Phil Jones built the first Acoustic Energy speaker because his recordings didn't travel. Everything he mixed in his South London studio sounded great on his JBL monitors and worse on a home or car stereo, so in 1987 he made a small monitor with drivers of his own, the AE1. Its woofer cone was aluminum, and the company still builds around the same idea. A stiff, light cone moves as one piece, like a piston, so it adds less sound of its own. Martin Colloms, who helped Jones with crossover design, says the AE1 could play rock music much louder than the LS3/5a and take about double the power of its nearest rivals. Today's 500 Series uses carbon fiber, which designer Mat Spandl says has the stiffness of hardened aluminum at half the mass. David Price heard a "super clean, crisp sound" from the AE500. Acoustic Energy suits listeners who want a big, dynamic sound from a small box.

The AE1 Active is the easiest way in, and it was a What Hi-Fi? Awards 2018 winner. Each speaker has its own amplifiers built in but nothing digital, so pair it with a source such as a DAC-preamp. Michael Evans of StereoNET called it "a baby powerhouse," and Gordon Brockhouse of SoundStage! Simplifi was "wowed by the AE1 Actives' speed, agility, and transparency." Colloms found the designer's suggested setting on the rear bass switch "just right" in his room, with the speakers out in free space, facing almost straight ahead, grilles off. For passive speakers, look at the AE500. Price suggests at least 60 watts if you like it loud, and its slot port lets it work fairly close to the wall. The flagship Corinium is the step up, and Marc Smazik of pt.AUDIO found 80 watts a channel from a VAC tube amp more than enough in his office. If you choose the AE300, try more toe-in than usual, since Pursuit Perfect System found it sounded best that way.

Jones's father played in big bands in London, and Jones played bass guitar and studied classical double bass at the Welsh College of Music. Before the speakers he ran a PA hire business, and when he brought a pair of old cinema horns home to his flat, his mother called a psychiatrist the next day. In 1987 Neville Barlow of the French driver maker Audax suggested he take the AE1 to a hifi shop. They compared it with every small speaker in the store, and the owner said nothing there could match it. Jones writes that "the penny dropped," since more people owned stereos than studios. Acoustic Energy opened for business in Ealing, London that year, and Michael Evans credits the AE1 with helping start the 1980s fashion for small two-way speakers. The company moved to the Cotswolds in 1995 and launched the Corinium floorstander in 2023 after a three-year project. Its AE1 40th Anniversary Edition had to be designed from scratch because the original parts were long out of production, and it keeps the straight-sided aluminum cone.