AudioEngine A5's + S8 setup

Andyk5

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 27, 2011
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Hi guys, I own a set of AudioEngine A5's and love them. I will be adding the AudioEngine S8 subwoofer to the system pretty soon.
I have been researching this digital versus analog setups for a while now and what I found out is that die hard audiphiles still prefer analog sound transfer. This is supposedly the reason why A5's do not have a digital input. For now I have been driving these A5's using the onboard audio from a sony vaio notebook. I am not a humangous audiohpile but I would like to get my moneys worth out of these speakers so I am not sure if I should upgrade to an actual sound card on the new rig that I am gonna build. I did learn that when dealing with digital signals onboard sound is ok but if analog sound is used, then a dedicated card is a good idea. I just don't know if it would make a noticable difference on the sound quality. If I was driving a pair of $50 speakers I would not even start this thread but at least on my level, these A5's and the S8 sub are the best audio system I have owned to date.
 
ok well one thing to understand is that speakers and amps are analog anyway. CDs FLACs, MP3s and etc, are digital. when die hard audiophiles say they prefer analog, they probably mean something like this:
5507293043_0cec73e970.jpg


with digital sources, there will be some digital transfer and some analog transfer. its not about analog vs digital transfer, but the conversion of digital to analog.

the reason that they are reccomending digital out of the motherboard is because of a few things
a) optical cable completely isolates the rest of your high end components from the electrically noisy PC. (note, jitter and clock issues still persist)
b) the digital analog converter (DAC) is on motherboard sound is likley not good.

ok as far as that sub is concerned im not a fan. for one its only $50 shy of the cheapest REL sub which is a far more musical sub, not a fan of ported subwoofers for music either.
http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/item/features/549598655/rel-t3-black

but i dont suggest you get that one either.

honesltly im not a fan of self powered speakers. yes, they do well on a budget, but then now your ready to have invested $700, and that wont have been the best $700 you could have spent.

ok sorry for the mini rant,
as far as outboard dacs are concerned, whats your budget like?
 
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Well I was gonna try to get away with something simple that would not do a whole lot of environment effects type of stuff but more on converting digital signals accurately. I would not want to spend much more than $150 or so
 

oh wow, I did not even know that boxes like this did exist. So this box takes away the need of installing a sound card and using its analog outputs? Is this a good way of preventing signal loss from the actual lets say *.flac document to a set of analog speakers?

Also Procyon, why don't u like the S8? I have ordered it 6 months ago and used it for 2 weeks then returned it for not really being impressed by it. Later I decided that I would order it again since I did not have subwoofer in a while and maybe my ears need to get used to it, or the kevlar ( I think thats what it is made of) needed to break in. I am wondering what was your impression.


Edit: Also, can you explain why this box is better than using the speaker output on the onboard audio card? Is it that on board audio card is not good enough to convert digital signals to analog so it messes up but this thing does it much better?
 
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oh wow, I did not even know that boxes like this did exist. So this box takes away the need of installing a sound card and using its analog outputs? Is this a good way of preventing signal loss from the actual lets say *.flac document to a set of analog speakers?

Edit: Also, can you explain why this box is better than using the speaker output on the onboard audio card? Is it that on board audio card is not good enough to convert digital signals to analog so it messes up but this thing does it much better?

yes basically, this replaces your sound card. well the main reason is that this is basically just a better DAC and audio unit than 99% of sound cards. the HT omega claro+/haloand asus xonar st/stx are probably in the same league but they are $25-50 more. (yes they have alot more features, but they wont be utilized for music from 2 channel speakers, and if you dont use headphones)

the second reason is that outboard sound is better is because it becomes distanced from interference with the all the electrical noise in side the computer. your graphics card and PSU, CPU for example will be giving off EMI that can pollute the sound (the asus cards have some pretty good shielding however) this is the reason you see so many higher end audio applications being external. kind of defeats the purpose to put high end audio chips inside the case.


Also Procyon, why don't u like the S8? I have ordered it 6 months ago and used it for 2 weeks then returned it for not really being impressed by it. Later I decided that I would order it again since I did not have subwoofer in a while and maybe my ears need to get used to it, or the kevlar ( I think thats what it is made of) needed to break in. I am wondering what was your impression.

i just want to put a disclaimer that i am probably overly critical. i admit that i am not a fan of self powered speakers or ported subs to start with and on top of that, i have an irreverence for movie theater type bass in music.

its not worth $350 to me. like i said, the REL T3 is only $50 away. to be fair, musical subs are a very difficult thing to make, compared to theater subs, and are are not cheap and the cheapest REL is what id consider the cheapest entryway. your audioengines go down to 50hz, so its not absulutley necessary to have a sub.

the problem is your kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place because they will pair very nicely between what you already have; just know that audioengine is probably taking you for about $100-150 knowing this.

if you did not have the audioengines but other full range passive speakers and wanted a $300-$400 sub i would reccomend the REL in a heartbeat.

Do you remember what frequency you set the crossover when you had the sub? its vital to the integration of your speakers sound. that could be the problem you were experiencing. the S8 is a good match for the A5.
you also might find success outside of Audioengine.
this might be a good option:
http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/i...c=GoogleBase&ne_ppc_id=914&ne_key_id=6206521#
 
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Procyon12 tnx for all the info. I am not sure where I left off the crossover setting on the sub. All I remember is that I was playing with it all day long from lowest freq. all the way to highest constantly played with it. The problem is that the sub and the two A5's were in a pretty tight space in a boat cabin where the speakers were not even spaced apart enough to create proper stereo. Also the sub was located first between a teak wood boat furniture piece and a carpeted wall, then was sitting under my desk facing towards the fiberglass hull. Since the placement of the speakers and the acoustics of the room was pretty bad, I returned them to try them out at a later date. I never listened to them in a proper setting. Also I got my A5's and the S8 for $275 each, I did not pay the $350 premium on both of them so the total cost of them is about $550 in which range I had trouble locating something that sounded better.

Another problem of mine is, I have trouble locating an actual store where I can test out some setups. This is not just with audio but almost everything. I could not find A5's anywhere, I had to take the word of others before I ordered them, same goes with dell monitors and mechanical keyboards. I live in L.A. and BestBuy does not carry any proper computer/audio equipment. Their high-end audio area was a bit of a let down also where I could not tell the difference between $300 and $1500 passive speakers. Not everyone wants to watch Nicholas Cage fly thru mid air wielding two .50 caliber desert eagles at full volume. I was more interested in hearing more delicate signals.
Also I understand what you mean with the movie theater subwoofer. I hate those things. They fill the room alright but I always want to get up and check to see if they have any rips or anything on their woofers and for some reason all bass notes accompanied with some deep crackling and thunder.
 
ok well in that case if you have the ability to spend some time to set them up properly you can try again. room acoustics play a large part in bass and alot of it can be trial and error and experimentation.
 
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