The Boston Acoustic A360 might make a shortlist of speakers when it comes to listening to music, but will likely disappoint those wanting to feel in the midst of an action movie. While we no longer test full speaker sets, we do have a guide to the best soundbars to help you enhance your entertainment audio.
Boston Acoustics A 360 review - Drivers
The Boston Acoustic A 360 is a set of floor standing speakers that features two 6.5-inch ceramic glass low-frequency drivers, one 3.5-inch mid-range driver and a 1-inch tweeter. This four-speaker design makes for an incredibly accurate and flat frequency response. Speakers with a flat response are good for listening to music that was recorded, mixed and mastered in high fidelity.
Boston Acoustics A 360 review - Sound quality
In our music-listening test conducted by our panel of audiophiles, the Boston Acoustic A 360 received consistently good scores. Using a clip of Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” as part of the test - a song with outstanding recorded and mixed audio - the A 360 conveyed the quality recording with little to no coloration. In fact, the A 360 were arguably the most accurate pair of speakers we tested.
Unfortunately, the speakers were not so impressive in the movie-listening test, in which we chose to play “Mad Max: Fury Road” - a film containing a plethora of loud action scenes with amazing sound effects. In this instance, the A 360’s accuracy did not lend itself well to those action-packed scenes, with one panelist describing the speakers as “boring”.
Accurate speakers are great for listening to music, but when you sit down to watch a movie in your home theater, you need ones that can excite and convey emotion. Ultimately, the A 360 were lacking in the mid-range and bass frequencies compared to the best performer in our movie test, the Emotiva T1.
An 89 dB sensitivity rating puts the A 360 near the bottom of our lineup for speaker efficiency. A less efficient speaker needs to be supplied more amplification to deliver content at the same volume as a more efficient speaker. When listening to the A 360, we had to turn our AV receiver up approximately 15 percent higher to achieve the same volume as the most efficient speakers in our test.
In terms of aesthetics, the Boston Acoustic A 360s are available in either a black or white finish, giving a couple of options to help them blend in with your home décor.
Should you buy the Boston Acoustics A 360 speakers?
The Boston Acoustic A 360 play music with such a high level of accuracy that you get a glimpse into what the sound engineer may have heard while mixing an album. However, sadly, that level of accuracy isn’t desirable for someone who wants to watch movies with over-the-top sound effects and action scenes.
