Philips Fidelio FA3 review: powerful speakers that need to learn some restraint
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If you’re looking for a decent pair of functional stereo speakers, you’re not short of options. The compact and affordable Ruark MR1 Mk3 (£399 / $579 / AU$899) and the Onkyo GX-30ARC (£339 / $349 / AU$649), not to mention the more expensive KEF Coda W (£799 / $1000 / AU$1450) which bring the promise of signature built-in amplification, Bluetooth streaming and more physical connectivity.
Now it is the turn of Philips and its Fidelio FA3 active speakers to see if it can enter this market. At around £349 / $399 / AU$499, the FA3 costs about the same as its Onkyo and Ruark rivals, and while the Ruarks get much of their appeal from their compact size and engaging music, the Onkyo gets a five-star award for its solid performance and outstanding versatility. The large KEF Coda W, on the other hand, is for anyone looking for a significant increase in sound quality for a very large sum.
A lot of bases were covered then, and it all leads to one important question: does the Fidelio FA3 offer anything that its best-in-class competitors have covered?
Build & draw
The Fidelio FA3 is on the larger side of what you’d typically find in active speakers at this price – if anything, they could outshine dedicated hi-fi standmounts. Standing around 30cm tall, they dwarf their Onkyo GX-30ARC rivals by 22cm in height, all while making the 18.5cm Ruark MR1 Mk3 look tame in comparison.
Specifications of Philips Fidelio FA3 tech
Bluetooth? Yes (5.4)
Bluetooth codecs are supported SBC, AAC, LDAC
Input RCA line level, Optical, USB-C, HDMI ARC
Output: N/A
Dimensions (hwd) 30 x 17 x 21cm
Weight 3.4kg (each)
It ends x 1 (black)
They are big animals, but they are not badly made. The overall build quality feels impressive, while the speaker’s main body shines proudly with its glossy black finish. That glossy black exterior gives the FA3 a sleek aesthetic, even if it leaves them vulnerable to harsh fingerprints. Oh, and we hope you like that color, because it’s the only one available right now.
Unlike its main competitors, the Fidelio FA3 eschews a master-slave configuration – where one speaker takes power and shares it via a wired connection to its companion – in favor of both units receiving power through two separate bases. That can cause its own problems, as you’ll need two plug sockets available to keep your speakers firing, and the supplied power cords are a bit on the short side at around 140cm each.
The main speaker houses most of the inputs and buttons, including the power button, volume dial and source selector, both speakers use a small LED indicator on the bottom. It’s nice to have those color-changing LEDs that show which source you’ve selected, but wouldn’t it be more user-friendly to mount a volume dial on the front of one of the boxes? As it is, it’s just a small dial hidden on the back panel of the main speaker.
The FA3 speakers come with a dedicated remote for selecting desired inputs, adjusting volume, controlling playback and adjusting treble and bass levels, and while that remote is a little plasticky, it’s about what we’d expect at this price. There’s also a set of magnetically attached cooling grilles that cover the main drive units rather than the entire front of each speaker, a smart decision that preserves the overall aesthetic of the FA3.
Inside, each speaker is powered by 50 watts of Class D power, with dedicated internal loudspeakers powering a 25mm titanium dome tweeter and a 12.7cm glass-fibre mid/bass unit to pursue “breathtaking power and sound creation”. Bass performance, as you’ll find when you turn on your speakers, is tuned through the main port on the back of each unit.
Features
For convenience, Bluetooth is the only way you’ll get a wireless connection from your system to your source device, with standard AAC and SBC sitting alongside the high-quality LDAC codec if you have a compatible source.
Portable connectivity includes an RCA stereo input alongside an optical input, as well as a USB-C option if you want to connect directly to your laptop or smartphone. For connecting to a television, the Fidelio FA3 also has an HDMI ARC port.
That logically strong connection, even if the lack of independent 3.5mm aux input, sub out or any phono stage for connecting the turntable means that Philips lags behind the extensive suite offered by the do-it-all Onkyo GX-30ARC.
The speakers themselves can be connected to each other wirelessly or with a coaxial cable. All digital input sources will be able to handle files up to 24-bit/192kHz, but regardless of the input, note that the Philips speaker will downscale all non-hi-res files up to 24-bit/96kHz resolution.
To control your Fidelio FA3 and discuss the best points of your experience, you’ll want to grab the Philips Entertainment app. Here, you’ll find a reasonably wide range of useful knobs, including an in-depth seven-band equalizer and some digitally mapped to the virtual remote.
The sound
We begin our testing by sampling the FA3’s Bluetooth capabilities, streaming music from Tidal after placing the speakers on our office desk.
The sound we get is powerful and meaty, but that meaty goodness comes with a lot of fat that could do with some serious cutting. Even if it’s Goose’s funky Very Ready, Hans Zimmer’s epic Why Do We Fall? or refined Radiohead Mathematics, the speakers sound loose and uncharacteristic, with a heavy-handed bass that lacks aural accuracy or clarity.
Voices come through with enough volume, and we see a real charm and bite filled with a wide range of admirable detail. This is not a punchy or loud sound, but the speaker’s weighty and impressive style gives it real muscle Why Do We Fall? giving the titanic track a real sense of epic drama.
The problem is at the low end. The deep bass bursts at the beginning of the Very Ready, for example, it doesn’t sound like any particular instrument, and while we know that something played, and that it comes from the lower registers, there is little evidence that this is the unmistakably loud twang of a bass guitar.
Tweaking the supplied equalizer can take a little effort at the end, but it can’t fix what is clearly a poorly defined and unclear sound. Yes, there is a sound, but it’s too much power for a 20oz heavyweight glove compared to the razor jab of a dancing featherweight.
All of this wears us down, so we bend the safety of the USB-C cable to see if we can put a pep in the Fidelio FA3s step. It’s a good choice, and while the main character of the Philips system remains, we find that those flaws are slightly reduced by the introduction of a good old-fashioned phone connected to our Lenovo Thinkpad laptop.
Everything sounds tighter and clearer with this wired connection, allowing what is a wonderfully detailed midrange to shine through more clearly, and while that bass is still oppressive like a strict mother turning to her daughter’s first disco, at least it has more texture and precision this time around. There’s plenty of space around the notes being played, and the music hangs together smoothly – far from perfect, but better than ever.
Slightly encouraged by the FA3’s USB-C performance, we enlisted the services of the trusty Cyrus CDi CD player on Philips’ RCA stereo input, finding that the system can accommodate a more capable source player than a typical work laptop.
The visual input transition shows that the Philips DAC is respectable, even if we still see a noticeable drop in performance when moving from the capable Cyrus DAC to the Philips one. That’s not entirely surprising, as the Cyrus CDi, while advanced for its age, will still set you back around £1000.
Whatever the source, the Fidelio FA3 doesn’t have the chops to challenge the best in class. Admittedly, the powerful Ruark MR1 Mk3 speakers sound smaller than the FA3, but they’re also a more subtle, sweeter and more expressive proposition than their larger rivals, bending and flexing to accommodate a wider musical mood and feel rather than just jamming it into a certain, one-way way.
Similarly, the Onkyo GX-30ARC lacks the burly sonic brawn of the Fidelio FA3, but those faults are easily remedied with a clear, clean sound and clever handling of those key bass frequencies.
No matter which competitor we compare Philips with, it just feels so ridiculous to compete with the class leaders – a bit like a trained choir in a windy church, a happy football fan going out. Sweet Caroline in the fields.
The decision
The Philips Fidelio FA3 has its moments. They can feel bold, powerful and muscular for what is a decent amount of money, with a solid array of connectivity options that offer decent flexibility for the money.
The problem with FA3 is that comparable price competitors tend to give you a lot of bang for your buck. Whether it’s the wide range of connections from the Onkyo GX-30ARC or the superior Ruark MR1 Mk3, we’re struggling to see where the Fidelio fits into the current landscape.
POINTS
MORE:
Read our review of Ruark Audio MR1 Mk3
Think again about Onkyo GX-30ARC
The best active speakers: our experts choose the best pairs with integrated amplifiers
