Category: Reviews

With the recent dearth of headphones for review I thought I’d post about my latest audio purchase – the AudioEngine 2/A2 desktop speakers. Yes I know this is a headphone blog, but we’re all music lovers, and speakers make it easier to share the music!

These speakers are really quite tiny, 15cm (6″) high, 14cm (6″) deep, 9cm (4″) wide. They’re small enough that I might just take them next time I go on an overseas holiday! They could easily be packed up in the included soft cases and taken to a bbq or a party (mains power required).

The left speaker has the inputs, the amplifier, the connection to the right speaker, and the power/volume switch on the back. The volume switch is right beside the 3.5mm input, it’s a pretty poor choice of location since the 3.5mm lead gets in the way, but you get used to it. It looks better to have everything on the rear as well. The bottom is a soft padded material so they don’t scratch your desk.

The sound that comes from these speakers isn’t small – for the size of the speakers it’s really quite remarkable. They’re surprisingly loud if you crank them up, louder than I will ever need. The bass is much better than you could reasonably expect for such small speakers, better than many headphones. It’s not room shaking, but it’s quite low and strong considering their size and price. There is a sweet spot for the bass, if you go way off center or into a different room it’s less impressive, but if you want room shaking bass you probably want  a different system. They do have a subwoofer that seems to have a wireless module, but their website is a little cryptic about how it all works.

The clarity of the mid range is impressive. Vocals are clear and understandable, but musical. They cope well with dance, jazz, and vocals. The highs are good, not super super sharp, but they’re there and well balanced. Well balanced describes the sound overall, along with musical, and enjoyable. I don’t think they’re enough for a home theater system, though their big brother the AudioEngine A5 may work ok for that.

Compared to my entry level Wharfdale Vardus home theatre 6.1 speaker system there’s really no comparison: the Wharfdale easily best them. Remember though the Vardus cost six times more, they have 18 or more cones compared with four, they’re about 20 times the size, and probably weight about 40 times more. The AudioEngine together are 1/2 the size of the Vardus center speaker, and the sound while not near as good is definitely a heck of a lot better than a TV could produce.

Overall I can highly recommend these little speakers as ideal for music for one or two people in small areas, at their desks in a home office, for portable use, or really anything else. They’re available on Amazon.com for US$199.

We reviewed the Audeze LCD-2 around six months back, and pronounced them perhaps the best headphones on the planet. I’m listening to them right now, and they really are quite awesome.

We were blown away today to discover the LCD-3 exists! I’m not sure how they could improve the LCD-2, but we’d love to find out! At US$1945 they’re definitely a niche market, but we expect a definite evolution and improvement on the LCD-2.

I know, I know, this is a headphone review site, not a speaker review site, what am I doing?! Well recently I purchased some the Wharfedale Vardus 5.1 speaker pack, along with an Onkyo TX-SR508 receiver, and there were very few reviews around, so I figured i’d share! Read on for my review.

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A week or so ago we received an email from Fanny Wang asking if we’d like to review their headphones. After we finished sniggering about the name we said sure, we’d love to.

You may recognise the name from the recent news about Monster suing Fanny Wang over claims they’re a knock-off of the Monster Beats.

I have both headphones sitting side by side on my desk, and there is a heck of a resemblance. Did they copy them? I don’t know, and it’s not for me to decide. Both are good looking headphones though. The Beats are more comfortable as they’re an over the ear model, but Fanny Wang are pretty good for on-ear models, and they’re coming out with an over the ear noise cancelled product in a month or so.

First impressions are the drivers in the Fanny Wang headphones are quite poorly matched, with the left driver being significantly louder than the right. If i’d paid for these i’d return them for exchange or refund right away. I’ll try to do a fair review of the headphones given this obvious fault, but it will obviously lose points for such a basic problem.

I’m leaving the headphones to burn in for a day or so, i’ll post a full review once they’re ready.

Late last year TFT Acoustics sent us three canal phones and one standard earphone for comparative review, and we’ve finally gotten around to posting our reviews.  Overall, we’re impressed.

The 2100 2V1S canalphone is a stand out performer. It has a clear, well balanced sound, great bass that doesn’t overwhelm, and it’s just a pleasure to listen to. There’s also an “extra bass” version that gives you a little more bass at the expense of the mids and highs, though they’re still reasonably well balanced. The little brother 2101 2V1 model is a decent performer for a very decent price. The 1101 earphone model’s a bit crap, but my view is probably biased, i’ve never much liked that style of headphone. Overall the canalphones are very good value.

One problem is the sensitivity – they’re just too loud. Even on minimum volume on my iPod Touch I often wanted to turn the volume down. High sensitivity is common to thin film earphones, but these are ones are extra sensitive. On maximum volume these things would do permanent damage to your ears in no time flat – seconds, or minutes. If you get them, be careful. Hearing loss or tinnitus are serious problems, and neither can be cured – hearing problems are for life.

As the company is new availability is limited, but that should improve in the next few months.

On a lighter note I think they need to make better use of a spell checker – Acoustics has only one C . I suspect a name change will be forthcoming in the near future 😉