Philips Fidelio FT1 with FA3 review

The Fidelio FA3 wireless active stereo speaker system and the Fidelio FT1 Bluetooth-equipped turntable with integrated CD player are available separately, but Philips is pretty sure they were made for each other – and if anyone should know, the company that builds them should.

In today's world of super-pricey separates, and with retro nostalgia seemingly at an all-time high, this mid-price system seems a smart move. Which is why I’ve reviewed these two products as if a complete system, to find out if putting your would-be cash into Philips’ pocket is money well spent or a rash investment.

Price & Availability

Both the Philips Fidelio FA3 wireless active stereo speaker system and the Fidelio FT1 Bluetooth-equipped turntable with integrated CD player are on sale now.

In the United Kingdom the Fidelio FA3 sells for £349, which translates to around $399 in the United States and AU$499 in Australia.

The Fidelio FT1, meanwhile, goes for £269 in the UK, something like $349 in the US, and around AU$469 in Australia.

For the sake of both brevity and sanity, for the rest of this review I’m going to refer to these products simply as ‘FA3’ and ‘FT1’. We all know what they are by now, right?

Features & What's New?

Philips Fidelio FA3 speakers

The FA3 are two-way speakers, each of which features a 25mm titanium dome tweeter above a 127mm glass-fibre mid/bass driver.

Each speaker is home to 50 watts of Class D amplification and, in partnership with a small reflex port at the rear of each cabinet, Philips reckons this layout is good for a frequency response of 40Hz to 40kHz.

Both speakers need to be connected to mains power – this is an active system, after all. And both speakers have an RCA socket on the rear which can be used to connect the two together – that’s how truly hi-res playback can be achieved, although the system will work just as happily (but at a lower resolution) with the speakers wirelessly paired.

One speaker does the heavy lifting where connectivity is concerned, though – the ‘primary’ speaker features a USB-C slot (available for both playback and servicing), a digital optical input, an HDMI ARC connection, and a line-level analogue input on stereo RCA sockets.

This primary speaker also takes care of wireless Bluetooth connectivity – the FA3 features Bluetooth 5.4 LE Audio and compatibility with SBC, AAC, LC3 and LDAC codecs. It’s also packing Auracast technology, so it can easily become part of a multi-speaker system if given appropriate speakers to partner with.

It’s worth noting the speakers can be connected using a length of coaxial cable with an RCA connector at each end, or wirelessly using a 2.4GHz wireless connection. Most unusually, there’s no trade-off in maximum resolution if you choose to go down the ‘wireless’ route – the FA3 operates at 24bit/96kHz natively, and anything that comes in via digital optical, USB-C or HDMI ARC of greater size is downscaled to this resolution.

Philips Fidelio FT1 turntable-CD system

The Fidelio FT1, meanwhile, is something that might have been called a ‘music centre’ back in the day. It’s a belt-driven turntable, a CD player, and a Bluetooth transmitter – with an integrated phono stage, Auracast connectivity, and a headphone socket thrown in for good measure.

It arrives with an Audio Technica AT3600L moving magnet cartridge pre-fitted to its straight aluminium tube tone-arm – all that needs to be done is to fit and adjust the supplied counterweight, slip the belt over the motor pulley, and your record player is ready to go. Or, at least, it is once you’ve positioned the aluminium platter and put the rubber slipmat on top.

The FT1 will convert an analogue signal from your vinyl to a digital equivalent and then send it to a pair of wireless headphones (or speakers, obviously) via Bluetooth 5.4 using the SBC, AAC or LC3 codec. And as it’s also Auracast-equipped, it’s able to transmit whatever it’s playing to as many appropriate speakers as you have access to.

There’s a compact disc drive built into the FT1, too, accessed via a drawer integrated into the front of the chassis. The door of the drawer is where you’ll find the system’s LED display – it can give confirmation of the selected input as well as the usual ‘track number, time elapsed, etc’ stuff when a CD is playing. All the usual CD player modes (‘shuffle’, ‘repeat’, ‘random’ and what-have-you) are here, and the drive itself is compatible with CD-R/RW and MP3-CD as well as your regular discs.

Performance

Obviously I’m testing the FA3 and FT1 components as an entire system, and that’s the way I’m going to discuss the sonic pros and cons.

In the course of this test, I spent some time listening to the FA3 speakers with other sources of music, just as I did the FT1 with different speakers (and with headphones too).

So I think I’m qualified to say that everything this system does, both good and bad, is a more-or-less equal result of the characteristics of each component. They’re both in this together, for better and for worse.

What’s most immediately impressive and engaging about this set-up is the sense of energy and animation it creates. There’s a forward and quite direct character to the system’s sonic presentation, a kind of positivity that makes every listen to any recording above the tempo of a dirge an invigorating event.

Not everyone will be enchanted by what I can quite easily describe as the relentless nature of the system’s attitude, but those who enjoy a vivid and quite forceful presentation will be very happy indeed.

No matter if you decide to listen to CD or to vinyl, there’s a fair amount of detail available in almost every respect, and an unarguable dynamism that allows the distance between the least and the most intense sections in a recording to be absolutely apparent.

Midrange resolution is accomplished too, and the way the system handles voices is very enjoyable as a result. The soundstage that’s available is quite wide and fairly well defined – and the midrange gets enough space in which to properly communicate.

Combine that with the amount of detail that’s revealed, and it follows that voices are both eloquent and direct, so it’s possible to discern plenty about their character and attitude – just as readily as about their technique and their texture – as a result.

At the bottom of the frequency range there’s a quite startling amount of substance given the size of the driver and the cabinet that’s producing it – but bass is not a blunt instrument here.

Confidence and presence are not in doubt (although a little more solidity around the edges of low-end sounds wouldn’t go amiss), but the attack is leavened by a fair amount of detail and variation.

Control is good too, and the Philips has no problem expressing rhythms with confidence and no little positivity. Leave the EQ settings in their most benign, ‘balanced’ setting and low-frequency wallop and momentum is the result.

Bass sounds have plenty in common with the midrange where tonality is concerned, and that’s also the case at the top of the frequency range. The 25mm titanium dome tweeter serves up shining, crunchy and detailed high frequencies that have the substance to balance out their latent bite.

Detail levels are high again, and though the tweeter is just as assertive as the mid/bass driver it sits above, it steers clear of glassiness and hardness right until the moment you start listening at ill-advised volumes.

Context is everything, though, and the FA3/FT1 system is never less than enjoyable and generally quite invigorating to listen to. Is it perfect, sonically speaking? No, and I get the strong impression that ‘outright fidelity’ was sacrificed in favour of ‘excitement’ quite early on in the voicing process. Does it offer plenty of sonic verve, as well as a stack of flexibility, for the money? Most certainly.

Design & Usability

Each of the speakers is a fairly substantial 303 x 170 x 211mm (HxWxD), which means the FA3 is not exactly a candidate for desktop use – and besides, given that I’m considering this as a complete system along with the FT1, you’d have to have a very big desk indeed if it’s going to accommodate all three components.

It seems more likely the entire system will be used either on an equipment rack and some speaker stands, or on an appropriately deep shelf or piece of furniture. The only drawback here, though, might be the fact the speakers are designed to lean back a little and fire upwards rather than directly outwards.

If the surface they’re on is fairly low, this is a helpful little design feature – but if you have the speakers on stands or a slightly higher shelf, the FA3 will direct sound above your ears rather than towards them (unless you like to listen while standing up, that is).
For all their slightly strange orientation, though, the speaker cabinets are properly made and finished in that special high-gloss black that looks great but collects fingerprints like no one’s business. The plastic shell features 45% recycled material in its construction, and each one is supplied with a magnetically attached grille.

The primary speaker is doing further heavy lifting where control is concerned. As well as all the physical inputs, its rear panel features a volume dial (it takes a fair few rotations to elicit a proper response), a button to initiate wireless pairing between the speakers, a button to cycle through the available inputs, and a power on/off switch.

All of those functions can also be achieved using the small remote control that’s supplied – it also includes independent bass and treble controls, and a button to cycle through the six EQ presets (‘balanced’, ‘warm’, ‘bright’, ‘powerful’, ‘clear’ and ‘custom’). For some reason, though, it crams selection of the six different inputs (which includes Auracast) onto just three buttons.

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Both the FA3 and the FT1 are compatible with the Philips ‘Entertainment’ control app that’s free for iOS and Android. It’s a thorough, if not especially intuitive, interface and as well as playback control, EQ presets, source selection and the usual stuff, it’s where you can check for software updates (in the case of the FT1) or pick from a selection of sonic soundscapes (‘generative’, ‘ambient’ or ‘nature’ are the categories) for a more soothing experience than, um, listening to music.

The FT1 also has a selection of physical controls on the surface of the plinth. There’s a fairly large ‘power on/off’ button, a control dial to select between 33 and 45rpm, and buttons to handle Bluetooth pairing, source selection, Auracast, play/pause, and the opening and closing of the CD drawer.

On the rear of the plinth there are a couple of analogue outputs – a 3.5mm socket for use with wired headphones and a pair of stereo RCA connections, in case you want to join the FT1 to a traditional amplifier. There’s also a switch for defeating the integrated phono stage, which makes the player even less fussy about the equipment it’s partnered with.

The FT1 is made mostly from the same shiny black plastic as its partnering speakers, and is supplied with a clear plastic dust cover that somehow contrives to be just as reflective and fingerprint-hungry as the black plastic it sits on top of. Build quality is perfectly fine, although an all-in weight of comfortably less than 4kg makes the player seem slightly insubstantial.

Verdict

The Fidelio FT1 and FT3 combined deliver an awful lot for your money – with more extensive functionality than this sort of money can buy anywhere else.

In the context of the asking price the standard of build and finish is very acceptable, and the general sense of vigour and dynamism to the overall sound is enjoyable and commendable, too.

That's as long as you’re happy with ‘a good time all of the time’ in terms of the system’s overall character, and you can position the speakers as they need to be, then there’s plenty to enjoy here.

Also Consider

I think it’s fair to say that like-for-like comparisons are pretty thin on the ground.

Something like the Ruark MR1 MkIII is a very good pair of wireless speakers and has the inputs to support both a turntable and a CD player. The Sony PS-LX310BT, meanwhile, is a turntable that can connect wirelessly to appropriate speakers or wireless headphones.

But as far as finding a Bluetooth turntable with an integrated CD player and matching speakers? It seems to me that Philips has basically cornered that market.