Al's Presonus Air 12 active speaker review

A first review of my NEW Presonus Air 12 active speakers. Compact, lightweight, clean looking and LOUD - these speakers will be excellent for DJs, musicians and simply those looking for a very affordable and EASY TO MOVE active speaker that has a neat tilt feature and 6 year warranty on top of it!

[@DjPetroni]

Thanks for the great review, really nice sounding speakers for the money, in UK at the moment they are around £392 free shipping! Excellent value for the money

[@Mr.Brolic]

I had the preSonos ult 18 sub amazing sub great sound great build

[@Tim_ArtistName_Tallent]

Very curious about these subs, could u tell me a little about how you used them and their performance?// sound signature? Thanks !

[@Mr.Brolic]

@@Tim_ArtistName_Tallent used as dj I have short video on my channel. They are built great warming sounding once you get your gain correct they hit hard they get low but do better with higher frequencies great subs only reason I don’t have mine is because I sent it back to get fixed and the company destroyed it and they didn’t have another one to give me so they just gave me my money back and I couldn’t find one at the price I paid $900

[@joefunsmith]

Good review Al. (ampnation)

[@alpoulin1]

Thank you very much my friend! I am still playing with these, they are very interesting. They get extremely loud for their size, but I'm still dialing them in it seems. I play with the EQ quite often depending on the song, and while I put up the top end and mids a bit at lower volumes, I often bring them down at higher volumes - it's like the speakers come alive at higher volumes... The Yamahas and RCFs do sound a little better overall (better balanced) to my ears, but for their size and weight, the little Air 12s really put out and are impressive! Loads of headroom.

[@rjermayne]

Can you compare this to DXR12?

[@alpoulin1]

Very comparable overall output wise in spite of the difference in specs. Better warranty on the Yamaha. Presonus goes a little deeper while the DXR12 has more natural highs and mids. Better mixer section on the DXR. Both are great over subs or will handle smaller DJ events (100 people or so) stand alone.

[@rjermayne]

Thanks for the response. I'm assuming that DXR are louder?

[@alpoulin1]

@@rjermayne If you only look at the manufacturer's numbers, especially max SPL, you would absolutely think so, but in real world application the difference is much less than you would imagine. Both the DXR12 and Presonus Air 12 have roughly 700 continuous watts available to a 1.4'' compression and quality 12'' woofer, both with 2.5'' voice coils. So, while they do sound different and the Yamaha has better processing / mixer section and warranty - in application, both will actually perform very similarly output wise. I've used the Air 12s stand alone and with my DXS12 mkii subs at a few weddings already and they perform spectacularly. The Presonus also do go deeper and sound fuller (with some eq applied), while the Yamahas sound more natural in the mids and top end. I find the Presonus seem to need some eq here and there depending on the song, while the Yamahas are simply more ear pleasing and balanced out of the box. Once the volume goes up however, the differences are less noticeable and both get surprsingly loud.

[@rjermayne]

@@alpoulin1 Thank you very much for such a valuable information. Appreciated it. ✌️