[AzNwiLD0]

Having owned the Audioengine A5s for a while and just now A/B'd them from a desktop and a Lenovo Thinkpad x60 Tablet, there are 2 areas that are I think equally important:

Placement: I would put them on some makeshift stands. Phonebooks or textbooks would be good, definitely don't put them on the 'ground plane' directly. The closer you can get the tweeters to ear-level the better. Make sure the back has at least 6 inches of clearance, over a foot is even better.

Also I've found that they sound less congested and more airy (better highs) when they're angled more directly forward (just off-axis) instead of being pointed directly at the ears (on-axis). The latter case causes a more direct connection between the ears and the larger woofer and makes the entire lower midrange louder. This I think causes the congested sound.


Source: The Thinkpad sounds pretty bad compared to the run-of-the-mill X-Fi card in my desktop. The laptop sounds artificial (konky and unrealistic), has less clarity, hides the midrange and bass and brightens a certain section of the highs. The laptop also destroyed left and right blending, so a voice instead of coming from the center will come from the left and right speakers (maybe they're out of phase?). Get a good source to see if you can replicate these differences. A/B'ing is effortless as the speakers has two inputs.


But in the end, the search for good sound is a journey that people take more or less individually. Maybe some Grado SR60's would be a better place to start?

 

[onvn]

Are you comparing the A5's sound to headphones? Keep in mind the high performance-price ratio of headphones, low on speakers..

Also as mentioned above, the A5 has rear-firing bass ports.. You need to properly place them as though they are full-sized speakers, away from walls..

 

[JohnnyLightOn]

UPDATE: We tried my friend's A5's on my home system. Here is the result.

As I mentioned in my first post, the issues he had with the A5's running from his laptop were (1) congestion on anything but the simplest music, (2) sound was too variable with no predictability, regardless of source quality, and (3) slightly too bright.

I wanted to see if the issue was with the speakers or - my chief suspect - the sound card and headphone out on his laptop. The latter could be remedied by using an outboard sound card or USB DAC.

For reference, my home system consists of a Squeezebox 3 with upgraded PSU feeding FLAC files made from the factory CDs, to an Ack Dack 2.0 battery-powered NOS DAC with ultra-resolution capacitors, to an Onix SP3 tube amp with Telefunken NOS input tubes, to Onix Reference One 2-way monitors (cables and wires omitted).

First we attached the A5's to the output of my DAC. The sound was much better than from my friend's laptop. On some tracks, especially simple jazz with female vocals, they sounded really great. They also did well on various rock and electronica tracks. But they were less satisfying on other tracks, again without rhyme or reason. There was also a certain lack of air and separation on most tracks, and the brightness, while diminished compared to the laptop output, was still there on some tracks.

I also noticed intermittent static on the right channel, which I believe was caused by a loose connection inside the speaker.

Next we listened to the same tracks on my home system. While far from the best, it has good synergy and lacks only a subwoofer for very satisfying sound. The home system destroyed the A5's, but that's to be expected because I have $2800 in it, compared to $325 for the A5's. In addition to generally better sound in all respects, there was much more air and instrument separation, and many tracks that sounded bad on the A5's once again sounded good on the home system.

My friend now has a dilemma, because he has heard the sound from my system and wants that openness and air. We decided he should return the A5's and investigate other alternatives, such as a USB DAC-amp-speaker setup (this will be a hard sell because it took me three months to get him to spring for the A5's; he has the money but is very conservative with it).

Interestingly, after he left I listened to my computer system, which has Foobar2000 with ASIO output via a Chaintech AV-710 sound card to Monsoon MN-700 2.1 speakers. I had been happy with that system while working on my computer. The A5's absolutely killed my computer system. There was no comparison. I would much rather have the A5's for my computer system than what I have presently. Overall, I think the A5's are excellent for the money.