Audio Pro A10 MkII review: An absolutely solid speaker

(Pocket-lint) – There’s always room in this world for a good, solid speaker – you don’t need endless bells and whistles to justify your position if the core sound quality is good enough. That’s something Audio Pro figured out quite a while ago, and it’s continuing to pump out great speakers regularly. Its latest set of updates add a few more connection options to existing speaker silhouettes, and the A10 MkII is another accomplished example.

Our quick take

The Audio Pro A10 MkII does exactly what it needed to – it maintains the extremely high audio quality standards that Audio Pro has set for itself, while adding some more cutting-edge (or just plain current) connection options.

This makes it easy to integrate into a multiroom setup, or a good choice if you’re building a new one, and its design means that you can rely on it to keep people’s attention where you want it – on your banging playlist. We wish it hadn’t had an admittedly modest price boost, but there’s no holding back the sound quality here.

Audio Pro A10 MkII

4.5 stars – Pocket-lint recommended

For

• Great sound
• Nice classy design
• Solid connectivity

Against

• A little pricey
• Design doesn’t wow

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Design

• Available in grey and white
• 193 mm by 140 mm
• Fabric cover with metallic top and buttons

Audio Pro’s speakers are rarely loud visually, but the smaller they get, the more inconspicuous and classy they are, in our opinion. That means the A10 MkII, one of its smallest models, is a sleek and refined speaker that doesn’t draw the eye.

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Whether you pick it up in dark grey or white, you’ll be getting a speaker that has something of its Scandinavian heritage on show, lending itself to minimalist setups but obviously fitting in fine in more eclectic surroundings as well.

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The “fabric all over” look is one that admittedly hardly feels unique at this stage, and there isn’t a huge amount to show the untrained eye that this isn’t a more inexpensive Alexa-laden speaker from Amazon, but the sound quality takes care of that, as we’ll come to later.

On top of the speaker there are some controls for manual use, metallic buttons to let you play and pause, start pairing the speaker, or swap between any of four manual presets. The lack of two track skipping buttons makes this only somewhat useful, but it’s still a sold array. There are also some LED lights to let you know where your audio is being sourced from, as well as a row to show you how close to the speaker’s maximum volume you’re riding.

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On the underside of the speaker is a mounting point to let you wall or ceiling mount it with relative ease, something that could be attractive to those who don’t want a speaker taking up any actual surface space in their home.

The A10 MkII changes nothing about its predecessor’s looks, which is fine by us – it isn’t a groundbreaking speaker on the design front, but it’s well built and has a solidity to its which is reassuring.

Sound performance

• 55-20000 Hz frequency response
•  1 x 1.25? BMR driver, 1 x 3? long throw woofer

Audio Pro repeats the trick it’s managed in most of its speakers that we’ve tested – the A10 MkII sounds pretty superb, with a full and rich sound profile that’s more than capable of tackling a wide range of genres without hiccoughs. Firstly, for those who care, this thing can get really loud, way beyond what makes for comfortable listening in regular-sized rooms.

If you need to fill a big room it’ll be far more capable than its sound indicates, and pairing a couple for stereo play would let you fill seriously chunky spaces.

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We smashed out Danger Mouse’s Cheat Codes and found the A10 MkII a perfect pairing with its mellow but full beats, giving the album a fullness that really adds to its relaxed lookout – that richness was repeated when we turned to guitar riffs and drums on rock playlists. Giving it some acoustic material wasn’t a tripping hazard, either, with some early Laura Marling sounding nice and raw but still detailed and balanced despite the relative lack of low-end oomph. Going gothic with the swooping Elden Ring soundtrack showed that orchestral material was no obstacle either.

In short, this is a really capable multi-genre speaker that is perfect for those who have eclectic taste, with a balance to it that makes is nice and adaptable. Stretching that volume to its upper limits didn’t reveal any distortion either, so it should be able to flex according to your needs.

Features and connectivity

• Apple AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Audio Pro Multiroom, Spotify Connect support
• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3.5mm inputs

The big improvements to the A10 MkII versus its older counterpart are in the connectivity department, with AirPlay 2 and Google Cast joining the party to make it way, way easier to quickly hook it up to wireless sound from your phone, tablet or other device.

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This, indeed, works like a dream, with the Audio Pro app also making setup super easy, and the speaker holding a Wi-Fi signal nice and reliably even if we moved it around the house. It’s not a wire-free speaker, since you do need to power it from the mains, but that plug is nice and unobtrusive.

The option of a 3.5mm input means that, if you need to, you can always fall back on good old-fashioned wired audio, too, and Bluetooth rounds out your options in a way that covers all of the key bases in our opinion. Adding a second speaker for stereo pairing is nice and simple using the app, which also lets you adjust bass and treble levels to tune your sound a little, although this isn’t quite a full EQ system. Still, it’s more than some others on the market offer.

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That said, the additional connection options have brought the price of the A10 MkII up a little, and that’s slightly disappointing.

While the new options are welcome, they’re hardly ground-breaking, instead bringing the speaker into line with what you’d want to see on any new multiroom speaker. If Audio Pro could have avoided this price hike, it would have had an even more resounding success on its hands, we feel. squirrel_widget_12854779

To recap

This is a really capable speaker that adds a few welcome connectivity options to cement its place as a great audio option – but its price rise makes it a slightly less attractive proposition. Writing by Max Freeman-Mills.

Editing by Verity Burns.