Fluance Ri71 Powered Bookshelf Loudspeaker Review

Fluance Ri71 Powered Speakers Introduction

Is it possible that soundbars are losing popularity? More and more loudspeaker manufacturers seem to be releasing traditional loudspeaker designs that have HDMI ARC connectivity. I don’t have the sales figures in front of me, but I don’t think that the explosion in active loudspeakers with HDMI connectivity would occur unless there was a demand for them. That could only come at the cost of soundbars. Perhaps buyers are realizing that they can do better than the inherently compromised sound that soundbars produce. Whatever the cause, I welcome the new trend. Better sound can be had, but how much better? That is what we will be looking at in today’s review of the new Fluance Ri71 powered bluetooth bookshelf speaker review.

 

The Fluance Ri71 promises high-fidelity with the easy convenience of HDMI ARC plug-and-play, as well as Bluetooth. Unlike a soundbar, it has a driver layout much more optimized for higher quality sound instead of a bunch of tiny drivers being squeezed in a horizontal array. It can also produce a real stereo soundstage and imaging, which soundbars don’t really do. At the very affordable pricing of $400 shipped, it would seem to be a bargain, but does it deliver on the promise of high-fidelity? Let’s dig in to find out…

Fluance Ri71 Packing and Appearance

It is important that the packing be good on the Ri71s since they must be delivered, as Fluance is a manufacturer-direct company. The speakers arrived in a single box in heavy-duty cardboard. Inside, the packing material was styrofoam blocks sandwiching the top and bottom of the speaker pair with a foam divider. The speakers were wrapped in plastic bags to protect them against moisture. This isn’t the most durable packing I have seen, but at least the styrofoam was of a higher quality instead of the crumbly stuff that falls to pieces with slight impacts. Luckily, the speakers are not large or heavy, so this packing should suffice.

   

After unpacking the Ri71s, we see a pair of handsome and not-especially-large stand-mount speakers. They are not tiny desktop speakers, but they won’t eat up a large amount of shelf space. They can be had in a black ash, white ash, or walnut finish, and I received a pair in walnut. The finish is vinyl imitation, of course, but it is pretty well done and not blatantly fake. The drivers stand out a bit on these models, since the woofer cone is a fairly stark white and the tweeter is nested in a good-sized waveguide. Strangely, these speakers do not come with grilles to conceal or protect the drivers. The AMT tweeter looks like a gold trinket buried in a black waveguide. The woofer has a white fiber-glass weave centered in a black surround and frame. The Ri71s actually have curved side-panels, not something often seen in such low-cost speakers. One of the speakers has an LED status light mounted in the lower lip of the waveguide. Overall, I don’t think the Ri71s look bad, but I do think Fluance should have included grilles for those who want to de-emphasize their appearance. Some people want their speakers to be as visually subdued as possible, and the Ri71s don’t really do that.

Fluance Ri71 Design Analysis

The mission of the Fluance Ri71 speakers is to be a small and easy solution for good sound, functioning as a typical two-channel system or as a sound system for television displays. How it goes about accomplishing that task is a matter of design details. Let’s start our discussion of its design details at the top with the tweeter. The tweeter that Fluance uses for the Ri71 is a 1.1” x 1.3” AMT, which stands for “Air Motion Transformer.” They have gained prominence in the last decade thanks to their durability, high-frequency extension, and wide dynamic range. However, not all AMTs are on the same level, and we have seen a wide range of quality from AMTs, from pretty bad to extremely good. In other words, I would not assume any given AMT tweeter is beneficial over a standard dome tweeter. As with all transducers, tweeters should be judged by their end performance, not by their type.

   

The tweeter is mounted in a waveguide. The waveguide should help control the dispersion of the sound to make it more uniform throughout its bandwidth. The waveguide should also help to give the tweeter better directivity matching with the mid-woofer. The mid-woofer uses a 5.25” glass-fiber composite cone. The spec sheet tells us that the Ri71s use a 2.7kHz crossover frequency with 2nd-order filters.

Even though the Ri71s are powered speakers with DSP technology, they have still opted to use passive crossover circuits. I am guessing the reason is that they thought it would be simpler to do that than to pack in four amps, one for each driver. By using a passive crossover circuit, Fluance only needs two amps for the speaker pair. Taking a peek at the crossover circuit, it looks to have six elements, a couple more than what is needed for basic 2nd-order filters, possibly added to pad down the tweeter. That makes it easier for the DSP to smooth out the response on top of the speaker’s native electro-acoustic response. The DSP technology should make it easy for Fluance to attain any kind of target curve that they want in terms of frequency response.

The Ri71 uses two 60-watt RMS class-D amps to power the speakers. That should be plenty of power for loudspeakers of their specs. The spec sheet says THD is less than 0.3%, but it doesn’t say at what drive level. Connectivity for the Ri71s is good, with Bluetooth aptX HD and AAC codecs, left and right analog RCA inputs, and HDMI ARC. HDMI ARC makes the Ri71s a very easy plug-and-play alternative for soundbars. I do wish the Ri71s had optical S/PDIF and USB Audio inputs. That would have given them more flexibility as sound systems for desktop PC setups. The Ri71 has a subwoofer output that, if connected, automatically engages an 80Hz high-pass filter on the speakers. That is a nice touch of bass management for those who want to use subwoofers — a good idea since these modest-sized bookshelf speakers aren’t likely to be deep bass monsters on their own. For those who want bigger bass without needing to add a subwoofer, Fluance has a sister tower speaker called the Ri91 ($800/pair), with two 6.5” woofers. 

There are tone controls that raise or lower the treble or bass by 6dB. That’s a very nice feature that allows the Ri71s to be tuned to the taste of the user. The rear-mounted volume knob is an interesting design. It rises above the top of the speaker so it can easily be adjusted without needing to reach behind. Pushing it in also changes the input being used. It makes it easy to interact with the speaker while keeping a clean front baffle. Other speakers in this class have that control on the front of the speaker. The Ri71 comes with a remote-control unit that has some functions not available on the speaker itself. One remote-control-only function is the ability to swap channels so that the left and right channel signals can be reversed. The remote can also interact with Bluetooth playback by playing, pausing, reversing, and forwarding tracks. It can also adjust the LED status light brightness to full brightness, 25% brightness, or off.

The enclosure looks to be made from ½” MDF paneling. There are some small rubber pads affixed at the bottom to serve as feet. Many products in this category give you the feet separately and give the user the choice of attaching them. Curiously, the tweeter is set in its own sealed compartment within the enclosure. I wouldn’t have thought an AMT would need that since it’s already self-enclosed within its own unit. Possibly, it is just taking up space to provide a more optimal volumetric area for the mid-woofer, or maybe it is designed to stop any kind of interaction between the mid-woofer’s backwaves and the waveguide, since the waveguide isn’t the most overbuilt one around. At the least, it is giving the enclosure more bracing. There is also a cross brace behind the woofer to strengthen the side walls. A front-mounted slot port at the bottom of the cabinet helps with additional bracing, too. There is also some polyfill-type stuffing to help damp internal pressure waves.

 

The ingredients are there for a good loudspeaker system, but we can’t know for sure until we hear it in action for ourselves. So then, let’s see what the Ri71s are like in some real-world listening…

Fluance Ri71 Listening Sessions

In my 24’ by 13’ (approximately) listening room, I set up the speakers a few feet off the back and side walls and with an equal distance between the speakers and the listening position. I angled the speakers to face the listening position. The listening distance from the speakers was about 7 feet. No room correction equalization was used. Processing was done by a Marantz 7705. A MartinLogan Dynamo 12 subwoofer was used when noted.

Music Listening

For Bach aficionados, a celebrated release in the last few years has been Philippe Herreweghe’s direction of Cantatas BWV 6, 99, and 147 in an album aptly titled: Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben - Bach: Cantatas BWV 6-99-147. Herreweghe is a renowned conductor and choirmaster who specializes in baroque music, and in this release, he leads the Collegium Vocale Gent, a vocal ensemble he helped to found in 1970. These cantatas were written in the most productive period of Bach’s life, from 1723 to 1727, when he wrote 150 cantatas among other works in his capacity as cantor of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. It could be argued that the output from this one person in this period is more singularly influential to Western music than anything anyone else has done in history. I listened to these magnificent performances courtesy of Qobuz in a 96kHz/24-bit resolution.

From the first track, it was apparent that this production was going for a close-quarters listening experience, where it was as if the listener were situated at a front-row listening position. The instruments and choral singers all had well-defined placements over a wide soundstage, which is what you would expect to hear at close proximity to an orchestra and choral group. The soundstage projected by the Ri71 speakers was quite good, better than what would be expected from low-cost powered speakers, and light-years beyond anything a soundbar could produce. Tracks featuring sole vocalists had great center imaging with the singer occupying a fairly precise position between the speakers. Instrumental tonality seemed well-balanced, and I didn’t notice emphasis or recession in any frequency band, with the exception of lower bass. While some lower bass was present, it didn’t quite have the oomph that a tower speaker or subwoofer would. Not that anyone should expect that from a small bookshelf speaker with a single 5.25” bass driver. For this music, I would describe the bass reproduction as fine for this type of speaker. For those listeners who want better than fine, there is a subwoofer output that automatically engages an 80Hz high-pass filter when connected. Connecting a subwoofer brought out some more muscle from the double bass and made for a more realistic listening experience. The reproduction of these Bach cantatas from the Ri71s ended up being quite enjoyable and overall better than I would have expected from some small, low-cost active speakers.

  

For something that places emphasis on a single voice, I queued up a brand-new release from rapper PremRock titled Did You Enjoy Your Time Here…?. PremRock has been a presence in New York’s rap scene for years and has released a slew of albums along with a ton of collaborations. His newest album gives us a very clear recording of his voice, which is needed on account of his intricate wordplay and clever lyrics. This album also features a multitude of guests who are given a chance to shine, thanks in part to the top-notch sound engineering. I don’t usually use hip-hop as critical listening material since there is often so much processing and studio layering on top of the vocals, but this production gives us very cleanly-recorded vocals without much post-processing interference. I again streamed this album from Qobuz in high resolution.

The first aspect of the Ri71’s playback of this album was how well-centered PremRock’s voice was in the soundstage. The speakers anchored him dead-center, and what made that more impressive was that I had the speakers pulled up a bit more in my listening room, thereby giving them a wider spread relative to my listening position than typical review units. I had the speakers pulled up a bit closer to my listening position so they wouldn’t have to be run as hard. I didn’t think a nine-foot-plus listening distance would have been fair to the Ri71s because they weren’t intended to be used like that. These speakers aren’t intended to be used in large rooms or long listening distances. The problem with pulling them close is that they have to be spread pretty far apart from each other in order not to block my projection screen display. Of course, that can spread the soundstage fairly wide, and it risks broadening imaging on speakers that don’t have very focused imaging. That wasn’t the case with the Ri71 speakers; they managed tight imaging despite being placed so far apart, as was evidenced on Did You Enjoy Your Time Here…?.

Regarding the tonality of the Ri71 speakers for this album, PremRock’s voice sounded natural and intact. That, combined with the clear imaging, made it seem like PremRock was performing in my living room. The instrumentals, which were largely layered samples from other sources, sounded good, and imaged well over the very wide soundstage. Bass was fine, good for a small stand-mount form factor. Obviously they wouldn’t have endless dynamic range in bass, but they weren’t so short-changed in bass that the music was badly degraded and unenjoyable. Plugging in a subwoofer certainly helped, however this isn’t the kind of rap music that relies on absolutely massive basslines. This music was very lyric-focused, and on that count, I couldn’t fault the Ri71s for anything. Did You Enjoy Your Time Here…? was a terrific listen on these modest speakers. The intricate wordplay was clearly reproduced and not challenging to follow at all on the Ri71s, and those interested in the more high-brow and less pop-music end of rap should give this a listen on a decent speaker system like what Fluance has made here.

One of the greatest artists to use studio trickery as a source of music itself is Oneohtrix Point Never, although his music goes far beyond mere mixing stunts. Again is a 2024 album that demonstrates his mastery over musical instruments as well as the mixing board (metaphorical mixing board — I would guess most of the sound engineering was done in ProTools.) These tracks show what is possible with music and sound when not tethered to conventional soundstages. It is a treat to hear on capable loudspeakers that can image well, so I decided to see how well the Ri71s fared with this foray into the impossible.

The first track, “Elseware,” was a wild one for how normal it was. It was simply a stringed chamber quartet piece with no frenetic edits or strange processing, and it sounded just fine on the Ri71 speakers. The next track is where the album goes into more traditional territory for Oneohtrix Point Never, which is to say completely off the rails, but in the best way possible. It uses a female vocal sample as a note in a fairly intricate composition and overlays it with some odd digital distortion as the track goes on. The Ri71s’ clear soundstage and controlled tonality helped to make it all easy to track. The following track, “Again,” sounded like it was wrangling radio static along with a violin into a tornado of distortion effects along with a vocal; it was probably intended for headphone listening, but the Ri71s’ imaging helped to save it from becoming a blur of noise, and instead made it an enjoyable dive into abstract music. Subsequent tracks likewise took advantage of the Ri71s’ great imaging to show off the bizarre soundscapes conjured by Oneohtrix Point Never. The inclusion of a subwoofer helped quite a bit and greatly increased the sense of “size” of the sound. Oneohtrix Point Never is an artist who uses the entirety of the audible frequency band, so it really helps to have a system that can handle deep bass to high treble with equanimity. The Ri71s aren’t really able to do that on their own, but throwing a subwoofer into the mix helps them to achieve their potential. Oneohtrix Point Never is always a fun listen, and the Ri71s gave this artist’s album a lively presentation with very vivid imaging.

  

To see how the Ri71s could handle stress, I turned to HEALTH with a new edition of their 2023 album Rat Wars. Titled Rat Wars Ultra Edition, it adds four new tracks on top of the selection from the 2023 release. These new tracks are collaborations and covers, so not quite essential HEALTH, but still good enough to be a worthy inclusion on what is already a killer album. HEALTH makes fairly heavy industrial music that demands to be played loud, but will shred a weak speaker at a high enough drive level thanks to heavy bass and scorching lead instruments. It’s aggressive music that is mixed to be played loud, so I decided to see how Fluance’s speakers could handle this stress test.

I cranked the volume, and from the first track onward, the 5.25” mid-woofer was visibly moving pretty fiercely. The Ri71s had their limits in lower bass, and it wasn’t too difficult to reach them. The kick drums and bass lines became fairly muted relative to upper frequencies as I cranked the loudness levels up. I decided to add a subwoofer, and that calmed the motion of the woofer down quite a bit. It also opened up the dynamics of the system. The bass was no longer the choke point of the system. I pushed the system more and was still able to reach the limits of the speakers, but they could actually run at a somewhat loud level continuously and still sound good. At loud levels, hats and snares had a good amount of snap, and the lead synths and guitars could shred pretty nicely. There may have been some distortion creeping in from the speakers being overdriven, but it wasn’t obvious. I don’t think many buyers would encounter the limits of the Ri71s, at least when a subwoofer is also in use. Without a sub, I could see users hitting the limits in bass in some spirited listening. These aren’t speakers meant for house parties or head-banging, but for their intended use and intended buyers, they are more than sufficient, especially with the inclusion of a subwoofer. Rat Wars Ultra Edition sounded pretty good once a subwoofer was added, at least for louder listening. It’s a killer album that deserves a killer system, and the Ri71s can be a part of a killer system if used within their capabilities.

Movie Watching

One movie I had been interested in seeing was the 2024 release Civil War, a depiction of a modern American civil war. While some people were critical about the implausibility of the specific politics of the scenario (Texas and California band together?), other people have lauded how disturbingly realistic it portrayed military conflict taking place between warring citizens in a modern USA. The movie is directed by Alex Garland, who is responsible for two of the best science fiction movies of recent years with Ex Machina and Annihilation, so I decided to give it a chance and figured it would be a good test of a sound mix for a big-budget Hollywood movie.

Civil War turned out to be a less-dry and more-gritty movie than I expected. The sound mix had its share of action, but the standout aspect of it had to be the music score. Much of the music was a selection of post-rock indie stuff that at times matched the tone of the movie and at other times contrasted with the tone. It almost seemed to emulate the way in which classic rock music produced during the Vietnam War turned into a cultural soundtrack for the way so much modern media treats that war. The music all sounded good on the Ri71 speakers, and the speakers helped the music to lend a chaotic atmosphere to the film. One of my favorite moments was the choice to play a classic De La Soul track over a brutal firefight. Dialogue intelligibility was always good, and I didn’t have any problems understanding any speech unless it was deliberately obscured by the sound mix. The effects sounds of the action scenes were nicely detailed and had some liveliness, but they were missing the punch of the larger speakers I am accustomed to. That is fine since the Ri71 speakers aren’t intended for dedicated home theater duty. For a living room system as an alternative for a soundbar, they had a good amount of dynamism, especially when paired with a subwoofer, — certainly better than most soundbars on the market. I enjoyed watching Civil War with the Ri71 speakers. It’s a movie with a terrific soundtrack that deserves to be seen with a capable sound system.

  

One movie that piqued my curiosity was I Saw the TV Glow, a 2024 horror movie from A24 studios, which is about a pair of middle school friends who become obsessed with a creepy old children’s television show. One of the kids goes missing for years, and then returns claiming they were in the show. This movie looked to have a dark psychedelic edge that could provide good opportunities for interesting sound design, so I set out to see what the Ri71 speakers could bring to that kind of experience.

The movie turned out to be an interesting examination of a psyche teetering on the edge of sanity. As in Civil War, the standout element of the sound mix was the music score. The score was a mix of tracks from various rock artists, but lower-tempo stuff like shoegaze and goth rock. The music sounded terrific on the Ri71 speakers (my favorite track: “Photograph” by Drab Majesty). Outside of the music, the sound design sometimes included an unusual decision to boost the sounds of mundane objects such as air conditioning, refrigerators, and background televisions, in order to emphasize the surreality of everyday life. It sounded expansive on the Ri71 speakers, as did the moments of eerie ambience. Dialogue intelligibility was good throughout, even though the main characters tended to mumble and stammer a lot since they have social anxiety issues. Scenes where reality was blurring for our protagonist had an enveloping sound thanks to the Ri71 speakers that made it all the more immersive. I Saw the TV Glow was a spooky little movie that made up for its lack of scares with a unique atmosphere and cool concept. The Fluance Ri71 speakers were a fine sound system to watch this movie with, and better with a subwoofer.

Fluance Ri71 Powered Bookshelf Loudspeaker Measurements

  

The Fluance Ri71 speakers were measured in free air at a height of 7.5 feet at a 1-meter distance from the microphone, and the measurements were gated at an 11-millisecond delay. In this time window, some resolution is lost below 250 Hz and accuracy is completely lost below 110 Hz. Measurements have been smoothed at a 1/24 octave resolution.

 

The above graph shows the direct-axis frequency response and other curves that describe the speaker’s amplitude response in a number of ways. For more information about the meaning of these curves, please refer to our article Understanding Loudspeaker Measurements Part 1. Overall, the Ri71 has a fairly linear response, especially in the tweeter’s bandwidth. There are some imperfections, though; there is some raggedness from about 1.5kHz to 2.5kHz. Since that region is right under the spec’d crossover frequency, I would guess the raggedness stems from some trouble trying to get the tweeter to blend in perfectly with the woofer. The culprit might be the waveguide; it can’t be easy getting a perfect blend with a waveguide like that on an AMT tweeter. AMT tweeters can produce very complex sound fields; putting one into a relatively deep waveguide, and then using a relatively high crossover frequency, was going to be a challenge. The good news is that the raggedness is formed from narrow dips, so it will look a lot worse on a graph than it sounds. I didn’t notice any serious problems in that area in my listening, and I doubt anyone else would unless they were specifically listening for it with certain content. The only other notable attribute that I see is that the tweeter has an ever-so-slight downward tilt in upper frequencies. It’s probably not even enough to call this a “warm” speaker. Overall, it is more neutral than warm.

 

 

The above graphs depict the Ri71’s direct-axis and horizontal dispersion out to a 90-degree angle in five-degree increments. Information on how to interpret these graphs can be read in this article: Understanding Loudspeaker Review Measurements Part II.

In the above graphs, we again see how nicely linear the Ri71 speakers are, aside from the minor crags around 1.5kHz. One thing to note is how well the off-axis responses correspond to the on-axis response. That means this speaker will retain the same sound signature over a wide angle. It also makes the Ri71s a lot easier to handle for equalization, especially auto-EQ systems like Audyssey or Dirac. Having such a broad angle behave so similarly means that the acoustic reflections should greatly resemble the direct sound. That is good news for those trying to integrate speakers into a room that doesn’t have the best or most even acoustics. There is just a lot of good news in the above graphs and not much bad.

 

The above polar map shows the same information as the preceding graphs but depicts it in a way that can offer new insight regarding these speakers’ behavior. Instead of using individual raised lines to illustrate amplitude, polar maps use color to portray amplitude, and this allows the use of a purely angle/frequency axis perspective. The advantage of these graphs is that they can let us see broader trends of the speaker’s dispersion behavior more easily. More information about interpreting this graph can be read in this article: Understanding Loudspeaker Measurements Part II.

In the above graph, we can see that the waveguide does a pretty good job of keeping directivity controlled to a very high frequency. There is some very slight beaming up to about 15kHz, and I think that a large part of that is simply a lowering of amplitude overall from the slight downward tilt of the tweeter’s response. Above 15kHz, the dispersion does narrow a lot, but that happens at too high a frequency to matter for most listeners. And even so, the Ri71 speakers still have a nearly 30-degree width of even energy at 20kHz which is much wider dispersion than most speakers have at such a high frequency. The bottom line for the above graph is that most listeners will want to be within a 60-degree angle within the front-facing direction of the speaker; that is a very wide angle, and I doubt that many people will be trying to listen to a sound system outside of 60 degrees. The Ri71 speakers throw out a wide angle of an even, balanced sound.

 

The above graph shows the Ri71’s response behavior along its vertical axis, where zero degrees is directly in front of the tweeter, negative degree values are below the tweeter, and positive degree values are above the tweeter. One thing to note is that the waveguide squeezes the tweeter’s dispersion more tightly on the vertical axis than the horizontal axis. This is by design, of course, and we can see that the design is working as intended. Like all multi-way speakers where the drivers are separated by distance, we can see some off-axis nulls around the crossover frequency band. They aren’t tremendously restricting on the Ri71, but listeners will want to be within a 10-degree angle above or below the tweeter’s height in order to stay away from the nulls, which would take a bite out of the sound. As with most speakers, I would advise listeners to position the speaker where the listener’s ears are roughly level with the tweeter’s vector.

The above graph shows the Ri71’s low-frequency response captured using ground plane measurements (where the speaker and microphone are on the ground at a 2-meter distance in a wide-open area). The Ri71 has a bass tone control knob, and I have shown responses where the tone control is set to maximum, neutral, and minimum. The bass control knob only moves the bass level about 3dB from its neutral position, and while that will certainly change the sound character, it won’t completely transform the speaker. Nonetheless, it’s not a bad thing to have the choice. With this kind of response exhibited above, I think most people will have a decent bass response down to mid-40Hz in-room. Of course, a 5.25” driver is only capable of moving so much air, so if you crank the volume, the low end will get squeezed first. As we saw in our listening tests, those who want loud, deep bass are going to need to add a subwoofer. One thing I like about this response is that the port output has not been exaggerated in order to give the impression of more bass, as some small bookshelf speakers tend to do. That creates a lot of output over a very short frequency band. In my experience, that can create a droney bass sound. All-in-all, the performance shown above is quite good.

The above graph shows how the treble is affected by the Ri71’s treble tone control. As with the bass tone controls, I have shown responses where the tone control is set to maximum, neutral, and minimum. The treble tone controls offer a bit greater difference in amplitude attenuation than the bass tone controls, and here we see about 5dB swings in output. This can make the Ri71 very hot in treble, very laid back, or just neutral. There are also degrees of attenuation between these ranges since I am only showing the extremes. This is a nice feature to suit personal preferences, and it makes these great speakers for those who like spicy speakers, and for those who like a warmer sound. Personally, I would leave the dial at the neutral position, as that achieves a nicely balanced sound to my ears.

Fluance Ri71 Powered Bookshelf Loudspeaker Conclusion

Before bringing this review to an end, I will briefly go over the strengths and weaknesses of the product under evaluation, and, as always, I will start with the weaknesses. Honestly, I don’t have any serious criticisms of the Fluance Ri71. I do wish its cabinet were a bit more substantive, but it is built in line with its competitors in this price class, all of which are pretty average. I also wish it had a USB Audio input for those who wanted to directly hook the speakers up to computers. The frequency response has a bit of raggedness in the midrange, but overall isn’t bad. The bass can’t keep up at louder listening levels, but there is only so much that can be expected of a single 5.25” mid-woofer. One thing I will say is that a lot of people want grilles with their speakers, and the Ri71 does not have them. Fluance might want to rethink the absence of a grille for these speakers.

 

Without any real criticisms of the Ri71, let’s talk about its strengths. As a loudspeaker, its primary mission is to produce a good sound, and that is what the Ri71 does. While its frequency response is not perfect, it is a relatively neutral speaker, and it doesn’t degrade the sound with any serious spikes or dips. That controlled behavior carries out over a wide angle, so this isn’t a speaker that only sounds good in a small listening area. It can maintain a clean sound at loud enough listening levels for anyone with reasonable expectations, so it has a fairly good dynamic range. Its bass extension is good for a smaller speaker, and users should expect to easily get bass below 50Hz in a medium-sized or smaller room. They can sound bigger than they look, especially when a subwoofer is added.

Outside of its sound quality, the Ri71’s HDMI connectivity and modest size make it a great alternative to a soundbar. Bluetooth and RCA inputs also greatly increase its flexibility to be incorporated into different systems. The subwoofer output jack, along with automatic high-pass filtering, is a big help in achieving a fuller sound and increased dynamic range. It sounds fine without a subwoofer, but it sounds great with one.

Aesthetically, they look fine, and I don’t think many people would object to their appearance in a typical living room. With three different finishes, I think they could be made to fit in almost any interior decor. Their reasonable size will help with other household members accepting them as well. They aren’t tiny speakers, but they aren’t large ones either.

 

The market segment for powered speakers is becoming more popular, and with the many choices out there, I could see the task of deciding which one to get become exasperating. The good news is that Fluance has delivered a solid entry in the Ri71. If you are looking for a modest sound system that can easily be connected to your television, I would definitely take these speakers over almost any soundbar. They also function terrifically as a two-channel system for a bedroom or office stereo as well. I would also guess they could be used as desktop computer speakers very nicely. If you are interested in giving them a try before purchasing, Fluance offers a 30-day tryout period where they can be returned within 30 days for any reason for a full refund. Fluance will even pay for the return shipping. I would encourage shoppers to give them a try, since I enjoyed my time spent with the Ri71s.

The Score Card

The scoring below is based on each piece of equipment doing the duty it is designed for. The numbers are weighed heavily with respect to the individual cost of each unit, thus giving a rating roughly equal to:

Performance × Price Factor/Value = Rating

Audioholics.com note: The ratings indicated below are based on subjective listening and objective testing of the product in question. The rating scale is based on performance/value ratio. If you notice better performing products in future reviews that have lower numbers in certain areas, be aware that the value factor is most likely the culprit. Other Audioholics reviewers may rate products solely based on performance, and each reviewer has his/her own system for ratings.

Audioholics Rating Scale

• — Excellent
• — Very Good
• — Good
• — Fair
• — Poor

Metric	Rating
Build Quality
Appearance
Treble Extension
Treble Smoothness
Midrange Accuracy
Bass Extension
Bass Accuracy
Imaging
Dynamic Range
Fit and Finish
Performance
Value