The little engine that can: Audioengine A2 speaker review
By Steven Kim 
posted Mar 18th 2008 9:27AM
posted Mar 18th 2008 9:27AM
A2 hardware
The first impression with a product is important -- look no further than the popularity of "unboxing" coverage. But especially with budget-priced gear (like the $199 A2s), it's an area that's often relaxed. The A2 box is definitely designed to help it stand out on a stocked shelf, but the speakers, cables and power supply are all packed in cloth drawstring bags. Good thing, too -- the glossy black finish on the review units is very attractive, but a fingerprint magnet (you can get them in white as well). Don't worry about scratching up that gloss on the bottom -- there's foam padding. When you unpack the A2s, you definitely feel like you're getting treated to more than you paid for.
With a 2.7-inch Kevlar woofer, 0.75-inch silk dome tweeter, and 15-Watt amplifier, the A2 is intended to be used as a desktop multimedia speaker. It's a front slot-loaded design, and there are two always-on inputs: one RCA, one 3.5-mm. As you can see from the pics, these are pretty diminutive gems (6 x 4 x 5.25-inches); what the photos don't convey is how solid these feel, at about 4-pounds on each side (the left is a little heavier than the right because of the amp).
Surround channel performance
If you read our review of the AW1 wireless adapter, you know the punchline here. Used as surround-channels in our HT rig, the A2s performed without any complaint. These speakers are specced at +/- 2-dB from 65Hz - 22kHz, so they've got more than enough bandwidth to cover surround duties. More importantly, even though these are small speakers, we never heard dynamic compression in the surround mix; simply put, they don't sound small, which is a failing of many multimedia/desktop speakers.
Again, we can't overstate how much an active speaker is required for successful surround channels; if you have to put wireless, amplification and speakers across three separate components, you may as well pull wires from your receiver to the back.
In short, if you want or need to go wireless for your surround channels, we recommend checking out Audioengine's offerings. The ability to fit this setup in with just about any other components, ease of use and performance make a very nice solution.
General audio performance
Seriously, though, evaluating a speaker only as surround channel is just silly; if you want to know how a speaker performs, listen to it as a primary sound source. Audioengine told us that they made the A2 because they couldn't find any reasonably priced, powered desktop speakers, and then discovered that they work great for small to medium-sized rooms as well, with or without a subwoofer. To test the A2s out, we put them on our desk and fed them some lossless (FLAC and Apple Lossless) and lossy (256-kbps MP3) audio files.
Our immediate first impression was "wow." The rear channel mix was handled just fine by the A2s, but it simply didn't do them justice. We've heard lots of desktop speakers, and even when they sound good in that setting, we notice a huge step up when we go back to our living room system. It's not just the frequency response, but also a lack of compression. The A2s didn't suffer the same malady, and should be though of as "speakers that fit on your desktop" rather than "desktop speakers." We'd characterize the sound of them as rich as opposed to the lean and super-clean studio monitor kind of sound. There's quite a bit of midbass, but it's doesn't cross the line to being tubby and poorly-defined. The bass response was remarkable -- passersby always asked to see the requisite subwoofer box (there was none). We ran some test tones through the A2s and reached an honest 50Hz, albeit a bit attenuated. On the high end, things sounded good as well -- most importantly, things didn't get too "hot" in the upper registers, which we find very tiring.
We found ourselves moving the A2s throughout the house. With sound this good, this easy, it was a no-brainer to bring the A2s to where we wanted to listen to music. Want a good sounding alarm clock? Pair the A2s with an MP3 player's "alarm" option. Having a few friends over on the back patio? Move the A2s to the patio table and stream some music from your computer with the AW1. You get the picture.
Conclusion
In short, we really enjoyed our time with the A2s. Whether put to use as wireless rear surrounds or primary music speakers, they performed great. We think these are little beauties for their looks, sound quality and ease of use. Top it off with a three-year warranty and a 30-day trial period, and we can't help but recommend them. The A2s have really helped us enjoy the time we're "chained to the desk" a lot more.
Another great post. Keep doing ones like this! Ignore visit stats. :)
Any thoughts on stands for use for surrounds? It doesn't appear that they have any mounting holes.
Honestly, they're so small that just about anything could be used as a stand, including just setting them on a wall-shelf. They're slot loaded in the the front, so having them close to a rearward surface doesn't impact the sound as much as rear-ported speakers.
Nice review. For those interested in more quantitative test results, see the Stereophile article:
http://stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/1207ae/index4.html
A2 owner here and as a person who also owns hi-end speakers i must say these A2's are amazing little speakers. Great sound for a $199 speakers. I have it connected to an external 192/24 DAC and it's singing! Money Well spent
2 things:
1) "front slot loaded design." Are you talking about a dvd player? Because in the world of speakers, this would be called a ported speaker. Or maybe a front ported speaker. Unless the "slot" was purely cosmetic. In which case it would be a sealed enclosure speaker.
2) Umm, the wireless is cool and all, but isn't there still a power cord?
Oh, and while I appreciate the idea that testing a speaker for surround only is silly, try using a dipole surround as a main...
1. I think we're both right on the "slot loaded" bit. It is a front ported design, but the term "slot loaded" is pretty common in speaker design.
2. Yes, these speakers do require a power cord, but the audio gets to them wirelessly. Devices have to get power from somewhere!
Are you using dipoles as mains? Wouldn't that sounds really diffuse?
The speakers are not wireless as the term is commonly understood. A notebook with a wireless connection uses no wires, not even a power cord.
Furthermore, running 120v wires to a speaker that's typically mounted high or next to the ceiling is no less "fugly" than typical loudspeaker cable. If you want to hide the wires in your attic, you're faced with more of a hassle because the 120v wiring has to meet more stringent NEC standards than low voltage.
There is no advantage whatsoever to these misleadingly named "wireless" speakers.
Wireless audio transmission *does* have its advantages. When speakers need to be "far" from a receiver or other audio source (e.g., surrounds, multi-room audio setup), it's convenient to eliminate the audio wiring and only wire the power using a nearby located power outlet. I don't know about you, but I have many more power outlets in my house than I have receivers ...
These are active speakers...must be connected to power outlet and has a volume knob on the back so i dont think these are really meant to be used for surrounds. These were made for PC/Mac or ipod speakers. THe reviewer probably used it as surrounds just for testing purposes, which i somehow found odd...nothing against Steven.
Right on -- like I said at the top of the post, sending audio to the rear channels wirelessly is attractive to lots of people. Whether they don't want to bother with pulling new wires or they simply can't (apartment dwellers), a power cord + a short run of speaker cable from left to right channel is better than no surround sound at all.