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What speakers would you travel with?

It's always amazed me that while we're willing to spend a fortune to get outstanding sound from our home systems, we're left to use our laptop or Ipod speaker as our sound system on the road. Quite a step down in sound quality.

I'm figuring on using my laptop and USB DAC as a source. Not ideal but space and weight considerations have to figure in at some point.

Outside of headphones (I like the mobility and freedom from headgear which speakers afford), what speakers would you or do you travel with when you leave home? We're talking speakers which would fit in hand carried luggage here.
joelha
richlane
167 posts
 
Audioengine A2. I have the A5's on my desktop at home with a Benchmark Dac1 and a pair of A2's on my desktop at work. Phenomenol speakers.., both of them, check out all the great reviews at www.audioengineusa.com as well as the great review on Stereophile.

http://www.stereophile.com/budgetcomponents/1207ae/index.html
richlane
167 posts
 
Oh, one more thing! Phenomenal is spelled incorrectly, but more importantly it has an ipod jack and an ipod charger on top so you don't even need your Laptop if you want to travel lighter. I forgot to mention that I also have a pair of A5's in my bedroom hooked up to a Logitech Duet Squeezebox, great combo also.
ecruz
402 posts
 
I don't own this, but have heard it. It's a very nice little setup.
pmfung
1 posts
 
I recently resurrected my 2 decades old Minimus 7 (driven by a T-amp from partsexpress) to make up for the lack of speakers in my new Asus PC monitor & am pleasantly surprised by the way they sound.

I had already ordered Litekey's upgrade kit while looking for more vintage M7 deals on EBay. The T-amp is the size of my wallet, comes with adaptor plugs & is 120V compatible so should be a pretty good world traveller.
tobias
1,534 posts
 
My impression of the Audioengine A2 vs the Visonik David FWIW: apples and oranges, but the David is a more refined and satisfying speaker overall.

The two are about the same size. Combined weight is about the same (the right A2 has the amp in it so it's heavier, the left A2 is lighter).

On build quality the David wins. The A2 woofer is held in by pressure from the rear. This pressure is applied by a metal bracket screwed to a wood block glued and pinned to the inside of the cabinet. My left A2's wood block came unglued in transit and left the woofer loose

On sound the David wins for smooth response. The A2 has good drivers but the tiny box with its crossover is designed to force LF out of an enclosure and driver that are really too small to do even upper bass easily. If you turn the system up at all there is a perceptible bass hump and a noticeable transition between the two drivers' frequency ranges. On top of that, if the bass content of the music is high you get enough breeze from the front port to provide useful cooling on a hot day.

The David won't do much bass either but it doesn't have the unevenness of the other speaker. It is rear-ported and LF output increases when you put it near a wall or in a corner. Attachment points for matching wall brackets are built-in (although for travel this is of course pointless).

Both units have good smooth HF.

My evaluation is that the perceived difference in sound quality fits fine with the price difference. The Davids cost twice the price of the A2s and then you have to have an amp to drive them. If you can accept the A2s' limitation--don't give them a lot of volume--they're way better then the average desktop powered speakers. Their HF especially won't drive you out of the room. However you'll need to take along a heavy stepdown transformer if you want to use them in any country with European AC voltage.
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