2.1 setup with desktop amp.

Glad you were able to get a good demo with the A100 and both bookshelf and floor standing speakers. Gives you an idea of what to expect with each type of speaker.

Floor standing speakers tend to need a bit more room than bookshelf speakers. If they are too close to a wall, they can sound somewhat boomy. Bookshelf speakers can suffer that too, but it varies depending the spec, brand and model. Some will perform well even when close to a wall, whereas floor standing speakers, well I don't think any would really. Putting floor standing speakers in the corners of the room isn't the best placement, but maybe a foot away from the walls will give them enough room so they don't sound too boomy. Ideally though, I think maybe a foot from a back wall with a few feet from side walls.

If giving floor standing speakers enough room is going to be tricky, then bookshelf speakers and subwoofer will probably be the better option. QA's 3000 range gets a lot of good reviews. The 3020's will be less affected by placement compared to floor standing speakers. According to What HiFi, the 3020's aren't particularly fussy about placement.

I'm not sure the 3020's are necessary though if you're adding a subwoofer, and smaller speakers may suit a desk better. I've got some Roth's on my desk, which are the same size as the 3010, but I don't have a subwoofer. They are just right for me. I do have some larger speakers, similar size to the 3020's, and really I didn't think the placement on my desk really did them justice compared to where they normally are located; on stands either side of my TV cabinet. Plus they looked too big on the desk anyway.

One thing to bear in mind is, if you like the idea of getting floor standing speakers, but are unsure whether placement will be ideal; remember that you'll likely be buying used speakers. If you get them and you find they aren't what you hoped for, because of possible placement issues, then you'd be stuck with them; unless you can sell them on. With new speakers, if you're not happy for whatever reason, then you can return them; whether it be to the shop if you buy them in store, or online with the distance selling regulations.

If you are confident floor standing speaker placement won't be a problem, then I guess it comes to which location for listening to the speakers, is preferable for you.

As for the speakers you mentioned, both 603 S2 and BX5 get many good reviews. I think both were around £500 when they were released, but the BX5 I'm sure got heavily discounted before or around the time they were discontinued. I'm sure they were £250, unless I'm mistaken. They were £400, before that, so I think £300 used is too much.

Not really sure whether £250 is about right for the 603 S2. They are quite old now, although it is true that good speakers that are a few years old are still good speakers. I saw on another site that someone mentioned they were worth about £230 used 10 years ago. I don't know if they have held that value or not.

OverDrive said:

Hi again,

Just another quick update. I've had a read about these 4 pairs of used speakers on What-HiFi and a few other sites and they all seem pretty good, so don't worry about feedback on those. The RX6s being the best and the B&W 603s being the most entry level out of these.

However...I did also have a read about the Q Acoustics 3020 bookshelf speakers and 3070S subwoofer mentioned above. They appear to be very highly regarded, so I'm now giving these serious thought.

There is a large part of me that would love to get some floor standing speakers, but i'm thinking that the Q Acoustics setup may be better for my PC and the dining room/study - they would also fit nicely on my desk with the subwoofer on the floor next to it.

Click to expand...

For desk listening, I ended up with small desk speakers and a sub.. which I think work better for near field listening..

I auditioned all the bookshelfs up to £250 and tried a few subs at RS, but ended up with
- DALI Zensor Pico for the desk, nice and small, but very good midrange and soundstage
- BK Elec Gemini II sub - an excellent pairing, very musical, and blends seamlessly, with very nice controls.

The QAcoustic range is great, so if you've demo'd the 3020's, get those, I would say with a sub, you could get away with smaller speakers, since the 3010's etc don't lack midrange, just bottom end, the part the sub will be filling anyway.. Even the tiny DALI's absolutely blew me away with their midrange, to my ears, the small speaker/sub blow away my old B&W DM603's in every way.

Hi all,

Sorry I’ve not replied for a few days. I listened to a few speakers at my local hi-fi store last week including the Q3020 and Q3050 floor standers, however in the end I fell in love with the sound of the B&W 685 S2 – which allowed me to hear my music in detail that I hadn’t heard before. I managed to have the speakers reduced from £500 to £460, so I’m very happy. I then purchased the A100 and speaker cables from Richer Sounds who were fantastic and even made the cables up for me. The 685 S2s sounds fantastic with the A100 and I feel that the sound has improved as I’ve run the speakers in over this last week.

I’m really happy with the A100. I was able to set it up with no issues and also perform the firmware update to the latest version (639). It was a little jumpy with the AirPlay playback to start off with, but it now seems to have settled down and is working beautifully. I also have the A100 hooked up to my computer via the optical cable and this works beautifully too. The next step for me will be to setup a DLNA server on my NAS and gradually encode my CDs into FLAC.

I have a few more questions though and I really hope you guys will be able to help. This is my first step into the world of hi-fi and I would like to get the best sound out of the A100 and my speakers. Please bear with me on these – this is all new to me.

1. I’ve set my motherboard’s optical out as the default audio device. However, when digging deeper in the Windows audio settings I noticed that you can select sample rate and bit depth when running in shared mode. I’ve set this as high as I could hear the test sounds which was ‘24 bit, 96000 Hz (Studio Quality)’, any higher and I could not hear the test sound, so I assume that’s the upper limit of the A100’s DAC. Have I done the right thing by setting this as high as it goes? Also What exactly is ‘shared mode’ in Windows?

2. The A100 is rated at 50w per channel, the speakers are rated at 25-100w. Everything seems fine, however I’ve read that the speakers can get damaged when driven by amps that are not powerful enough. Is the A100 amp ok for the speakers? I plan on keeping these speakers long term and using them with other amps further down the line as I get more into hi-fi, so want to look after them.

3. If the A100’s DAC limit is 24 bit/96000 Hz, what does that mean in practical terms? Am I likely to ever need to play files that are actually of this quality (or higher)? As I understand it CDs are 16 bit/44100 Hz.

4. I have an Apple Music subscription so I often listen to that from my computer. Would I get the best quality by listening to that using the optical out or AirPlay? iTunes in Windows allows me to select either for playback. I assume AirPlay (and DLNA) use the same DAC in the A100 that the optical input uses? I’m not sure what quality Apple Music uses or if there is a way I can set it to use high quality?

5. What’s the best application for me to use to start to encode my CDs into FLAC? Any advice on this would be appreciated.

Again, thank you for all of your help and advice so far and I’m sorry for all these questions, even if you can answer a couple I would be grateful.

1. Yeah, that will be the DACs limit. Ideally, it's probably best to set to 16 bit and 44.1k.

2. That is true, but that's only of concern if you push the amp to near maximum volume. This is where clipping occurs, which can damage the speakers in time. As long as you don't go to the point where clipping occurs, then you could get away with using a 25W amp. If something like 70% on the volume knob is more than you'll ever need, then no need to worry. Just be mindful that you don't turn it right up to max for any length of time. I'm guessing you'd probably go deaf before you get anywhere near maximum. My amp puts out 50W, and I really couldn't go above 50% for any length of time without being deafened.

3. 96k and up is really only beneficial for recording not listening, because the human ear cannot hear anywhere near that high. As for 24bit, same again really. Some people believe they can hear a difference between 16bit and 24bit audio files, but there's a good post on Head Fi, that explains why it's not possible. Marketing tells people that 24bit sounds better, so therefore, it must be better. For recording purposes though, it does make sense to use 24bit and up.

4. I don't know a great deal about Airplay; not an Apple fan. I do know that is uses WiFi though, which doesn't require compression, unlike Bluetooth, which does. Yes the DAC will be used, because it's digital data that is being received, whether it be via wireless or optical cable.

5. For ripping CDs, I use Exact Audio Copy. You can either rip them to .WAV, or compressed FLAC. Although FLAC is compressed, it's still lossless.

Edit: Oh, and nice choice of speakers!

Thanks for the reply and for answering all my questions. I'm so happy with my new speakers and the A100 - I've been listening to some of my old CDs over the last week and it's like hearing them again for the first time - with so much detail and depth.

I installed Exact Audio Copy this evening and I've already started to rip some of my CDs to FLAC. It works really well.

I've also installed foolbar2000 - with the WASAPI add on set as the output to ensure 'bit perfect playback' of the FLACS. I'm not really sure if that was necessary as I can't really hear any difference though!

Thank you so much again!

I use Foobar too. Musicbee is a very good alternative, but I love the simple layout of Foobar you can set up without too much effort. I also like being able to add to the library and it just appears almost instantly, rather than having to rescan every time new tracks are added like some other music apps.

IIRC, WASAPI gives the program direct access to the output source. Benefits are not having Windows re-sample, as is probable using direct sound. Downside is, if you want different programs or apps playing sound simultaneously through the same output, that won't be possible as only one app using WASAPI can have access to the sound card or DAC.

I did use WASAPI for a time, and while from a purist point of view, it should be used over direct sound if you've spent money on a good DAC, amp and speakers or headphones; I've never really noticed any difference either.

If you're using Windows 8 and up, Direct sound is actually WASAPI in shared mode. In Windows 7 and Vista, direct sound is run as an emulation of WASAPI, which has no hardware acceleration, which can result in sub-par sound quality and is why exclusive mode WASAPI or ASIO were recommended. Windows 8 and 10 are WASAPI all the way though, so there should no longer be any difference in sound quality and the only reason for using ASIO is for recording purposes due to it's low latency.

Sorry to hijack, but can I just double check that the A100 does indeed have sub-out? I can't see a dedicated Sub-out option - but from the looks of it one the RCA outputs can be used?

Scottland said:

Sorry to hijack, but can I just double check that the A100 does indeed have sub-out? I can't see a dedicated Sub-out option - but from the looks of it one the RCA outputs can be used?

Click to expand...

I have my A100 line-level/RCA out connect to the sub of my Aego M 2.1 sub and it's working perfectly.

Ok, thanks for the confirmation