January 1, 2009
GoodSound! Products of the
Year 2008
| What the Reviewers Say: Blue
Circle Audio USB Thingee  Anyone who’s met Blue Circle Audio’s Gilbert Yeung knows that he does
things his own way. A deliberate and careful audio designer, Yeung doesn’t care about
costly cosmetics or fancy-pants parts that do nothing for performance. Nor is he one to
rush a product out the door to capture early market share: when it’s right, it ships,
and not before. In this climate was the remarkable USB Thingee conceived and born.
But no one, not even its papa, sees beauty in the
Thingee’s exterior. Only so much can be done to pretty up PVC pipe and silicone. If
there’s a correlation between the Thingee’s looks and its performance, it’s
an inverse one: the physically ugly Thingee is a sonic 10.
From the first track I played through the Thingee, I knew
it was something special. Music erupted from a background so black-hole dark it seemed a
wonder anything could escape it. In my system, the Thingee was darn near everything an
audiophile could ask for, performing way beyond its price. Off I went to visit
SoundStage! Network publisher Doug Schneider, my laptop and Blue Circle’s gray pipe
in tow.
I paraphrase Doug’s reaction to the USB Thingee’s
DAC: "Holy cow! This is really good!" It was so good that we
agreed that the Thingee’s performance was very close to that of Doug’s expensive
reference CD player -- but cost only 2% of that player’s price. Sure, the reference
player was better, but was its performance edge worth 50 times more money? Not to me.
Blue Circle Audio’s USB Thingee may be ugly, but it
has a heart of gold, and a price/performance ratio that’s out of this world. It was
easy to recommend for a GoodSound! Great Buy! award, and though it faced stiff
competition throughout the rest of 2008, it has indisputably earned itself the title of GoodSound!
Product of the Year.
. . . Colin Smith
What the Reviewers Say: Audioengine A2
Powered Loudspeakers
 Since gaming has migrated from the
simple world of the personal computer to dedicated consoles, the role of the PC speaker
has been relegated to the country lanes of audio. But if you’re a desktop gaming
maven, indulge in DVDs or online video, or someone who simply enjoys digging into whatever
the ’net has to offer music lovers -- and there’s a load of that -- the
Audioengine A2 can raise your musical horizons to the level of art.
I’d been reading about the A2s for some time,
especially on Bill Goldsmith’s fabulous Radio Paradise, where they serve as the house monitors. I never
imagined that I’d have them in my home office, turning MP3 versions of songs by
artists I knew well, and those I’d discovered on RP, into wholly realized
creations -- not the poor-cousin MP3s and AACs that came through the earbuds of my
daughter’s iPod Nano, or that I’d been listening to through a not-bad pair of
Altec-Lansing PC speakers. No, the A2s are something special; indeed, they’re the
audiophile’s excuse to indulge in Internet radio without having to apologize for the
sound quality. These fleeting impressions are more substantially covered in my review.
In the ever-expanding audio universe, getting the right
speakers -- the only really critical component in the signal chain -- remains as
challenging and exhilarating as ever. When you stumble across a model that defies
conventional logic and whose price (a mere $200) is audiophile chump change, you realize
that there’s still a great deal right with the world. The Audioengine A2 is a
transcendent product that will turn any garden-variety PC or Mac into a tiny world of
audio truth. It richly deserves being named one of GoodSound!’s Products of
the Year for 2008.
. . . Kevin East |
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Come December, it’s always interesting to
reflect on the reviews written in the year just ending, and from them pick those products
that rise above all to become our Products of the Year. In 2008, two very inexpensive
products took the top honors at GoodSound!: Blue Circle Audio’s USB
Thingee and Audioengine’s
A2 self-powered speaker system. Apart from low price, these products have two other
things in common: they’re designed to accompany computer-based music systems, the
wave of the future for digital music delivery; and each offers many features, particularly
for the price.
The USB Thingee costs $169 to $189, depending on which
configuration of inputs and outputs you choose. A short video about the USB Thingee that I made for SoundStage! V
earlier this year, featuring Gilbert Yeung, Blue Circle’s rather, um, eccentric
president and chief designer, helps explain those options.
The Thingee’s main purpose is to convert an audio
signal output by a computer via USB to S/PDIF, TosLink, or AES/EBU format, for connection
to an external digital-to-analog converter (DAC). Given that many high-quality DACs of the
past, and even some current models, lack USB inputs, it’s a super-handy little device
made even simpler because it’s powered only from the computer’s USB port.
The USB Thingee also includes something else that’s
impressive, although Blue Circle doesn’t talk about it much (nor did Colin in his
review): Along with its right- and left-channel RCA outputs and headphone jack, the
Thingee has its own built-in DAC. This feature isn’t much talked about because
it’s not the Thingee’s primary purpose; it’s more a side benefit of the
chipset Blue Circle uses for D/D conversion. They could have simply omitted the analog
outputs and we wouldn’t have been the wiser, but they didn’t. If you ask me,
Blue Circle should promote this feature more; the quality of the USB Thingee’s D/A
conversion makes it the best low-priced DAC we’ve heard.
Colin brought the USB Thingee over to my house, and we
compared the performance of its built-in DAC to some much-higher-priced DACs I had on
hand. It sounded shockingly good, far in excess of what its sub-$200 price would lead you
to expect. It’s smooth, refined, and capable of displaying impressive detail that
gives you more than a hint of what the highest-end sound is about. What’s more,
it’s so easy on the ears that if, at least for the time being, you want to forgo
buying an expensive DAC and just use the USB Thingee’s built-in converter, I
wouldn’t think you out of your mind for doing so.
However, the USB Thingee isn’t perfect. As Colin
pointed out in his review, it’s "plain ugly." I think it looks hideous.
Only Blue Circle Audio could get away with using PVC tubing for a "chassis." But
then there’s the price. Would we be willing to pay two or three times as much for
Gilbert Yeung to design a fancy box? Heck, no. I’d rather have Blue Circle keep on
packing the Thingee into its ugly tube and silicon and charging almost nothing for it.
It’s already doing enough to earn the GoodSound! Product of the Year award for
electronics. Who needs more?
Kevin East made two comments in his review of the
Audioengine A2 that made it stand out as GoodSound!’s loudspeaker Product of
the Year. At the beginning of his second-to-last paragraph, he said, "The Audioengine
A2 is the best PC speaker I’ve ever heard." And, in his very last sentence:
"You will not find better." Those comments struck me, and the next time I had a
chance to hear the A2s for myself, I made sure I did. They retail for just $199/pair, and,
in my opinion, Kevin’s review is right on the money.
Like Blue Circle’s USB Thingee, Audioengine’s A2
speaker is rich in features, with built-in amplification that lets you hook it up to any
line-level signal and get high-quality sound. Line-level means the analog signal
output by your computer’s soundcard or Apple iPod -- even a USB Thingee. Tucking all
that into a pair of A2s makes them convenient and dead simple to use. The fact that they
sound so good makes them a no-brainer purchase.
Unlike the Thingee, however, the Audioengine A2 isn’t
ugly. Available in high-gloss white or satin black, the A2 has a level of
fit’n’finish suitable for a speaker two or three times its price. Compared to
the cheap, often crappy-sounding speakers shipped with most computer systems, a pair of
A2s are worlds better in every way -- appearance, build, sound -- and offer more than a
glimpse of what high-end audio is about for a price that’s more than reasonable. As
Kevin said, "You will not find better." I concur -- not at this price, anyway.
Our two award winners pave the way for attaining
high-quality, computer-based sound at a low price. Together, a Blue Circle USB Thingee and
a pair of Audioengine A2s cost under $400. Chances are, you probably already have a
computer to use these with, and won’t have to buy anything more than some wires to
hook it all up with. If not, good computers are available today for practically nothing.
You can buy a good laptop, and the whole thing will total less than a grand, which makes
for good sound and great value. Which is why these two outstanding products are GoodSound!’s
Products of the Year for 2008.
. . . Doug Schneider
E-mail comments to the editor@goodsound.com.
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