Review Details

AB40 High Performance Soundbase

Product Rating:

Product Review (submitted on January 3, 2020):

When I bough the AB40 in the summer of 2018 I was very pleased with my purchase. It was a compact unit that blended well with furniture and, most importantly, delivered high quality sound when listening to music and watching TV. No mess, no satellite speakers, cables, subwoofers, amps or receivers – just a solid all-in one, housed in a wood cabinet that performed well. Then it broke a year after purchase. The speaker started emitted a regular booming sound that made it practically unusable; it would work fine for a minute or two and then the booming would start and repeat every 2 seconds until the speaker was turned off.

I contacted Fluance warranty and was told that the unit will be replaced, but that I had to ship it to Ontario (from BC!) and bear the shipping cost myself. I paid around $275 for the AB40 and – given the weight and the bulkiness of the item – $45 to ship it back to Fluance. So my cost has gone up significantly and I am unsure if I will be receiving a refurbished unit or a new unit after all the trouble. It is unfortunate that the unit failed so quickly as I quite liked it during the 12 months that it worked. I am highly disappointed that overall cost jumped through no fault of my own and that I might get stuck with a refurnished item.

Overall, a useful, elegant item that puts out excellent sound, but with the downsides of poor reliability and poor warranty service.

Hence the one-star rating.