Acoustic Energy · 500 · Bookshelf

AE500²

Product description
The second-generation 500 Series standmount, and a bigger change than the name suggests: the 25 mm carbon-fibre dome of the original AE500 gives way to a 29 mm soft dome taken from the Corinium flagship, the 125 mm carbon cone is reworked around a new motor, and the crossover moves from 2.8 to 3.2 kHz. The RSC cabinet is now faceted and trapezoidal rather than a plain box.

Performance — where it sits in the catalog

BassTrebleSensitivityEasy loadCone area
Bass reachTreble reachSensitivityEasy loadCone area
AE500²45 Hz26 kHz87 dB8 Ω129 cm²
Median45 Hz25 kHz87 dB6 Ω219 cm²
How to read this chart

Each axis spans the range the 452 bookshelves in the catalog actually cover, so equal distance means equal difference — and for cone area and the two frequencies, which are read as ratios, equal distance means equal ratio. The dashed inner ring is where the scale starts, not zero. Ranked within a class because a bookshelf measured against floorstanders is feeble on every axis for the single reason that it is a bookshelf. Cone area is summed from the drive units — no maker publishes it. Bass and treble reach are quoted to different tolerances and only 56% of the catalog says which, so read those two axes as approximate. The grey outline is the median of this speaker's own class, the 380 passive bookshelves — same type, same side of the active/passive line, which matters because the two halves are not the same product: the median active bookshelf carries 155 cm² of cone against the passive median's 219. Median rather than mean, because a handful of very large cabinets would drag a mean above most of the class it claims to describe.

Units
TypeBookshelf
HiFi ladder position#114 of 452 bookshelf
PowerPassive
Height310 mm
Width185 mm
Depth270 mm
Footprint500 cm²
Space taken15.5 L
Weight7.5 kg
EnclosureBass reflex
Drivers1× 29 mm tweeter (soft dome), 1× 125 mm mid-bass (carbon fibre cone)
Crossover frequency3200 Hz
Frequency response45–26000 Hz (±6 dB)
Sensitivity87 dB
Impedance8 Ω
Power handling120 W
Where to buyCheck availability ↗
Manufactureracoustic-energy.co.uk ↗
Product pageOpen product page ↗

Suggested TrueScale comparisons

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