If you love music, you will smile when you hear these speakers!
After months of research, I decided to go with Audioengine. The A2's looked like all I would need, but after reading the great reviews of the A5's, I chose the A5+ Bamboo. I ordered them on Friday late AM, and received them on Saturday morning (overnite FEDEX, $3.99). I've been breaking them in all day (not that I noticed a problem out of the box), as the mftr suggests. I'm feeding them the signal from a Fiio E-10 DAC, plugged into the USB on my iMac. They are mounted on a pair of dense foam blocks, to raise them slightly. I'm not sure I see the advantages of using the optional stands since they tilt the speaker back and change the plane of the tweeter and woofer. I had to re-arrange some items on my office shelves to prevent resonance during some of the lower bass passages.
The packaging was stellar, with cables and speakers covered by some nice soft, cloth bags. The bags will come in handy to put over the speakers while I'm away, and help prevent dust settling on the...
Better than the A5
I originally bought the A5's and was experiencing a persistent hum like many people in outside forums had mentioned. Instead of abandoning Audioengine for something else I gave them another chance and I'm really glad I did. Everything about these speakers is top notch. Audioengine is obvious a company that takes tremendous pride in what they build dare I say in even an Apple-like way. The improvements over the original A5 (beyond for me personally the elimination of the hum which most A5 owners probably did not have) are 1) the minimalistic rubber backed remote, 2) the volume control allows for much finer control at low volumes, 3) the awesome bamboo enclosure is no longer defaced with a usb and audio in jack on top of the powered unit - this made no sense for something so beautifully crafted - these are on the back where they belong. 4) The powered enclosure has a heat sink to protect the electronics. Other changes are the enclosures are slightly larger than before and there is...
Pleased overall.
First off, these speakers sound great. The sound coming out of these things is truely powerful and overall I can't really complain. I've been listening to a lot of recent progressive rock and can't help closing my eyes and marvel at how beautiful some of this stuff sounds.
Few things:
-The left speaker (active) seemed to be a bit louder than the right at first. After having used them for 30+ hours I'm not sure if that's still true and I've just gotten used to it, but I don't notice it as much anymore. It's probably less of a gap than before. Maybe part of the break-in process. I want to get a second opinion on this.
-The volume knob seems a bit quirky. Often times you'll want to quickly turn the volume down and you'll notice short spikes where it actually goes way up before going down again. I've since been handling volume from the source and just keep the speakers at a high setting.
-I've read about the A5's overheating and shutting down. I've experienced...
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