can get dialed down compared to the rest of the mix. When listening to Black Crowes’ “High Head Blues” from the album Amorica, for example, if I really cranked the volume I could hear the bass and percussion becoming quite compressed. The same was true with the hard-hitting bass line of “Hey Ladies” from Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique.

Both of those instances were when I was using an external DAC as a source for the Ai41. When I switched over to the Bluetooth input, I found that instead of hearing the most dynamic elements of the music become compressed, there was quite a strict volume limiter on the entire audio signal. And when I say strict, I mean the upper volume limit was way quieter than I know the speaker to be capable of playing.

The controls can be a bit of a guessing game

The Ai41 speakers don’t feature any sort of display, aside from a single LED that changes colors to indicate what input is currently selected and when you’ve reached the limits of the system’s volume control or tone controls. What’s more, the only way to switch inputs or adjust the tone controls is with the remote control, and it doesn’t give you direct access to the different inputs. Instead, pressing the input button cycles between the Bluetooth, analog, and digital input, in that order. The LED also glows blue when you’re on the Bluetooth input, green for the analog input, and white for the optical digital in.

There’s also no way to switch inputs and adjust the tone controls without the remote. So you’ll need to be careful not to lose it.

High frequencies are a little uneven

As I said above, with the treble control set to -3 (the overall range of the control is -5 to +5), the balance between midrange and high frequencies was pretty good. Certainly enjoyable to listen to, and not at all harsh or overly bright. Still, within a range from maybe 3kHz to 8kHz or thereabouts, the tonal balance sounded a bit uneven to my ears.

Granted, most musical instruments—aside from rarities like the piccolo—don’t play notes at such high frequencies. So I didn’t hear a lot of note-to-note variation in loudness with most music, at least not in the upper registers. But a lot of what we hear in this range are harmonics that contribute to the timbre of an instrument. That’s what makes a piano sound like a piano and a violin like a violin and the weird PVC instrument played by Blue Man Group sound like they do, even if they’re all playing the same note.

That’s not to say that the Ai41s made guitars sounds like violins, but when I was listening to piano music—Hania Rani’s On Giacometti, for example—the very upper registers of her instrument, as well as some of the room reverberation captured in the recording, felt slightly off at times. But only because I know this recording so well.

Should you buy the Fluance Ai41 Bookshelf Speakers?

Yes, if you’re looking for a great-sounding, compact powered speaker system

Honestly, the fact that I’m picking such tiny nits about a $250 powered speaker should tell you something. The Fluance Ai41 Powered 5-inch Stereo Bookshelf Speakers might not be an ideal pick for demanding audiophiles, in large part due to the speakers’ deviations from perfect tonal neutrality and somewhat aggressive digital signal processing. But if you’re a music fan who wants your tunes to sound lively and rich, or if you’re looking for a great desktop speaker or two-piece soundbar alternative, the Ai41 is a good pick. For larger rooms, you might consider stepping up to the Fluance Ai61, which has larger woofers and plays a bit deeper (and one assumes a little louder, although we haven’t tested them to verify this).

Frankly, you’d have a hard time finding a $250 soundbar that sounds anywhere near this good, that has this much installation flexibility and this wide a soundstage, not to mention such rich bass even without a subwoofer. Which makes the Fluance Ai41 tough to beat for someone looking for a compact, desktop or small-room solution.