docAudioengine Audiophile AE2 and AE5 PC Speakers Review
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Audioengine Audiophile AE2 and AE5 PC Speakers Review
ADS by G [M]adness HWFaq Audioengine Audiophile AE2 and AE5 PC Speakers Review Contests Search Links Sponsors Author Keith Suppe Editor jmke Today we introduce the first in a series of Audiophile articles/reviews. Its fitting we begin with the company Audioengine, their AE2 and AE5 powered speakers represent a relatively recent development in the Audiophile industry, the merger between High End Audio and PC´s... Date 2008-06-12 Discuss 3 comment(s) Print this Article Send News 5 - AE2 Specifications / design Search Madshrimps MSI Overclocking Contest Continues Round 2! Search Madshrimps: Audio Engine A2 Orb Audio Subwoofers Designer Style Speakers & Systems. Big Sound, Small Orbs. Order Now! Search www.OrbAudio.com Sponsors .Priorweb Arctic Silver Ultimate Jazz speakers Extra efficiency for your tube amp Finest Lowther design ever www.Teresonic.com CoolerMaster Danger Den Dollarshops Geeks.com Custom Built PCs at Demoncraft Dell Inspiron repair parts IT support & Pc hjaelp memory upgrades Toner Cartridges computer hardware, electronics Up In Smoke OCZ Scythe Daily News SilverStone Swiftech Titan A udio Engine is a relative newcomer to the Audio market, however; they are not new to the industry. The design ||-More-|| team behind the AE2 and AE5 systems have combined 36-years experience working for companies such as Harmon Kardon, Gibson Guitar, and Apple Computer. Much of this experience has been in professional recording studios. As previously mentioned there is lengthy history involving companies such as B&W whom model their speakers on the "Studio Monitor" concept. For the Audiophile this specific sound is all about neutrality. The goal is to eliminate any influence electronics themselves may have on the audio signal. Only then can the music come through unadulterated. There is one universal law governing the quality of all powered speakers, they can only sound as good as the electronics within. Neutral designs present a dichotomy as they communicate both high and low quality recordings without prejudice, or as the expression goes; garbage in / garbage out. The question then, can a $200 pair of powered speakers 6" in height be musical? Below the AE2's came packed as well as any Audio or PC product with cables galore and cloth drawstring bags for all the ancillaries. Thumbnails below (from left) opening the box reveals two grey pouches, one containing the DC-power supply another contains all required cables. Right thumbnail; top foam brace removed revealing the speakers in their drawstring pouches. CoolIT releases GTX ... Cheapest NVIDIA GTX ... Nvidia GTX 280, 980 ... ATI HD3870 X2 avail ... 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Audioengine 2 Specifications powered (active) multimedia desktop speaker system Power output: 60W peak power total (15W RMS / 30W peak per channel), AES Inputs: Dual 1/8" stereo mini-jack and RCA jacks Voltage: 100-240V, 50/60Hz auto-switching Amplifier type: Dual Class AB monolithic Drivers: 2.75" Kevlar woofers, 20mm silk dome tweeters Signal-to-noise: >95dB (typical A-weighted) THD: <0.05% at all power settings Crosstalk: <50db Frequency response: 65Hz-22kHz +/-2.0dB Input impedance: 10K ohms unbalanced Protection: Output current limiting, thermal over-temperature, power on/off transient protection Dimensions: 6”(H) x 4”(W) x 5.25”(D) Weight (LEFT speaker): 1.6Kg/3.55lbs Weight (RIGHT speaker): 1.4Kg/3.15lbs Shipping weight: 4.6kg/10lbs per pair Shipping box dims: 11.5” (W) x 14.5” (H) x 21.75” (L) 10.5” (H) x 15” (L) x 7” (W) A2 speakers use a front firing design with a small slit at the base to port back pressure and increase base. The edges of the speakers are rounded to reduce "diffraction" a critical topic in speaker design. The following Stereophile article, "Cutting Corners" is a must-read on the subject and will have you scratching your head as to why most speakers are found in a box-like enclosure. Appearance is always important when something shares your living space. In the case of the AE2 speakers, not only are they ergonomically cozy, you barely notice them until they produce sound. Cabinets are constructed primarily from natural materials such as 18mm thick MDF. The enclosures are rock solid, internally braced (per Audio Engine literature) and finished with a black piano finish so smooth its reflective. I have yet to find a PC-Audio speaker of this size and cost made from MDF (at least the "satellites") let alone include a furniture finish. The construction behind these is just the same as Audiophile speakers costing many times the price, albeit on a miniature scale. Howto and Guides: Building a 300W Fan ... NVIDIA Geforce 8400... NVIDIA Geforce 8800... Reviving and Volt M ... Protect the core of ... Interesting Links: CPU Heatsink Roundu ... Plasma Retention Wa ... Asus EEE PC Overclo ... RAID Primer: What ... CPU Heatsink Roundu ... Using a Second ATX ... How to Create Profe ... Building a Light Bo ... Bandwidthd - Bandwi... Beginners Guides: U ... Monitor Intel Core ... Ultra Dragon (ULT30 ... RAIDMAX X- 1... Plexiglass Basics: ... Modding and Multime... PSU Decision Making ... Modding 101: Switch... Custom Test Bench ... Winamp Tweak Guide ... Frame Off - PC Modd ... Case Painting 101 ... eXtreme PSU Calcula ... What DVD drive do I... Detailed Wattage Lo ... Download movies fro ... Download movies fro ... More HWFaq Links here Looking at the rear of the speakers there are two inputs including 1/8" stereo mini-jack commonly found on PC motherboard connectors or a sound-card, and RCA jacks. The volume on/off switch is also located on the rear of the Left speaker and is my only real complaint, however, considering these are designed to be used with your PC volume can be adjusted otherwise and their probably going to be within reach. Thumbnails below provide a close-up of the rear of each speaker, which features gold-plated 5-way binding posts. Insofar as the AE2's amplifier, Audio Engine describes a solid-state design incorporating a Torroidial transformer. What I found interesting about this amplifier is the external power supply. There is no doubt distancing the power supply from the more sensitive electronics improves sound. Given the propensity of marketing to exploit so many superfluous details, I was shocked (pardon the pun) Audio Engine failed to expound the benefits of isolated power. Amplifiers such as the ARS Emitter 1 takes similar technology to the Audiophile extreme. I decided to try to open the power supply, after unplugging it the LED remained on for almost 30-seconds (below). I attempted to open the speakers and get a look inside however Audio Engine sealed things up pretty tight. This is actually very good news since screws alone do not the best seal make. The amplifier is rated between 15W ~ 30W (peak) per channel, given the enclosure size which is put into perspective below the amplifier itself is quite small. Clicking the thumbnail below reveals a photo of the front firing port (barely noticeable on the speakers) this allows placement close to a wall if the speaker were placed on either side of a monitor on a desktop. Onto the listening tests... <<- Prev |-| Next ->> Sony 8 GB Memory Stick SanDisk 4 GB MicroSDHC Zalman CNPS9700 CPU PRO Duo Flash Memory Memory Card Cooling Fan Card $81.62 at Etronics.com $42.99 at Meritline.com $79.99 at J&R $89.99 at BestBuy.com $82.13 at TECHONWEB $39.99 at Office Depot $34.99 at AccessoryGeeks.com Powered by TTZ Media Quick Page Jump: 5 - AE2 Specifications / design More reviews in this category can be found below: Audioengine Audiophile AE2 and AE5 PC Speakers Review TerraTec NOXON iRadio Network Music Player Review Sharkoon X-TATIC 5.1 Dolby Digital Headset Review Coolermaster Musketeer 3 Review Sound or no sound creates industries Sharkoon Gamer Headset GHS1 Mad Dog Multimedia Entertainer 7.1 DSP Soundcard Copyright © 2001- 2006 Madshrimps / JMkeOC.com, All rights reserved. Graphical Design by Dennis Kestelle, Programming by John Meys, Paul Meys and Frederik Colardyn, Overall Site design by John Meys All information and graphics contained in Madshrimps are sole property of the Madshrimps crew and may not be reproduced or copied in any manner without written permission from us. BTW- BE 0888919678 Advertising Links: 0 Credit Cards | Flights | Mortgage | Just Holden Commodores | Flights ADS by G [M]adness Audioengine Audiophile AE2 and AE5 PC Speakers Review HWFaq Contests Author Keith Suppe Editor jmke Search Today we introduce the first in a series of Audiophile articles/reviews. Its fitting we begin with the company Audioengine, their AE2 and AE5 powered speakers represent a relatively recent development in the Audiophile industry, the merger between High End Audio and PC´s... Links Sponsors Date 2008-06-12 Discuss 3 comment(s) Print this Article Send News 6 - AE2 Listening / Conclusion Search Madshrimps MSI Overclocking Contest Continues Round 2! Search Madshrimps: AE2 Listening Car Speaker Systems Upgrade your car speakers: Find what fits. Orders $129+ ship free! Search Crutchfield.com Sponsors Magnepan Speakers Save on Magnepan Speakers. The Sound System of Your Dreams. .Priorweb Arctic Silver Shopzilla.com/Speakers CoolerMaster Danger Den Dollarshops Geeks.com Custom Built PCs at Demoncraft Dell Inspiron repair parts IT support & Pc hjaelp memory upgrades Toner Cartridges computer hardware, electronics Up In Smoke OCZ Scythe Daily News SilverStone Swiftech Titan ||-More-|| S ound: Audioengine describes their driver technology as follows: Audioengine uses audiophile quality, ferro fluid cooled, silk dome tweeters with Neodymium magnets. Silk tweeters hold up well under high power and the edge-driven design gives very smooth response. The woofers are Kevlar woven glass aramid composite with rubber surrounds. Kevlar is obviously very strong, which means that the woofer retains its shape when being driven at high levels... Long before the A2's showed up at my door, I purchased the A5 for my personal sound system. The A5s replaced my aging Monsoon MM1000 2.1 planar satellite, cone-subwoofer system (reviewed at Anandtech) manufactured from now defunct Sonigistix. I purchased the MM100 for 200USD in 1999 and they gave me 8-years of decent sound for my PC and DVD player. With the arrival of the A5 system I passed the Monsoon torch to my Nephew. In my experience anything that can last 8-years can be, "passed" celebratory fan-fare included. The day he came to get a PSU I offered up the Monsoon system and as I began to explain planar speaker technology and my old Magnepans, his eyes rolled back in his head and he asked what time it was. He just spent $300 on a Logitech Z something or other which to him was HiFi. A few months later he called, both elated and confused he could not believe this old system with a short in volume remote sounded ten times better then his surround sound investment. Next thing I knew he had looked up and was going to purchase Magnepans. I told him I had owned Magnepan MMGs (reviewed here) and connected my MMG's to pair of prototype NYAL/Futterman OTL tube monoblocs I lost him again. He then said something about running Magnepan with an Onkyo Receiver. At that point, my eyes rolled in my head as I asked what time it was. Below from left Monsoon MM1000 2.1 system, individual Monsoon Planar satellite (a CoolIT releases GTX ... Cheapest NVIDIA GTX ... Nvidia GTX 280, 980 ... ATI HD3870 X2 avail ... Geforce GTX 260 shi... Sandisk and Toshiba... Top 10 reasons why ... Nvidia: Graphics is ... AMD Preps Radeon 48 ... How to Make Windows ... Syndicate Madshrimps Daily News with our XML/RSS Feed! Receive updates by e- mail Subscribe Read more News... miniature version of Magnepan technology) and Magnepan MMG panels on right (photos from Geartest.com). Sponsor Space: The Monsoon planar / Sub-woofer PC audio systems offered a small portal to Audiophile sound. In fact they licensed the planar technology in part from Eminent Technology. I guess all things do come full-circle in the Audiophile world. Reminiscing aside Audioengine AE5 nor AE2 sound nothing like a planar system and in this application it’s appropriate they do not. Their neutrality is perhaps one of their greatest attributes. While system like the Monsoon did some things well, they were finicky, not necessarily good for a "PC-Audio" product because few were able to extract their full potential. Where Audioengine differs from most PC-Audio speaker systems is in the natural sound which transcends poor placement. Building a "Monitor" speaker using classic speaker cabinetry construction was a sobering choice, but I imagine it was not a simple one based on the photo below. New Content Articles/Reviews: Sunbeamtech Acrylic ... Low budget 45 nm - ... Audioengine Audioph ... Spire HandyBook 2.5... SanDisk Cruzer Micr ... Kingston DataTravel ... AMD Phenom X3: One ... Passive CPU Coolers ... Intel Core 2 Duo E8 ... TwinTech and Vvikoo ... Xigmatek HDT- S1283 ... GeForce 9800 GTX Ex ... Silverstone KL03 Ku... Intel Quad Core Q93 ... Mainstream Quad Cor ... Howto and Guides: Building a 300W Fan ... NVIDIA Geforce 8400... NVIDIA Geforce 8800... Reviving and Volt M ... Protect the core of ... Whatever our source in this review the signal will pass through the Gigabyte G-X48T-DQ6 motherboard which features a Realtek ALC899A (7.1+2ch DAC/6ch ADC High Definition) Audio Codec. Of course the sound we hear is not determined by DAC chip itself but the totality of the signal path, in this case a great deal will be affected by the motherboard topology. To simplify, all you need to do is think about the term which describes just about every aspect of your PC, both material and functional; semi-conductor. Besides non-conductive what could be more detrimental to an audio-signal? Well how about EMI or any electronic noise? The PC environment is infamous for this and until recently most motherboard BIOS would offer a setting known as Spread Spectrum. You can view Spread Spectrum among other valuable BIOS information can be found in TechARP BIOS Optimization Guide 9.9. When enabled Spread Spectrum modulates signal frequencies minimizing "spikes" which cause interference with other devices. We don't see Spread Spectrum BIOS options as often in today's "overclocked" world since modulating frequencies when they are most vulnerable (during high overclock’s) can compromise stability. Spread Spectrum has been augmented with "Smart Clock" features, these shut down unused signal sources such as VGA, or PCI slots when not in use. Think of it as a "Green Sleep Mode" saving power in a greener world. Listening: Music: I began listening to streaming data off the Internet at favorite website Soma FM. Offering 14-stations variations on underground/alternative, sounds include: "underground electronica, chillout, ambient groove, down tempo, lounge, space music, indie rock and alt.country/Americana." SOMAFM is based out of San Francisco available 24/7 and they offer several music file options, MP3 128k, 32k, Windows Media 128k. My favorite channel is Lush which is a relaxing, hypnotic blend with many female artists. I'm sure avid Audiophiles are dismissing any and all electronic music as a poor marker by which to judge anything, however; upcoming evaluations will cover a wide spectrum, of genres from classical to rock. The diminutive AE2's did well with vocals as any transducer should and even carried some bass notes of the electronic variety. You cannot expect these speakers to reproduce a base drum with the literal "kick" involved, however; what base does come through is "natural" as Audio-Engine does not employ any artificial "base boost" found on many systems. It's all about the advantages of using what is essentially a natural material in MDF. Speakers constructed of exotic wood literally carve the horn themselves out of a single block, one reason for the exorbitant price tag. Interesting Links: CPU Heatsink Roundu ... Plasma Retention Wa ... Asus EEE PC Overclo ... RAID Primer: What ... CPU Heatsink Roundu ... Using a Second ATX ... How to Create Profe ... Building a Light Bo ... Bandwidthd - Bandwi... Beginners Guides: U ... Monitor Intel Core ... Ultra Dragon (ULT30 ... RAIDMAX X- 1... Plexiglass Basics: ... Modding and Multime... PSU Decision Making ... Modding 101: Switch... Custom Test Bench ... Winamp Tweak Guide ... Frame Off - PC Modd ... Case Painting 101 ... eXtreme PSU Calcula ... What DVD drive do I... Detailed Wattage Lo ... Download movies fro ... More HWFaq Links here The ability to reproduce sound "naturally" is attributable to the A2's materials. I found it quite amazing given their size lower frequencies seemed to belie their 65Hz specification. At one point I placed my in front of the speaker and felt some pretty dynamic air-movement! Below 60Hz base rolls off subtly so that you’re never reminded of what is "not there." When I first saw the movie Holy Smoke I became a Neil Diamond fan after enjoying the first audio track in that movie; Holly Holy. I now have The Essential Neil Diamond (Columbia / Sony CD 696998568129) as I played Holly Holy the little A2's were remarkably life like and were not bogged down by the number of instruments and complexity of the track. On the live track Play Me, audience voices can be heard clearly in the background and sounded quite real. Where I felt the speakers truly excelled was during DVD movie playback. DVD / Movies: Eventually I moved the pair into the living room and set them up for my mother's DVD player. There they were housed in a large wood entertainment center and many speakers would have resonated creating a box effect. The AE2's because of their front firing port did very well in this environment and I was shocked to hear some of the movie effects coming from the living room. From a pair of speakers this small they produce an enormous amount of sound. These are not near-field monitors, although you can sit as close as you like. To appreciate their openness listening to music or movies sitting about two meters back is recommended. As far as a sound-stage I cannot say these speakers will throw a convincing soundstage in which 3D-images appear fixed in space. They do convey music with speed and relative accuracy and in the case of a single vocalist, if setup properly (in this case I simply made sure there was no object (i.e. the monitor) between them) and there was an image. The issue with this, no one is going to place these speakers on stands nor would I even bother for this review since I don't think they even make stands that small. Nevertheless, you will get much more from these speakers then anything I've seen at twice their size and that is a huge plus. If, however; the sound becomes too complicated or layered the little boxes can only do so much. In other words, don't expect to hear the layers of a full orchestral movement to sound realistic. Of course if you’re asking your 6" high monitors to play music on that scale you've probably been taking Jonathan Swift novels a "little" too seriously. Gaming: The A2 system did particularly well given their size reproducing battlefield effects and the usual FPS weaponry. Voices are clear and detailed. Once again if your expecting your windows to shake when a 1,000lb Bomb drops in a WWII Sim well your better off getting the AE5's and AS8 Powered Subwoofer. While a surround sound system might be optimal for such effects as well as movie playback, the cost for a quality system is high. I have yet to see anyone set up their surround sound system properly and not for lack of trying. That issue aside the AE2's do just about everything a PC-owner would need them to do and more. Sitting on either side of your monitor these are sure to sound better then any typical PC-Audio product with low cost drivers enclosed in plastic. Although intended for "desktop placement" and near-filed listening their sound transcends this with a realism found in products costing much more. They worked very well in my living room on either side of the TV playing DVDs and because their Shielded EMI should be at a minimum. They connect in seconds, and the external DC power-supply includes a very lengthy cable. Conclusion: I was at a disadvantage having lived with the A5 and then having to evaluate the A2, I was perhaps more critical. My experience with the A5 system left me to judge the A2's based on what they lacked compared to the AE5's. So any accolades I ascribe these speakers were not easily won. With that said, the Audio Engine AE2 Desktop Speakers are a true piece of Audiophile engineering in the smallest physical enclosure I've ever seen or heard. Designed and constructed as if they should cost more or would be a larger speaker in another life, they are quite natural sounding. The cabinet craftsmanship built into every pair manifests itself just where it should, tight bass (what's there) and a solid sound. The neutrality of these powered speakers result from a simple solid state amplifier incorporating a Torriodial transformer, external DC-power supply, no artificial boosting, and classic MDF construction with internal bracing. These details are rarely found in PC-speakers and even rarer still in a speaker this size. This is a winning design and the only specification better then the price is the sound. PRO Excellent value Highly versatile Musical High quality finish and 5-way binding posts CON Unable to image Anemic base rear volume control Onto the AE5....
