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Audioengine A5+ Powered Speaker Review

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amirm

amirm

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Of course you have bias as you are seeing mesaurements before doing the review - it simply cannot be avoided as you can't unsee what has been seen.
So you trust Kal who has seen the model, brand, reputation, color, style for his reviews. But my knowledge of measurements corrupts my tests and they don't for him?

I suggest you get more grounded here. Buy one of the speakers I have measured, look at the measurements and then listen. Report back on what influence it had on you to have seen the measurements. Don't shoot from the hip as you are doing.
 
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amirm

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And no, Kal's reviews are certainly not more accurate than yours. In fact nobody's review can be more accurate than yours as your reviews are based on NFS charts and nobody has listening skills to beat that. :D
Yet I am having to explain over and over again why my subjective assessments don't match the measurements. How do you explain that?

Could it be that I am detecting such things as distortion that spinorama does not include? Or am able to play loud and detect speaker falling over which spinoroma doesn't cover? Or I have special training in detecting artifacts that Harman trained listeners do not?

As I said, you can have all the doubt you want. That doesn't translate into facts. Your posts are empty of such.

I am giving you a reaction to what I am hearing. I work hard to see if I can determine the audibility of spinorama artifacts and that of distortions. You seem to not value these important things. I do so to satisfy my own curiosity and to learn to evaluate speakers and the graphs better and better. That you want to create arguments around this is not my concern if you are not going to lift a finger to back your arguments.
 

Thomas savage

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You guys make me wish I had the patience to keep returning and rebuying them dozens of times. I think my 305P's and my 306PmkII's both sound pretty good... but when they're not playing anything or I put them back on my desk... the hiss is really distracting at first. Eventually my brain's filters kick in and I no longer notice it until I listen for it. Maybe the white noise calms me down after a bit. ;)

I tried a few 305's over a couple months when I thought it was an anomaly - but I figured more than 4 pairs returned to the same GC was likely to wind up with me not being welcome there much longer. If they were $1500 monitors, I'd have kept going or given up on them entirely. For 10% of that cost (actually less on sale) - 4 tries was already excessive IMO.

Although maybe I've been looking at this all wrong, and the real problem is I haven't been gambling (I'm a Vegas native, so I have a very dim view of it). Maybe I can hit the lottery now that I've been enduring all that JBL hiss in my monitors. :p
Off topic but yes these speakers hiss, yes it's audible like someone else mentioned at about 1 meter maybe a bit beyond.

Iv the 308 MK2 .

We all have different abilities to hear things so maybe to some it's not as bad but it's there .
 

Thomas savage

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I think to some amirm's subjective assertions are to be greeted with caution , that's absolutely fine and reasonable in my book .

I don't absolutely trust them , still no need to bang on and on about it . We all have different thresholds when it comes to trusting information, everything presented here is in good faith and about as good as one can get from a single human.

I see little to no constructive outcome to continuing this line of debate.

Neither sides convincing the other .
 

Wombat

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If only there were prizes for moaning .., a world championship even .

I am smiling as I see you guys moaning, groaning and whining about hiss in the 305 MK11s. What hiss? :p:p
 
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Objectivist01

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I think to some amirm's subjective assertions are to be greeted with caution , that's absolutely fine and reasonable in my book .

I don't absolutely trust them , still no need to bang on and on about it . We all have different thresholds when it comes to trusting information, everything presented here is in good faith and about as good as one can get from a single human.

I see little to no constructive outcome to continuing this line of debate.

Neither sides convincing the other .
for all the folks who thinks subjective listening part from his reviews are not enough, why not just refer his measurements and try it yourselves? You don’t need any lab equipment for trying that at home. If you don’t think it’s useful, take what’s useful and before trying or having valid proof to prove your claim, don’t create confusion. I think you guys were too happy with uncontrolled subjective reviews for long and now you want that thing to be here too?

“Felt like standing in the front row - while listening to a 200$ headphone”

“The drums of this amp is higher in space than this second dumb amp”

Those kind of things are good like story’s !
 

Thomas savage

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for all the folks who thinks subjective listening part from his reviews are not enough, why not just refer his measurements and try it yourselves? You don’t need any lab equipment for trying that at home. If you don’t think it’s useful, take what’s useful and before trying or having valid proof to prove your claim, don’t create confusion. I think you guys were too happy with uncontrolled subjective reviews for long and now you want that thing to be here too?

“Felt like standing in the front row - while listening to a 200$ headphone”

“The drums of this amp is higher in space than this second dumb amp”

Those kind of things are good like story’s !
Yes , I would like to see the spirit of investigation spread though those with inquiring minds rather than asking dad for everything.

That's the spirit of science too I guess.
 

QMuse

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And what is that opinion based on? Wet thumb in the air? What experiments have you conducted in this regard or research you have read?

Let me put it this way - if we would be so sensitive to change in THD from 1% to 0.8% (or 0.7%, all the same) than distortion would deserve more than 3 pages in the Toole's book. But it doesn't, and for a good reason, because it has been proved to be a non-issue as listening tests proved we are not sensitive to it.

Once more, my opinion is that once you applied that filter with -2dB gain you were under expectation bias as you saw distortion measurement. If you didn't you certainly wouldn't be able to detect reduced distortion as our ears simply don't have such fine sensitivity. Such small reduction of the distortion would be practically impossible to measure in room. You have UMIK-1 and REW, so give it a try - try to measure distortion with and without the filter and you will see that there will be no difference.

You were not able detect a wide dip you created with that filter at 4380Hz, which is far easier than to detect a small chnage in the distorion. The reason why you didn't detect it is also related to expectation bias - you thought you were doing the right thing so you were expecting a better sound but in fact you created a wide dip which you didn't notice. In a blind test I actually think you would have a pretty good chance to notice it, but doing it like this you missed it.

My point here is that you can't fight expectation bias. But you know that and you said it yourself several times before, so what has changed that now you're claiming you're immune to it?
 

Wombat

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What hearing loss? :D

I can hear hiss on gear. I eliminate it by proper set-up and connections if possible.. Sometimes the gear is at fault and this can't be done

My Altec 802 compression drivers on Altec 511B horns are 'silent' on idle. They are driven by a NAD 356Bee which is disparaged by some. The very very faint sound emanating from them is environmental(room and ear) noise entering the horns and reflecting out again - think as in sea shell. It is there when the amp is turned off.

@Vuki I welcome something more experienced and considered than your guffaw. Enlighten me.
2help.gif
 
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Thomas savage

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I can hear hiss on gear. I eliminate it by proper set-up and connections. Sometimes the gear is at fault and this can't be done

My Altec 802 compression drives on Altec 511B horns are 'silent' on idle. The very very faint sound emanating from them is environmental(room and ear) noise entering the horns and reflecting out again - think as in sea shell. It is there when the amp is turned off.

@Vuki I welcome something more experienced and considered than your guffaw. Enlighten me. View attachment 67508
Maybe start a new thread to teach us all how then
 

Wombat

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No new thread needed. It has been covered on ASR many times.


Use a common mains circuit to power the equipment, if necessary from one power outlet on that circuit.. Dwelling Earth may need to be up to spec.

Follow:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180720124823/http://www.rane.com/library.html#gpm1_1 Wiring, interconnection and grounding.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180720124823/http://www.rane.com/library.html#gpm1_1 Those on level controls.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180722055456/http://www.rane.com/note149.html

Good connectors and properly shielded cables are preferred(they don't cost much).

Inherently noisy gear probably can't be silenced.

Being able to understand and implement the above is required.

I had already made it clear that I may have been lucky with getting low hiss LSR 305Mk11s. But then others may not have set theirs up optimally. Who knows?

My old house has old but safe wiring. No UPS or mains conditioners. I have 16 mains items plugged in for my audio system. No hum and no hiss.

So stop the moaning and work it out, one way or another, now you know how.
 
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Karu

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Let me put it this way - if we would be so sensitive to change in THD from 1% to 0.8% (or 0.7%, all the same) than distortion would deserve more than 3 pages in the Toole's book. But it doesn't, and for a good reason, because it has been proved to be a non-issue as listening tests proved we are not sensitive to it.

Once more, my opinion is that once you applied that filter with -2dB gain you were under expectation bias as you saw distortion measurement. If you didn't you certainly wouldn't be able to detect reduced distortion as our ears simply don't have such fine sensitivity. Such small reduction of the distortion would be practically impossible to measure in room. You have UMIK-1 and REW, so give it a try - try to measure distortion with and without the filter and you will see that there will be no difference.
...

Let’s see another speaker tested instead ;)
 

Wombat

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Vuki

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I can hear hiss on gear. I eliminate it by proper set-up and connections if possible.. Sometimes the gear is at fault and this can't be done

My Altec 802 compression drivers on Altec 511B horns are 'silent' on idle. They are drive by a NAD 356Bee which is disparaged by some. The very very faint sound emanating from them is environmental(room and ear) noise entering the horns and reflecting out again - think as in sea shell. It is there when the amp is turned off.

@Vuki I welcome something more experienced and considered than your guffaw. Enlighten me. View attachment 67508

@Wombat I apologize for my bad sense of humor.
Something more experienced and considered: there is also no noise at all on my Altec 902s, but they sound much better on my round tractrix horns than on 511s. Not that you would notice with your hearing loss :p:p:p
I really apologize!!! I don't mean that. That stupid humor got me again :facepalm:
 

Wombat

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@Wombat I apologize for my bad sense of humor.
Something more experienced and considered: there is also no noise at all on my Altec 902s, but they sound much better on my round tractrix horns than on 511s. Not that you would notice with your hearing loss :p:p:p
I really apologize!!! I don't mean that. That stupid humor got me again :facepalm:

My treated 511s are fine for me. I am pleased that you are happy with your round tractrix horns. They don't give the dispersion that I require, so I didn't make/use them. Your 902s are not as good low down as the 802s but they are very fine CDs over their range. If I used 902s I would probably use them with their intended horns - Mantarays.

I like the old Altec 'sound'.

At least we both value Altec CDs. :)
 

Vuki

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Sorry completely off topic!

My treated 511s are fine for me. I am pleased that you are happy with your round tractrix horns. They don't give the dispersion that I require, so I didn't make/use them. Your 902s are not as good low down as the 802s but they are very fine CDs over their range. If I used 902s I would probably use them with their intended horns - Mantarays.

I like the old Altec 'sound'.

At least we both value Altec CDs. :)

802 8g vs 902 with GPA alu dia on 511 horn, both with 22uF in series

909802.jpg


Main difference is 10/12kHz breakup of 802. Could be material fatigue.
 
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