. It’s a fair bit bigger than the dinky original AE1 – as most small speakers are. Yet the company hasn’t skimped on the quality, or indeed any degree of design flair. Right now, it is Acoustic Energy’s most expensive standmounter, being the cheaper of the two products in the flagship 500 range. The floorstanding option is the AE509. Both use carbon-fibre coned mid/bass units and dome tweeters. In theory, this is great, because as Mat Spandl explains, the new mid/bass driver is only half as heavy as the previous ceramic/aluminium one, yet has better self-damping. This is just what you want from a speaker driver material – it needs to be stiff and light yet not prone to generating unwanted vibrations of its own. The end result is faster transients and lower distortion