Sound quality: Audioengine's HD4 had Good overall sound quality - this model reproduces music and dialog reasonably well despite the obvious shortcomings in its sound. Bass has good impact but is a bit prominent and somewhat tubby and the deep bass is lacking. Midrange is a bit muffled and grainy, and somewhat echoey. Treble is fairly extended but is somewhat subdued and a bit smeared. Does a decent job of recovering the actual room ambience from the recording but the echoey quality of the midrange adds an artificial sense of room ambience, and the overall sound is somewhat congested. This two speaker model comes as a stereo pair, and its sound stage width and focus depends on how well it is placed. When it is well placed, there is good stereo separation; however while the sound field extends somewhat above the speakers it only extends a bit beyond the sides and it doesn't have much depth. Individual instruments and voices are identifiable with good side to side imaging between the speakers, but have a two dimensional quality. There is no significant difference between Bluetooth, USB, Aux and RCA sound quality. Although it can provide a decent volume level in a large sized room, this model is best suited for medium sized rooms.
Ease of use: We found the Audioengine HD4 ease of use to be Good overall. Wired Setup: Banana plug cable provided for left/right interconnect of speakers, simply plug in, no prep needed. Instructions mention polarity matching but don’t show or explain what polarity matching means. Bluetooth Setup: Unit is always in pairing mode when not already paired, shows a pairing mode indicator. Indicates when pairing mode has occurred and never times out. The volume control is an unlabeled knob located on the front of the speaker, but the fact that it is a knob suggests that it is a volume control. Lacks index markings for volume levels, but has a tactile indication when max volume is reached. Source selection: Plug-unplug; Bluetooth, both line inputs and USB input can play at the same time. Have to turn off audio from source so no overlap.
