[foshow]

Hey fellas, I also have this Audioengine 2 speakers and been broken-in more than 300hrs. The thing that bothers me is that it has a distorted sound during some songs I play it with even if the volume is just turned half way in the middle. If you guys can kindly (if you have time that is and thank you in advance) try playing this particular song from Janet Jackson album Discipline titled Feedback and see if you guys also get that distortion sound I'm talking about (I think it's on the bass part of the drum that happens). I'm thinking either my speakers are defective or the speakers just can't handle that type of beats somehow unless someone else can also confirm that my particular problem only happens on my unit.

 

[SOUNDinterpreter]

I had a similar experience, except with the Audioengine A5. I was very disappointed with them. Guess you can't trust anyone else's ears but your own. I ended up selling them and buying a pair of Focal CMS50's and for my current living situation, I couldn't be happier.

 

[simonwellander]

I Have a setup with the Audioengine 2 and they sounds increadible!

They need about 400 hours break in period (start to sound good after maybe 40 hours). And they really need a good position! Very important for these speakers! Andhe speaker wire in the back needs to be angled toward the center between the speakers for a improved soundstage and dynamic (don't ask me how it works). And you can try to reverse the polarity of the power chord (here i found about it: http://www.head-fi.org/t/503389/audioengine-a2-eq-settings#post_6800326)
 
My friend also have a set of Audioengine 2, but they sounded bad, i listened at them too, and they sounded very muddy compared to mine although he had position they right! But after a while he dabbled a bit with the power supply and the speaker wire and after that they sounded much better than before.
 
I think that is a bit strange, Audioengine 2 seems to sound good sometimes and sometimes not

.
 
Sorry for my bad english, i hope you could understand.
 
Good luck!

 

[flere]

Quote:

I had a similar experience, except with the Audioengine A5. I was very disappointed with them. Guess you can't trust anyone else's ears but your own. I ended up selling them and buying a pair of Focal CMS50's and for my current living situation, I couldn't be happier.

You weren't happy with the A5s compared to your CMS50's which cost about double the price for just one of them? :| That seems a little unfair in comparison.
 
I've been enjoying my A2s for quite a while now, and hopefully you're taking other people's suggestions. Like definitely raising the speakers helps a lot, compared to being on the desk. And I'd never heard of the try reverse polarity of the power chord, but I really do hope after a proper burn-in, you come to enjoy the quality of these speakers.
 
For their price, I can't see them being beat tbh.

 

[JRG1990]

There beat by everything <$200, these behringers are $200 a pair http://www.amazon.com/Behringer-High-Resolution-Reference-Monitor-Speaker/dp/B002GHBZ3Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322705698&sr=8-1 , way better than the a2's and you still get kevlar woofers.
Also the edifier rt1600 , rt1900 , r2000 . m-audio av40 which is $100 less, Alesis M1 Active 520.
 
various amp and bookshelf speaker combos for example, http://www.amazon.com/Dayton-DTA-100a-Class-T-Digital-Amplifier/dp/B004JK8BDK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1322706186&sr=8-2 , http://www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-Monitor-Bookshelf-Speakers/dp/B0002ZSFTG/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1322706247&sr=8-8 , http://www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-Two-Way-Bookshelf-Loudspeakers/dp/B000MGNDHE/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1322706270&sr=8-11 , http://www.amazon.com/Infinity-Primus-Two-way-Bookshelf-Satellite/dp/B0045NCB32/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1322706348&sr=1-5 .
 
The list of bookshelf speakers better than the a2's at the same price is pretty endless.

 

[simonwellander]

Have you compared all them to a pair Audioengine 2s in a good position?

 

[JRG1990]

To be fair no,  but for $200 , £145 the a2's are very underwelming, muddy bass, the mids can get conjested and overall they sound a bit boxy there so over hyped I really don't understand whats so great about them, I did compare them almost directly (in the same shop anyway) to the Mission MV2 which were driven by the Cambridge Audio Topaz AM1, the missions just bested them in everyway, bass midrange treble soundstage the missions did everything better and are about the same size as the a2's just slightly bigger, they cost £60-70 / $80 a pair and would pair nicely with a little t-amp for set-up that costs the same but outperforms the a2's in everyway. All the speakers were in equally bad positions but because most the other speakers had good off axis responce especially the monitors not much was lost due to there bad positioning.

 

[atomiccow]

My experience is the same. I just purchased a pair last week and have been burning them in since. I feel these are destined for a return. Given they are near field monitors, which is the purpose I need them for, I cannot accept an argument like they need more space or distance between them to sound good. I tried them briefly in my living room but it seems muddy, overpowering, and all in all completely inaccurate and unfaithful reproduction of low bass is a fault of the speaker. Granted they cannot be considered expensive but for 200 CAD, I do expect more.

 

[simonwellander]

They really need a good position with the tweeter in the same height as your ears. And my friend have a pair of black Audioengine 2's, and i have that too, but my pair of A2's sounds much better and we don't know why, maybe is it the bad power supply or something
I really love my A2s but i think it's strange that my friends Audioengine 2's doesn't sound good. 

 
I also have compared mine A2s to B&W MM-1 and they sound very similar i think, both have much details in the treble and the midrange. The MM-1 sounds a little bit more natural in the bass, but not deeper. But keep in mind that i have a pretty good sound card (Presonus Firestudio Mobile) and that maybe helps my A2s.
 
Sorry for my english.
 
EDIT: I found an intressting comment on amazon about these speakers that seems to be correct: http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R2PD9CRNNU48DS/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000VKEFN2&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=

 

[kawazydude]

just to answer the OP's question about whether a dac would make a big difference, i honestly don't think it would because i don't think the A2's are "good" enough to show the difference in sound quality between your onboard soundcard and a more expensive dac.  allow me to explain by telling you my story.
 
so i have a pair of A5+ connected to my 13" macbook playing 320 kbps music from itunes.  i first bought a nuforce udac2 because i thought the sound i'd get from that would be better than the sound i got from my macbook's onboard sound card.  but honestly, i couldn't tell any difference.  so at that point, i thought that maybe this was because the udac2 wasn't that much better than my macbook's onboard soundcard, and that i'd have to buy a much better one to tell the difference.  so i refunded the udac2 and bought the nuforce hdp.  but when i tried the hdp, i STILL couldn't tell any difference!  i know people have been raving about the hdp, and i'm sure it is a really good dac, but i think i couldn't tell any difference because of 2 reasons: (1) maybe i need to play flac files to notice the difference or (2) the A5+ can't really reproduce the better sound from the hdp.  but again, this was only my experience that i thought would help inform your decision.  but maybe others might've had a different experience.  now, this isn't to say that the A5+ are bad speakers. to the contrary, they are FREAKIN AMAZING.  but they are speakers that imo don't really need a dac for the reasons stated above.

 

[megamagic]

have had the a2's as well as a5's for a while. prefer to use tweak the a2's sound. pretty much agree with some of the other comments so far ie. position for a2's is crucial - it seems best to tilt them up slightly on the desk and have them aimed more toward the level of the ears. Burn-in definitely helped with opening up the sound. Having a good source is important as well, especially since the a2's have a colored sound, it's best to find a souce/cable combo that results in a good balance with the a2's...which depends on preference really. as for the rather closed sound of the a2's (ie. like closed cans), I found that using a preamp really helped a lot. I used the fiio e9 and found the soundstage to be much improved and the sound of the a2's really opened up. assuming you have a decent source already, the preamp probably gives the most improvement for the a2's. hopefully this might help those who find the a2's too closed in sounding 

 

[ecclesand]

I had the A2s for a while and thought they were pretty decent until I heard a pair of budget passive speakers with a budget receiver...no contest...the A2s sounded like crap.  I tried positioning them all over my desk; bought Auralex foam to isolate them from my desk and even built stands for them.  I finally gave up on them and went with passive speakers driven by an integrated.  IMHO, the A2s are not very good powered speakers....I even preferred the M-Audio AV40s over the A2s by quite a bit.  Based on what the OP is looking for, he/she should have gone with the AV40s.

 

[johnman1116]

 
Quote:

I even preferred the M-Audio AV40s over the A2s by quite a bit.  Based on what the OP is looking for, he/she should have gone with the AV40s.

the thing is with the av40s, you lose in the size factor as they happen to be fairly big speakers which could find positioning difficult on a crowded or small desk. the av40 size compares to the A5s which are twice the price but blow them out of the water.
 
as for the A2s, positioning is key and ive heard the the source actually does matter quite a bit. theyre a great pair of speakers, especially if you can find them under $200. make or buy some speaker stands that point toward your face, upgrade bitrate and dac.
 
could be a good read: HERE

 

[Gilmai]

I really enjoy my A2s. However, I would apply all the aforementioned caveats. They are definitely great only for there size and price; larger, more expensive speakers will obviously sound better. If cost and footprint were no object, I would have bought the A5 which are substantially better. I am extremely skeptical of JRGs claims, however, that anything under $200 are superior. I have not heard the specific speakers mentioned, but I have heard many worse than the A2 in their class but never any better. And perhaps my opinion of Behringer is misguided, but I just doubt they could do better for the same price (I do like that they have balanced inputs, though). Besides, those speakers are more than twice the size and weight.
 
Regarding improving the A2s performance:
 
I would echo the importance of speaker placement. Although this is true of all speakers and especially monitors, typically the smaller the drivers the more sensitive to direction they will be. The A2's are 2 and 3/4in.
 
With all due respect to Mr. Reina, they aren't particularly neutral. Esp, compared to the Yamaha HS80s or more expensive studio monitors. You can obviously mitigate this with EQ (I think someone linked to a thread on the subject). But I think if this is a high priority for you, then you might be better off looking elsewhere. As others have mentioned, most of the problems seem to be in the mid-base. Stands help a lot. I had mine on a stack of books for a long time and that mostly worked  but the sand filled stands I made for them did make a difference. I also hooked up my sub from my main 2.1 system and found that helped. I set the crossover to 80, which is only cutting about 20 off the bottom, but I thought it made a big difference. This obviously doesn't effect the problem area directly, but maybe taking the load off such small drivers was enough. Unfortunately, I just can't justify dedicating a sub to them. 
 
I thought my DAC made a huge difference. I typically use them with an Apogee Duet2, but I have tried them with a y1 and they both helped significantly. I prefer using the Duet for a lot of reasons, but one is that I found the the speakers sounded best with the amp volume turned all the way up regardless of the volume. It also seems to affect the the L/R balance.
 
I also second that the rca inputs are just better, but then again, perhaps my rca cable is just better. Either way I certainly wouldn't use the supplied 1/8in IC.
 
Sound aside and with a little dusting now and again, they are seriously sexy little speakers built with obvious quality. I will be keeping mine.
 
 

 

[atomiccow]

I just refunded my Audioengine 2 and bought the larger but actually significantly cheaper M-Audio AV40. I have them in the same place I previously put the Audioengine 2 and these are definately the superior speaker. They have far more controlled bass and lower bass and most importantly have much less of it than the Audioengine 2. The deal breaking point of the Audioengine 2 was for me the crazy exorbitant and uncontrolled bass. It was like they were trying to get as much bass out of the little speaker as possible and this showed in the quality.