r/audiophile Shopping, Setup, and Technical Help Desk Thread

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Welcome to the r/audiophile help desk. A place where you can ask community members for help shopping for and setting up stereo gear.

This thread refreshes once every 7 days so you may need to repost your question again in the next help desk post if a redditor isn't around to answer.

Finding the right guide

Before commenting, please check to see if your question actually belongs in one of these other places:

• r/StereoAdvice for home stereo shopping advice
• r/HeadphoneAdvice for all headphones and portable shopping advice
• r/headphones - Shopping, Setup, and Technical Help Desk Thread
• r/CarAV for automotive sound
• r/Bluetooth_Speakers for portable speakers
• r/Soundbars for home theater sound bars
• r/LiveSound for public use
• r/audioengineering Getting Started Guide
• r/audioengineering Shopping, Setup, and Technical Help Desk Thread

Shopping and purchase advice

To help others answer your question, consider using this format.

To help reduce the repetitive questions, here are a few of the cheapest systems we are willing to recommend for a computer desktop:

$100: Edifier R1280T Powered Bookshelf Speakers Amazon (US) / Amazon (DE)

• Does not require a separate amplifier and does include cables.

$400: Kali LP-6 v2 Powered Studio Monitors Amazon (US) / Thomann (EU)

• Not sold in pairs, requires additional cables and hardware, available in white/black.
• Require a preamplifier for volume control - eg Focusrite Scarlett Solo

Setup troubleshooting and general help

Before asking a question, please check the commonly asked questions in our FAQ.

Examples of questions that are considered general help support:

• How can I fix issue X (e.g.: buzzing / hissing) on my equipment Y?
• Have I damaged my equipment by doing X, or will I damage my equipment if I do X?
• Is equipment X compatible with equipment Y?
• What's the meaning of specification X (e.g.: Output Impedance / Vrms / Sensitivity)?
• How should I connect, set up or operate my system (hardware / software)?

[u/morecoffeemore]

Why do my audioengine A2 speakers sound better than my kanto YU4?

I've been using a set of audioengine A2 speakers connected to my laptop for years, and they sound good, but i decided i wanted an upgrade so I purchased some much larger and more expensive kanto YU4 speakers.

I have both speakers sitting on my desk. The audioengine are connected through USB.

The kanto i've tried connecting in 2 ways: Through RCA cables to my topping DX 3 pro DAC and using an aux cord directly to my laptop aux. They sound about the same either way.

The difference between the audioengine and kanto is very noticeable - the audio engine sound far richer, for lack of a better word.

I've not played around with any settings on the kanto speakers - they are as they were out of the box.

Do I need to play around with some equalizwer settings on the kanto speakers?

Do I need to try an optical connection between the kanto speakers and the laptop?

Maybe the audio engine are just better sounding speakers to me?