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Audioengine Color of the Year Kit Review: Bright Look, Good Sound
The artist Wassily Kandinsky said, “Color is a power that directly influences the soul.” But in the realm of home stereo gear, the color wheel gets minimal airtime, with equipment typically available in scant options: silver-faced classics, wood-grain boxes, all manner of modern reflective piano black, and not a whole lot else.
Not so with Audioengine, which has painted a neat little world with its annual Color of the Year kit: a suite of home audio components, including laptop speakers, a subwoofer, a turntable, and speaker stands. Each year, the brand drops a new edition of the series in a different color; in the launch year of 2024, a dusky matte blue; in 2025, a subtle metallic green; and now in 2026, a lustrous and smooth egg-yolk yellow.
Having a home audio system in such an unusual color palette is, to me, irresistibly joyful; whenever I look at these stereo components, I can’t help but smile. And the tech holds up, too. After months of testing the suite, I was colored impressed. Straight out of the box, it's a great option for music lovers who value the look and sound of their home stereo setup.
The anchoring component of the Color of the Year suite are the A2+ Gen 3 Wireless Speakers. At 6 inches tall by 4 inches wide, they’re sized like laptop speakers—and get high marks for that purpose as WIRED’s top pick for computer speakers—but that’s really just the start of what they can do. Alone, the speakers pack enough power for a small home theater. They're also easy to integrate into a bigger system, thanks to their included stereo mini-jack inputs, USB inputs, and both stereo RCA inputs and outputs. To make the sound quality more targeted, place the A2+ speakers atop the included DS1M Desktop Stands, and angle them 15 degrees up toward your ears.
This year, Audioengine expanded its Color of the Year suite to include a color-matched Bluetooth turntable in collaboration with Crosley. Called the C6, it's a manual two-speed machine with a nice, heavy steel platter and medium-density fiberboard (MDF) plinth. It's Bluetooth-enabled and features a built-in preamp that lets you directly connect your A2+ speakers—wired or wireless—without a need for additional components.
My favorite part of the Color of the Year suite is the S6 Powered Subwoofer. At 10 inches by 8.7 inches, the compact, front-firing form factor lets you snuggle it into various spaces that wouldn't work for a larger, bottom-firing subwoofer. This is a class D sub with a frequency response down to 33 Hz and an adjustable crossover down to 40 Hz that helps your system sound complete, lifting the bass and rounding out the listening experience.
The ease of setup is one of the major draws for the Audioengine suite. Plug in the A2+ speakers, link them together using the provided stereo cables, and turn them on. You can connect the speakers via Bluetooth, or plug in other components via the stereo inputs. It’s as basic as home hi-fi gets.
Linking the Crosley C6 turntable using Bluetooth is similarly seamless. The A2+s have an intuitive Bluetooth pairing mode that starts up when you turn on the speakers, indicated by a flashing Pair button on the back. From there, turn on the turntable, make sure it’s in the “line” position (by using the turntable’s built-in preamp), and the C6 instantly searches for the A2+s. Once the two units connect, the flashing button on the back of the speakers will turn blue, as will the Bluetooth indicator on the turntable.
Connecting the subwoofer was likewise a cinch: Connect an RCA cable to the back of the A2+s in the RCA output, then run that to the audio input on the back of the S6 subwoofer. Once you connect, you’ll want to tweak the sound and presence of the subwoofer, and once you’re happy with the dial-in, the subwoofers will go up and down in volume, in lockstep with the A2+ speakers.
Each Audioengine product also came with a QR code that launched a step-by-step setup process, which I found especially helpful for dialing in t