Medium Happiness

No these aren’t handbags or any other item that you would expect to come in a velvety bag; they are Audioengine 5 Speakers.

These speakers are amazing. I plugged them in last night (after I had thrown out my old bookshelf speakers and receiver, which, I will not miss at all; the Audioengine 5s are self-contained, no amp or receiver required) and hooked my new turntable up to them. Holy shit! It’s like I haven’t even been listening to music for the last 15 years. My old stereo setup was only a limp simulation of what music is intended to sound like.

The Audioengine 5s are incredibly substantial; they have a nice heft and look like a well-designed object. They also have a little USB port on the top to charge an iPod, which is cool. The bass is not booming, but pure, replicating the sonic quality the musician probably intended. The mids and high are so crisp that it almost sounds surreal.

What was also interesting was listening to a new record versus an older record. A lot of you have probably heard of the controversy surrounding the way music is mastered right now. Basically, all of the levels are jacked up so high that you lose a lot of the dynamism in the sound. Supposedly, one of the first bands to do this was Oasis. Anyhow, the music sounds louder, but less textured, essentially. There is an on-going battle in the music industry about who’s to blame and if there is any chance in reverting to the old model of how music was mastered. Most bands, even if they want to mix their music with a quieter more dynamic sound, are afraid to because they risk being overshadowed by the sound swells of bands like Fallout Boy and Ashlee Simpson.

Back to me and my new Audioengine 5 speakers, I listened to a 180 gram version of Interpol’s sophomore album Antics and then an original version of Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town. Man oh man, even on vinyl, you could easily hear how much louder Interpol’s album was than the Boss’. Interpol is a band that I like very much and admire; I might venture to say they have higher artistic standards than most other bands out there today. But, like almost all other contemporary bands, Interpol, too, are mastering their music louder, regardless of whether it’s a CD or record or an MP3.

If you are looking for moderately priced, space-saving speakers that sound like they cost thousands of dollars, look no further.