Audio Audioengines - burn-in?

[TechHead]

Had to get my older pair replaced under warranty.. sound was completely off-target in both, reason(s) unknown. I got the new pair hooked up.. sound is very... neutral, and treble heavy, Sources are : my x-fi, iRiver and sister's iPod.

Do these require burn-in? Wasn't needed on the earlier pair.

 

[saintsinner]

in a general perspective, i'll say every good speaker has it's break-in period. they start to sound better after 2-3 weeks.

PS - my general perspective here is car audio. i assume same applies to pc audio.

 

[bottle]

what happened to the older pair ? planning to pick up one soon as well

 

[Gannu]

[OT] Ravin, do these require a dedicated amp or an external sound card for that matter??

DP was suggesting me to go for these instead of the MX5021; But I do play games more often than listening to music. [OT]

 

[bottle]

stick to mx5021, for games you will need a sub, personally was just looking for something compact.

sorry TH for ot

 

[Udit]

Ravin, do these require a dedicated amp or an external sound card for that matter??

DP was suggesting me to go for these instead of the MX5021; But I do play games more often than listening to music.

Audioengine AE2 do not require a dedicated amp or an external sound card

as for gaming speakers in 12k nothing would beat the Logitech Z-5300

Audioengine AE2 do the work of a subwoofer beautifully so I would buy them over MX5021 any given day

 

[raja iyer]

mate, bfore going in for any of the abv check them for urself first. the individual opinions abt various options are subjective. i hv both - the ae and the mx. the mx surpasses the ae in bass due to the sub. try out all the options, including the logitech(which has a lot of bass producing capacity) before going in for what suits u.

 

[cranky]

What was the 'problem' with the earlier pair?

It does take some time to get accustomed to the way speakers sound, as each pair sounds slightly different. Burn-in happens two-way, the speaker itself burns in and our ears burn in to get used to the speaker. The end result may or may not be a happy one.

Most speakers fresh out of the box are a little bass-shy, as the spiders are usually pretty stiff to start out with. This may be what you're hearing. Or AE got wise and finally gave the speakers a flat frequency response, removing the low frequency hump.

 

[TechHead]

what happened to the older pair ? planning to pick up one soon as well

No clue. The sound just started sounding weird.. all watery and unstable, for want of a better description. Gave it back to Ashu at bajaao, his office is 10 minutes away from mine, got a new pair the next day.

No worries for the OT.. as long as it helps someone, no issues.

@Sangram: As explained above, they just started sounding weird. Ashu is doing some detective work on them. I do not play them too loud, ~30% levels for 1-1.5 hours a day.

It is already starting to sound better, will update in the evening.. I have it plugged into an iPod, shuffling some old-skool hip-hop.

 

[Styx]

My A2's too didn't sound great out of the box.
After playing music for almost 2 hours at ~30% volume level the sound improved considerably, particularly the low frequency response.

And they just sound too good now...love them.

 

[sarang]

@TechHead
I'd recommend you download some specialized "run-in" music disc. It is supposed to exercise the drivers to loosen them up and get tourself ready to listen to them as well (As Sangram has pointed out)

 

[burnz]

take your time to burn them in.. my pair of A5s took a good 50-60hrs of listening before i'm comfortable with the sound.. another pair of my Usher S520 bookshelves did a good 100hrs before.. now they sound amazing, even when paired with a Nuforce Icon portable amp i recently bought..

ot, speaking of the Nuforce Icon, it's really a remarkable piece of audio engineering.. check out 6moons audio reviews: NuForce Icon