number four out of five in my series of
speaker reviews and this is one that I have been asked to look at many many
times or at least the older revision the audio engine A2 pluses are the followup
to the older revision the extremely popular audio engine a2s and I have to
say I was really excited to take them for a test
drive the Corsair Flash Voyager go is the easy way to move photos music and
videos between your Android device and your PC click now to learn more so let's
start with what they are the A2 plus is
a powered 2.0 speaker setup that relies on quality MDF construction with each
speaker equipped with a 3/4 in silk Dome Tweeter and 2.75 in custom Kevlar woer
the left speaker contains the business end of things with power in an analog
input as well as a USB input enabled by the now included DAC that's an
improvement over the previous A2 a coaxial audio output that allows music
to be sent wirelessly to other speakers with an optional adapter or a subwoofer
to be added to the system a two wire output to the right speaker and finally
I really can't figure out why they put this here A rearm mounted volume knob at
the front you find the speakers I mentioned before as well as a base Port
that is the only real trick up the A2 Plus's sleeve in terms of reproducing
low frequency sounds since it doesn't resort to using any Digital Signal
processing or fake base boost circuits something that I'll comment on more
later but let's move on to who these are for well at 250 bucks they're solidly
constructed but not cheap so they seem to be targeted at folks who are willing
to pay a premium for well-built non nonsense products that deliver a
tangible performance improvement over cheaper Solutions but who also don't
want to get sucked into the hype train of snake oil nonsense that exists around
many audio file grade products sounds like a recipe for Success Reddit forums
and other online communities will often rally around just such a bang for the
buck product and from my casual observation that does seem to be where a
lot of audio engines Fame comes from on the subject of bang for the buck they
get reasonably loud louder than the Bowers and Wilkins mm1's for sure but at
half the price of most of the other products in this review series I'm not
expecting them to blow the roof off of my house and they don't in fact I'd say
in terms of maximum volume they're not crank it so loud it hurts speakers where
you're really going to feel the explosions in your favorite action games and movies but they would be suitable
for ambient music at a cocktail party if you were to try and use them as room
speakers as long as you can convince your guests to get a party reasonably
quietly another thing that they're not is studio monitors although audio engine
site does make a point of mentioning their studio monitor like design
philosophy durability and you know quality and all that stuff so don't be
surprised if you end up with something that might not be a studio monitor but
might be tuned a little bit differently than your typical you know Beats by Dre
type of sound signature now speaking of
non-fat sound signatures the bottom line for me doing my listening tests with my
usual mix of top 40 music Captain America and Titanfall games dreams is
that the A2 pluses did not meet my
expectations and I actually found them to be fairly anemic sounding
yes I come in expecting them to have a more flat reference sound signature but
I was still a little bit surprised taking it back at how unexciting they
were to listen to given that they're half of the price of 2.0 competitors
like the simple audio listen and Bowers and Wilkins mm1's they start to look
more compelling because they're certainly better than a you know
$29.99 plastic speaker set from a gaming brand but however natural sounding the
bass might be versus the weird one-dimensional sounding base that I
described in my mm1 review and as objectively better a solution it is to
not use software tricks to play around with the way the speakers sound I just
didn't find the A2 pluses that enjoyable to listen to they get surprisingly loud
for their size yes but it just feels
empty compared to the systems with base boosting tricks or subwoofers and
however much the purists might hate me for saying it I prefer those Solutions
in a side-by-side listening test it's not all bad news though expandability
for the future is something to consider BMW's mm1's do not offer any subwoofer
connection so you're stuck with them the way they are and many prepackaged
speaker sets like Corsair's SP 2500s use
proprietary cables and connectors so while they do come with a sub they
aren't easily disconnected from it and connected to other gear in a modular
fashion not so with these puppies
hooking up a sub does wonders for the A2 plus and the audio engine S8 subwoofer
is a great match for the it helps provide the Rumble that multimedia
freaks will want and while you'll be spending about $100 more than the
listens of the mm1's aside from the mm1's clear superiority at the high end
this combo will actually give you a very well-rounded overall experience but they
still don't get my recommendation because even with the subwoofer they
feel like in I compromised to save space
or to save money solution the enclosures
however well engineered their reinforced MDF Construction with round corners
might be simply don't seem big enough to
deliver the same kick in the mids or the lows that they're bigger and not that
much more expensive in the grand scheme of things Brothers than the A5 plus do
so that's what you're left with if you want to shop all audio engine not an
unusual thing given their reputation 250 bucks with no subwoofer and not a lot of
fun to Listen to In This reviewer's opinion $600 with an S8 subwoofer or
there's a third option in between that I really think Takes the Cake but you'll
have to wait for my full review of the audio engine A5 plus to get the complete
picture don't worry I'll try to get it done soon in the meantime guys thank you
for watching my review of the A2 pluses the link for where to buy this product
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