A fantastic, multi-talented wireless speaker that delivers in almost every way
Wireless speaker | £450 | whf.cm/AudioPro_C20
Can a one-box speaker really do it all? In recent years, a few brands have proved that, actually, they can – with products such as the Naim Mu-so and Sonus Faber Omnia among them.
Now, Audio Pro fancies dipping its toe into this market with the C20 – its biggest, most powerful and most impressively specified speaker to date. It wants to do it all across a range of wired and wireless inputs, to give you supreme listening flexibility for under £500. That is a lofty ambition, so how does it fare?
This is the flagship speaker of Audio Pro’s popular C-Series. At £450 it isn’t exactly cheap – but then neither are the products that offer a similar list of features. Consider the likes of the Naim Mu-so 2, which now retails for around £899, or the Sonus Faber Omnia, which would set you back a whopping £1599.
The Audio Pro C20 looks a lot like, well, pretty much every other Audio Pro wireless speaker that has come before it. It is very simple and very Scandi – a straightforward rectangular box with all clean lines and very little in the way of flash or flourish. Minimalist fans rejoice.
We have the Soft Satin White finish in for review, but the wooden cabinet also comes in a choice of Stylish Grey or Classic Black. Up top, there is a chrome control panel (silver on our white sample, but gold on the grey and a gunmetal colour on the black), and it comes with a magnetic removable fabric grille, so you can choose to hide the striking driver design now synonymous with the brand, should you so wish.
At 20 x 41 x 22cm and 6.2kg, this is a big, weighty speaker and so once set up, is very likely to stay put. There is no battery power here as there is in the C20’s smaller C3 sibling, so there’s no leather handle for moving it around.
That makes sense, but we do miss having the handle a bit. It means you will have to bear hug the C20 into position.
As with all Audio Pro products, there’s no question here when it comes to build quality – it’s top notch. Everything feels solid, from the cabinet build and paint finish to the confident clickiness of the buttons on the control panel.
As far as physical connections are concerned, on the back panel you will find a set of RCA inputs, a moving-magnet phono stage for your turntable, an optical out for digital sources, an HDMI ARC for connecting to your TV and a sub out for adding a subwoofer.
