Need a TON of help for $2k speakers or system

[Wilderness]

Hey Chris.  I have the two speakers you mentioned, the Dynaudio Excite 14A and the Audioengine HD6.  I bought the X14A first, but then I got the HD6.  It's no contest.  The $699 HD6 blow away the $1299 Excite 14A for me.

 

I moved the Excite 14A speakers to my bedroom.  The only thing they are used for is my bedroom TV, which I use as an alarm clock.

 

The 14A sound cold, lifeless and boring compared to HD6.  The 14A's midrange sounds dull sometimes, veiled at other times.  The midrange is the HD6's strength.  I just spent several hours listening to Joni Michell and David Rawlings with Gillian Welch through my HD6, and I was pleased the whole time with the beauty of the acoustic guitar work and vocals and the room filling sound.  The HD6 speakers produce a gorgeous tone, reverb and decay.  The balance between treble, midrange and bass is just right.  For singer songwriter and folk music, I feel nothing was missing or off.

 

I also listen to a lot of ambient and electronic, such as Robert Rich, Biosphere, Banco de Gaia, a little of Tangerine Dream, Leila Abdul-Rauf, Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation, etc. and the HD6 speakers perform so well I don't want to stop listening.  On many Friday and Saturday nights, I turn down the volume and listen to Robert Rich's sleep concerts as I fall asleep. 

 

I typically listen at 65 to 75 decibels with some peaks at 82 decibels at my listening position, which is 8 feet 10 inches from the speakers.  The HD6 speakers aren't going to sound good at 90 decibels or above, but that is not an issue for me as I never play them that loud.  I have the HD6 speakers 25 inches from the wall. 

 

The HD6 speakers are detailed without ever being harsh or bright in the treble or upper midrange.  Bells, chimes, cymbals and higher electronic notes all sound detailed, pleasing, and loud enough to appreciate them without ever being too forward or bright.  I have never winced or turned down the volume when high notes were played on my HD6 speakers.  I am put off by a heavy emphasis on brightness, maybe not as much as you are, but I am sensitive to it.  The HD6's upper frequencies are rolled off just enough that they are never unpleasant but not so much that anything is missing or veiled.  By contrast, the Excite 14A usually sound veiled to the point of being dull, even though they sometimes manage to deliver some sparkle.

 

Bass is usually good, but with a very few tracks with overcooked bass the HD6 can get overwhelmed.  Watkins Glen by the Grateful Dead and Cold Tea Blues by Cowboy Junkies are a coupe of examples.  The only song in my 5,625 tracks collection that has boomy bass is Short Cuts by April in Paris.  The solution for these three songs is to turn down the volume a bit.  For all other songs, the bass is surprisingly good.  The HD6 won't always give good full bodied kick drum, which is to be expected with 5.5 inch woofers, but they do sound great with kick drums such as on some tracks by Dirty Three.

 

I am using two 12-inch subwoofers now to supplement the bass.  I run the HD6 speakers full range, because they sound best by far that way.  I turned down the volume on the subs so that they won't cause any rattles in my house, and so most of the bass I hear is from the HD6 speakers.  You said that you won't be getting subs, but you might think about it at some point just to fill in the low bass.  The HD6 are rated down to 50hz.

 

My HD6 speakers are doing double duty with music and my TV.  The convenience is something I will never give up.  I can just hit the mute button on my TV remote and click play in JRiver for music from my computer.  It's so simple.  The HD6 speakers have a built in DAC so that I can use the digital connection with my TV, and the audio is clear and accurate.  I have a 4K Blu Ray player, and the high definition audio on the Planet Earth series is stunning and jaw dropping with the HD6 speakers.  I use an external DAC, the TEAC 503 ($999) with the HD6's RCA analog connections for music.

 

I noticed that with the HD6's internal DAC, some busy music can sound muddy (a few seconds of a Led Zeppelin song, for example).  This rarely happens, but it is there.  For most music, it sounds very good.  Since I started using an external DAC, this problem has not been an issue.

 

Apple AAC and high resolution music sound great with JRiver from my iMac and the HD6 speakers.  They strike a good balance between being forgiving and yet detailed and pleasing.

 

The HD6 speakers aren't perfect, but they are a true bargain, highly versatile, and they are so good with most of the music I listen to now that I look forward to listening to them every day.  They don't have massive scale, slam, or impact, but the HD6 speakers, to me, serve as proof that sometimes paying less gets better sound.

[Wilderness]

Hi Chris,

 

You want to know more about what I think of the Excite 14A.  Well, to me, they don't do anything well except wake me up in the morning when I use them with my bedroom TV as an alarm clock.  Treble and midrange are icy and dull.  Where's the bass?  They do not cause fatigue, but that's about it.  I expect that a pair of $200 passives would sound much better.

 

The HD6 speakers, however, are beautiful with midrange, and the treble is detailed and sweet without ever causing fatigue.  The folks at Audioengine spent a lot of time working to get the tone right, and they succeeded.  The bass is adequate for most music, but I added subs to go deeper. 

 

I did find that the HD6 were bass boomy when too close to the wall.  So, I moved them out 25 inches and now all is well.  I do not apply any EQ or room correction.

 

The HD6 speakers took about five hours of use to begin to open up, and about 100 hours or so to get closer to their potential.

 

You can get an app for iPad, iPhone, or Android to measure decibels output from your speakers from your listening position.  85 decibels at a steady and prolonged level, plus peaks, is supposedly the level at which hearing damage can occur.  I feel that 65 to 75 decibels, with peaks in the low 80s, is plenty loud enough for me to enjoy the music.  The HD6 speakers do sound their best at these levels.  I can turn them down a little late at night on bass heavy tracks if I worry about disturbing my neighbors.  I live in a house, though, and so if I keep my windows and heavy drapes closed I figure that I can usually play my speakers as loud as I want.  I've never heard a complaint.  The HD6 speakers sound good at moderate levels that are a little quieter than what I usually use.  I don't play them at low levels, because what would be the point?  Some people listen to music with big speakers at much louder levels -- a steady 90 decibels and above -- but I don't enjoy music that loud and I wonder about their hearing health.  I have excellent hearing and I want to keep it that way.

 

Another useful app for your handheld is one that will let you see the frequency range of your speakers in real time as well as on a recorded plot line that can record the frequency range on a fever graph over several hours.  I did that with my HD6, and I found that they do indeed roll off the upper midrange and treble.  This matches what I thought I was hearing.  The results with the app don't tell the whole story, though.  The HD6 are voiced so well that while avoiding the fatiguing sound of bright speakers they still deliver a gorgeous sound with treble and midrange.  Some folks spend many thousands of dollars on speakers to get that balance (and some of those speakers offer up better and louder bass).

[Wilderness]

Chris,

 

Regarding sound level, I think that we should break it down beyond loud versus low.  At the least, think loud, moderate, and low.  In that scenario, I listen at moderate levels.  I lived in an apartment until I bought a house five years ago.  The level I listen at now would probably disturb apartment neighbors late at night when people are trying to sleep. 

 

But if we break it down further to include the lower end of moderate levels, the HD6 speakers are enjoyable.  I doubt that would be loud enough to bother apartment neighbors unless you have paper thin walls.

 

I had to go to court when I was 20 and pay a small fine for blasting Led Zeppelin on a pair of Pioneer speakers at very loud levels when I lived in an apartment.  Ah, those nights when I was young.  I never listen at those levels now.

 

Regarding the Excite 14A speakers, you will have to purchase a DAC if you don't have one now.  They don't have a DAC.  A Dynaudio rep said the speakers' sound quality is dependent on the quality of an external DAC.  So, to give them a fair chance to impress, you can't cheap out with the DAC.

 

The HD6 speakers do have a built in DAC, and it sounds pretty good.  You can hook up an external DAC to the RCA connections for even better sound.