Definitive Technology AW6500 Outdoor Speaker - 6.5-inch Woofer, 200 Watts, Built for Extreme Weather, Single, White

I've owned these for 4 years and they continue to sound great. I have two other Definitive speakers in my surround sound system and these sound as good as or better than them. The bass is so good that neighbors ask me where the sub woofer is. A couple things to note: It takes about 30 hours of break-in listening for the sound to really shine. The speakers (and the bass) sound best with 100 watts rms or more per channel and high-quality source material. You can really hear the difference in hi res sound files (24/96 or 24/192). For the best sound don't use Apple airplay as it's limited to 16 bit and 44.1k playback (it down samples higher res sound files). Suggest connecting with the largest gauge speaker wire you can afford, especially for runs over 20 feet. The difference between 14 and 10 gauge is audible in the bass. Check out Belden 5T00UP 10 gauge. I wouldn't recommend using anything less than 14 gauge wire even for short runs. Listening more than 45 degrees off-axis the speakers sound a little boxy due to high frequency directionality and attenuation. This is the only real flaw I've found. This means there is smallish "sweet spot" between the speakers with the best sound, especially if you sit close to the speakers. Moving further away, angling the speakers inward, or moving the speakers closer together will fix this. To increase the bass response mount the speaker where the bass can reflect off a solid surface. Under the eaves is good but I have mine sitting on a piece of stone in a raised garden about 3' off the ground. See photo. If you have them connected to your surround sound system set the speaker size to large. The speakers are weather resistant but not waterproof. Mount them in a place that's shielded from direct rain and snow. I have mine on the ground and place covers over them when it rains. If they're exposed to rain, the interiors will fill up with water and it takes a while for it to evaporate as there aren't drain holes or you have to turn them upside down and shake out the water. The speakers weren't damaged when this happened. These are great speakers, especially for the money. You'll love 'em. UPDATE: April 2021 After almost 8 years one of the speakers has failed. Woofer and midrange don't work, only the tweeter. Opened it up and there is a some corrosion inside from water intrusion. The crossover board still looks good though, which I suspect is the problem. Going to contact DT to see if they sell a crossover board. Will update with results. Also...there are a lot of 1* reviews from people who bought this speaker from a 3-party seller. I suspect that what's being sold is a counterfeit speaker. Only buy these from Amazon. They sound great, and are well made, but unfortunately only water resistant, not 100% water tight. Keep them protected from direct contact with rain and snow.

My set did not have the stickers that have been mentioned earlier, just the easily relocatable badges. You will want the badges very visible, otherwise people will be regularly asking you who made the speakers and where you got them from. Read and follow the directions, especially regarding positioning. The directions are very easy to follow, but if you don't follow the recommendations in locating the speakers properly for the space you are putting them into you could end up compromising the performance of these excellent speakers. Mounting them was a breeze. I mounted mine horizontally under a small shed roof attached to the side of the house with the tweeter and mid aimed straight out over the patio and the bass aimed at 45 degrees down. This reflects sound from under the shed roof so that it acts as a resonating chamber. This has the effect of projecting clear, well defined bass across the patio as if you were indoors in a music room. I had them installed and playing within 2 hours of opening the box.This included spending much time experimenting to get the positioning right, and a run to buy wall anchors. Hanging and wiring them took 20 minutes. The mark of a good speaker is not having to turn it up to have accurate bass reproduction. I was a little concerned that I might need a subwoofer to fill in the space adequately, but as it turns out, the AW6500's do a better job than the old 2.1 system they replaced. Even at very low frequencies the bass is solid, tight and clear without rumble or thumps. For the bass frequencies, these speakers exceeded my hopes and expectations by quite a bit. As described above, if you set them up properly, the bass projects out and surrounds you outdoors as if you were indoors. Nothing like it. The mid and high ranges were just as clear and defined, and also widely exceeded my expectations. I listen to opera, blues, rock, symphonies, jazz. In all genres these speakers are revealing details I had never heard before, even on my main system. If you are someone who wants to be outdoors but still have a high quality concert hall experience and savor the details of whatever music you listen to, you will not regret spending the money one bit. Take the time to read the manual. It is a short and easy read. It is absolutely crucial that you take the time to experiment with placement. It at all possible, use a wall or porch for the sound to resonate against. If you follow the very simple recommendations in the manual and use a hard surface or enclosure, like a porch, shed roof or wall, you will be rewarded with rich, clear and defined sound. If you just stick them up on a pole or tree somewhere without considering the acoustics, they will probably sound fine, too, but you will be cheating yourself and your guests out of a sublime experience.

I installed these about two years ago. These baby's rock. They are installed on the outer portion of a covered patio, so they get a lot of exposure to the elements. Rain, and hot Texas sun. They are holding up great and sound as good as or better than when they were new (due to break-in). I don't buy into the cable marketing hype. I paid around $50 bucks for 100 feet of 12 AWG Wire from Big Box store. Nothing fancy, just wire on a black plastic spool. I bought one spool of 25' red, and one 25' green, to keep the polarities straight. Same cable different color. If I would have bought 16 AWG Monster (the largest they had, but the plastic sheathing on the Monster Cable was so thick that it looked bigger than the 12 AWG wire, and the wire itself looked thick because the clear plastic that Monster uses to sheath their cables magnifies the internal cable to make it look bigger. Wow.) It would have run me over $650. For smaller wire. Savings for not believing the hype=$600 The length of your run should determine the gauge of your wire. Basically, the longer your run, the larger (smaller number) the diameter of your wire. I found the following information on Crutchfield's website that may be of use to those of you who want to run your wire for these speakers. Speaker Wire Lengths (Crutchfield) Distance from speaker to amplifier: Less than 80 feet, 16 Gauge 80 to 200 ft, 14 Gauge more than 200'12 Gauge. I could have gone with 14 AWG at my lengths, but I didn't think it would hurt go up in size. I've since read that using too large (smaller number) of a cable gauge can hurt performance, but there is so much conflicting information out there when it comes to home audio, I sometimes don't know what to believe. Anyway, they are outdoor speakers for ambiance and party time. I'm not as concerned with accurate audio reproduction with these as I am about my indoor speaks. Anyhow, so I ran the lines from my receiver, to the outside, along the covered patio perimeter, and terminated them with banana plugs, made a bend in the wire for a rain drip and plugged them in. These speakers sound great, especially for having no acoustics in the outside. Definitive Technologies recommends installing them next to an eave with the low range speaker aimed at the wall, for best bass response. Mine are out in the open, the bass response isn't booming, but I'm not complaining. If I really want bass I can turn on the subwoofer that is next to the patio inside connected to my main syste and have it play, that gives a lot of bass response you can really feel outside. As far as volume, I've never turned them all the way up, I've never needed too. Outside in the summer during the day we've been known to crank it up and it's plenty loud for hanging in the pool and party times. This would be an area of about 60ft x 40 ft. Thanks for reading, good luck on your speaker purchase.

It's is unfair to compare these against other outdoor speakers that only have mids and highs. There is just no comparing the sound quality and increased robustness at the low end. I'm pushing a pair of these in stereo with a Yamaha RXV-685 (wifi with remote app), which can only do ~90w/channel. But even at 50% volume setting, these things are rocking the neighborhood. They sound very good at low volume, but (when the wife isn't home) cranking them up seems to awaken their true potential. Much better than my old solution of bringing out my little Bluetooth speaker. I listen to a wide variety of music, and it all sounds good (EDM, Country, Rock, R&B, Classical/Soundtracks, Latin, Reggae, etc.). I did purchase these as a warehouse deal, which I felt was a little edgy. Bit happy to say both units came in pristine condition, and looked like the box had been opened and shut without taking them out of the box (maybe they ordered the wrong color?) And the discount was nice too. I installed them horizontally, with the radiators facing up towards the soffit. It seems to reflect the sound evenly, and distribute across the yard nicely. Only negative thing I can say is that the mounting bracket attaches directly to the wall with mounting hardware (2x TapCons each in my case). At elevated bass levels, there is a slight rattle/vibration. I discovered this to be due to the bracket vibrating against the wall at the bottom side of the bracket (no matter how tight the mounting screws are). A foam pad may help solve this problem, but requires me to uninstall to apply a pad, then reinstall with new anchors. Also, this may be due to installing horizontally vs. vertically - but I'm not reorienting them. Next time I'll install with a pad. Overall, very happy with these. They are on every time I'm in the backyard (basically every day) for hours at a time, and blend in nicely. Updated: 1 year in. I have these mounted outside on an exposed patio (no roof cover), and I'm in Florida. I would classify this as an abusive environment. Happy to report they still perform wonderfully.

Great sounding speakers - be sure to set the crossover in your receiver to feed these beauties at the 40 Hz limit they are rated for! I have these vertically installed and I will say that they sound great, but why only 4 stars you ask? My expectation after coming from the Yamahas at almost one quarter of the cost was significantly more bass. These have more to be sure, but do not expect to send visible soundwaves through your water glass...a la Jurassic Park. I am considering building MDF corners around the speakers as their current installation is wall mounted on the redwood deck without any corner to bounce bass off of. More to follow if I get motivated and IF it makes a difference. 2020 update - a crossover failed just within the 5 year warranty period. I contacted DT to figure out next steps and was greeted with solid responses on diagnosing the parts. Yes I had to do so myself, which was in my wheelhouse, so ok I can do that. After determining the problem was the crossover, I was asked to provide all the purchase information...also no problem. The catch was event though purchased through Amazon, which is authorized, the reseller through Amazon was not authorized, so initially no warranty. Back and forth with DT followed and they were ok - I just needed to order a $24 part. Cool. Well after almost 30 minutes on their phone system, I gave up on getting to the right person to order from. I left it there for a week. Fast forward to yesterday...the crossover arrived! I guess they wanted to be cool about the whole Amazon mix up and honor the warranty claim gratis. Thank you DT - the gesture is appreciated!

I just got one speaker to try them out and it did not have any sticker on the speaker, yay. It looks like this company listens to its customers. Oh, and the speakers are very good. I'm ordering 3 more to have a total of 4. They sound very good at low volume and at high volume. They have good base and good mid/high rang, very well balanced in my opinion. The wife gave a thumbs up and that's hard to do. I have been looking for good outdoor speakers that are worth the money and considerably better than what I have now: Bose 151. They are also better than the Bose 251 and several other brands. Most of the outdoor speakers do not give good bass without going overboard and distorting the sound; this speaker does, nice clear sound and is well balanced, good bass. In short this fit the bill. If you by them, I do not think you will be sad. I am particular picky with speakers on low volume settings and this one works very well. Most speakers sound good at mid to high volume. If you really what to see if a speaker is good turn the volume down and after you find the one that sounds the best at low volume, then turn it up. It's the best way to see what you are getting for your money and to piss off the salesman that only wants to push the high margin stuff. So if you want to have good, clear, loud music for the party and then enjoy mood music by the outdoor fire or hot tub this is the ticket. If you're like me then spend the little extra and get the AW6500 they are more efficient and play bass lower so you will get a better / broader sound at low volume and they will get louder than the AW5500 at the same watts. Also you're going to like the extra bass at party time. Note: in the directions they say you can paint the white speaker as long as you mask off certain parts. It's all in the directions.

I bought these speakers due to the advertised fully sealed, year round, weather proof capability and touted sound quality. When new, the speakers sounded good but were lacking in bass. Plenty of volume, mid-range and highs. Unfortunately, after a few years the speakers both stopped working. Troubleshooting with the Definitive support required me to spend hours personally taking the speakers apart, swapping tweeters, mid-range speakers and cross-overs between them. Upon getting these components out I noticed there was rust on all of these components, so they are definitely not waterproof and sealed to the extent they are touted. On top of this, Definitive would not stand by the manufacturer warranty on the speakers because they were sold by an Amazon reseller and not Amazon direct. Very bad experience for the consumer as there was no detail on the Amazon product listing that these were not covered by the manufacture warranty. Speakers shipped in fully sealed packaging with Definitive's warranty card inside. Definitive offered to sell me the replacement speakers that was equivalent to 2/3 the cost of the original speakers. Given how short they lasted before failing and not being waterproof, I chose to pass and move on to a more dependable product and company. Don't waste your money on these.

After reading the many positive reviews here, I bought a pair of AW 6500s in white as open-box specials for $190 each and they arrived in perfect working order. I mounted them horizontally about 12 feet apart a few inches beneath the eaves overhanging our back deck so they have some protection from the weather. It was simple to paint them according to the instructions provided and mounting them with the included brackets was also a snap, the biggest installation challenge was snaking shielded 14-gauge speaker cables through our attic to connect them to an amp inside the house. I'm using an old (pre-HDMI) Sony STR-DE615 receiver rated at 100 watts RMS per channel into 8 ohms to drive the speakers. The input source is a Logitech Squeezebox Touch audio streaming device, which is connected wirelessly to our home media server and controlled by apps on our phones. I'm pretty fussy about sound, but I really couldn't be happier with the performance of these speakers given their price and weather resistance. In particular, the bass output is pretty phenomenal considering the bass/mid drivers are only 6 1/2" and I have the cabinets mounted 7 feet up (the drivers are slanted downward toward the deck with the passive radiators pointing up toward the eaves). All genres of music I've played so far sound great throughout our back yard at modest volume levels, and paired with this receiver I can crank them up much louder than my neighbors would appreciate before hearing noticeable distortion. I haven't auditioned any other outdoor speakers so I don't have a basis to compare these to competitors' offerings, but they're definitely a huge step up from the portable Apple stereo I was lugging outside for music and it's hard for me to imagine anything in this price range sounding better!

I have a pair of Klipsch AW 650 outdoor speakers which are amazing. Added a second zone in my backyard with the Definite Audio AW6500 outdoor and they have amazing Bass and balanced sound as well. I am running them on a legacy stereo Harmin Kardon 120 Watt per channel AMP and using AirPlay 2 device by Belkin. Placement is key to maximize Bass and Wall / Corners are best. I have these in a metal Gazebo and the sound is very good. Highly Recommend these speakers. You don’t need a subwoofer with either ones.

Se oyen fantástico, la potencia es súper buena. Las tengo en un jardín grande y lo cubre perfectamente. Las tengo con un amplificador Yamaha. Y las conecte con el cable de Amazon que trae el recubrimiento blanco me parece que de calibre 14. Sin duda una de las mejores bocinas que tengo…

Caixa ótimo custo benefício para áreas externas.

Produto de excelente qualidade, que proporciona graves diferenciados dos outros modelos e marcas.

Believe it or not, I installed these on my Polaris RZR900 with a Kenwood BT marine amp and it sounds amazing plus it loud and clear with great bass. I would think these would rock your patio or pool area.