Review

Aquatix Complete Review - Audio & Video Lifestyle Magazine - Australia

04 Nov 2008

Alfresco Sounds From Krix

Despite having an AV room full of gear out the back at my place, I don't have any external sounds. If we've a few people round or the BBQ's firing, it means opening the AV room door and cranking the music, which isn't ideal for alfresco entertaining. What I needed was a pair of outdoor speakers to hook up to the zone 2 from my Yamaha AV receiver and hey presto - garden music on tap.

But which ones? There's a myriad of outdoor speakers available these days, but like most things, some are up to facing the elements and others simply are not. I recently installed a new AV receiver for a mate and discovered he had speakers everywhere running off it - the main living room, bedroom, office and a pair outside above the hot tub. Having hooked everything up correctly we went outside and only one jacuzzi speaker was working. They looked pretty sorry for themselves - rust was taking over and clearly although described as 'outdoors' they didn't handle it too well.

I'd taken delivery of a pair of Aquatix, so recommended he replace his with a decent pair that's actually going to withstand the steam from his hot tub. I had a less demanding position to put my pair - under the AV room eaves firing into the garden. They should be quite well protected from most of the elements, apart from a bit of smoke when the snags are burning.

Krix does two alfresco speakers - these, the Aquatix, and the slightly bigger Tropix, if you fancy a bit more external bass. Given my needs for a bit of quality BBQ music, the Aquatix with its 5-inch (130mm) bass driver and reasonably compact dimensions were ample. The construction is marine-grade to help cope with the elements the Aquatix' cabinet is made from UV stabilised polymer while the aluminium grille and mounting bracket plus stainless steel bits and bobs means rusting isn't going to be a problem. This is any 'outdoor' speakers' public enemy numero uno.

Before whacking them up, I popped the Aquatix on a pair of stands in my main stereo system. The result was that the Aquatix are nothing less than a competent small loudspeaker, whether hey are used indoors or out. For a small driver and enclosure there's plenty of bass. The sealed cabinet helps, so does positioning the speakers right in the corner or eaves where they will receive some reinforcement. Even out in the room on the stands, the Aquatix produced ample bottom-end, not subsonic sort of depth, but they give all sorts of music adequate weight and substance.

The Aquatix' tightly focused sound has immediate appeal - they don't mind what sort of music's served up and combine both depth and detail, managing to convey a decent soundstage and sound three-dimensional. 

Instruments are well spaced and musically coherent and they don't ever shy away from delivering music with a good thumping rhythm. One of the Aquatix' most impressive attributes is simply the relationship between size and sound - compact they may be, but the performance is anything but. The treble's nicely smooth, but involving and there's a high degree of transparency. Closing my eyes and I was listening to a decent compact 2-way standmount speaker, even though these strictly are not.

Positioning them outside, the Aquatix filled the immediate garden area with similar quality audio. Even my lovely neighbours commented on how good they sounded on their side of the fence. A couple of days after mounting them we had a nasty storm hit and the Aquatix faced some horrible wet weather. They survived unaffected, unlike the rest of the garden.

Like I mentioned, there are 'outdoor' speakers and then there are 'proper' outdoor speakers, which the Aquatix most certainly are. They're built to last, sound great and have been designed to serve and outdoor purpose. This they do extremely well and at $450 a pair, aren't bad value either.

Verdict: * * * * *

- Audio & Video Lifestyle - Australia , Nic Tatham

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