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Audioengine A5+

I recently purchased a pair of Audioengine A2 speakers for work that quickly became the catalyst for purchasing a pair of the A5+ speakers for our family/play room. We just use an iPod or iPhone source, but I have connect the speakers directly to my Pioneer Elite SACD player several times in my main listening room (living room) and have been blown away with the result. On certain recording I am certain that I could fool most people into believing they were listening to my Focal 836v speakers as long as it wasn't an A to B comparison where the difference becomes very obvious. On other recordings they don't hold up as well and sound strained at louder volumes. I had a friend over and was listening to Saint-Saens Symphony No.3 "organ" and he kept looking at my receiver to verify that the little speakers were honestly responsible for everything he was hearing. The low organ note reproduction is really impressive in my room. Overall, this is a re,cording that is too much for them at volume, but on certain passages they perform almost beyond belief. I could easily consider them in combination with my SACD player to be a true audiophile system.

One of these days the smaller A2 speakers will come home from work for a date with the Pioneer Elite just to see what they sound like with a real source.
mceljo

Showing 1 response by dne

dne
139 posts
 
For living room usage, I think you'll need the A5+ and not the A2. There is likely to be just too much space in a living room for the small woofer used in the A2. I presently use a pair of A5 in the living room as TV speakers and would certainly not want a smaller woofer, great as the bass is in the A5.

Let's face it, a 5" woofer in the A5 series is still small for a living room, and though the Audioengines have excellent bass, it's likely that this is achieved at the sacrifice of playing very loud (though they still play loudly, but not super loud). The laws of physics still apply.

I think they're great speakers too and have recommended them to several others. In fact, for TV usage I use them nearly all the time and generally see no need to use my big system instead (Magnepan 3.6, Pass Lab ...).
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