Acoustic Energy’s Linear Series 5.1 home cinema sound package brings technology usually reserved for the high-end down to mid-range components. We’re impressed.
Acoustic Energy Linear Series | One $795 Three $1595 Centre $695 Sub $1245 | 
For: Detailed and dynamic; fabulous snap and attack from the rears
Against: Sub is merely good; 10Hz at least missing from bottom end
Verdict: A lot of class with a sonic performance that can thrill and engage
The Linear series reviewed here has some DNA from the brand’s highly-regarded Elite range. This alone marks the system out for serious scrutiny – and visually, the speakers are certainly eye-catching. With their piano black finish and sculptured baffle (to better integrate the high- and low-frequency drivers for superior in-phase frequency response) they have a very high WAF (wife acceptance factor).
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It looks as if the 130mm driver and the 160mm driver each get their own resonant chamber in the Linear Three, as there are two gas-flowed port mouths around the back (the drivers are decoupled within).
The same 130mm driver is also found in the Linear Centre and bookshelf-style Linear One rears. The Ones use only a single 130mm driver, with two used in the Centre. Pressed, rather than spun aluminium, the cones are thermally-bonded via their voice coils to the outside world; in the same way tin foil cools instantly when you take it off the roast, they help to dissipate heat massively.
The subwoofer is a pretty-looking and reasonably imposing item to behold, with simple classic line-in and line-outs on phonos, as well as speaker level inputs and outputs. The top has a glass panel inset within it, with the AE logo showing through.
Performance
For much of the official 5.1 audition, we chose to listen to these speakers with the latest acquisition from the DTS stable – its demo disc SURROUND.9 has clips from Hero, The Return Of The King, I Robot, The Day After Tomorrow and Blue Man Group. Each clip is fabulously mastered and clearly intended to show off the resolution of their digits. It makes for a convenient audition suite of demos in one place. The first thing that struck upon firing up this speaker system is the sheer scale it can generate. Hero’s ‘arrows’ sequence is epic in scope and this box combination plays it well. Flipping to I Robot, the sheer vastness of the robot hanger sequence is tangible. The gunplay and helicopters immediately following Will Smith’s successful flushing of the identity crisis automaton is vast is scope and impact, too, making you feel you have a much bigger set of enclosures in the room than you do.
The Blue Man Group was the best sequence for musicality, and revealing just how deliciously well this set can play. There is real synergy and overall integration front to back on these models; a seamless sound-field with real power to the rear – so much so, that I would suggest that the One model is a better example of its kind than the floorstanding fronts.
The only chink in the AE Linear armour is the subwoofer. Its minus six dB point, or where it is only half as loud, is a relatively high 30Hz. In the company of such serious performers, we felt it lacked genuine extension.
We like scary subsonics with our top-class top-end, and we know they’re on the DTS disc – right in the dragon beast’s wing beats in the Lord of The Rings clip.
Conclusion
This Acoustic Energy system has a lot of class. Reasonably priced for the money, we believe it fights well above its weight, with a sonic performance that can thrill and engage; our only caveat is that it deserves an esoteric grade subwoofer to couple with, rather than the admittedly pretty one in the series.
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