Expectations vs Reality: Vanatoo Transparent Ones

[NinJake]

First off I'd like to thank @SSL for taking the time to give me some advice into what I was looking for.

 

Anyways, to the point here. I have been in the market for something new, mostly because it's tax return season and I've finished up schooling and landed a full-time job. I decided that an upgrade to my old, hand-me-down logitech speakers would suit me well. After not knowing what to look for, I posted a topic here on LTT forums and gave some specifications of what I was looking for, such as not needing to spend over 500 USD. This was part of the reason why I was limited and wanted to avoid needing an AMP and DAC or a receiver of sorts, as if I were to get anything of quality I would surely be spending more than 500.

 

User SSL recommended the Vanatoo Transparent One's at $499.99 which seemed too perfect of a match up in price, however as a cheapass financially aware human, I grew skeptical of what type of quality these speakers would be, and if they would be worth such a price tag.

 

The only way is to test and find out, and as Amazon has a 30 day grace period for returning items, I went ahead and ordered them after doing additional research on these speakers online vs comparable speakers. (Most speakers in this price range simply don't compare to what I've read.)

 

Fast forward to yesterday (Or is that a rewind?), and I had a package resting on my porch as I returned home from work. The package had a slight kink and tear in the amazon box, and the Vanatoo box had a small ~1/8 inch compression mark at the bottom of the box. This was most likely due to a heavier box being stacked on top of my speakers, and I have picture proof just in case. The speakers themselves were packaged very well and safely secured by foam and wrapped up with 2 layers of packaging for each speaker themselves.

 

I didn't notice any visible damage or wear to the speakers so I eagerly unplugged my old logitechs and got to setting up the Vanatoos, which only took about 5-10 minutes in all.

 

The Expectation

 

After spending $500 usd on speakers, I expected something that would blow me away. These are used on a desktop and not a home theater but I still watch movies, listen to music and play games here. I expect "crystal" clarity compared to the logitechs. Also, I hope to hear certain elements of music that I have not previously heard from my old speakers.

 

The Reality

 

While I've only tested the speakers for about 4 to 5 hours, my initial response was that they really need some juice to get as "loud" as my old logitechs. The volume knob on the back of the speaker needs to be turned to ~75%-90% of it's max in order for me to personally approve of the volume levels, with my windows volume set from 30-50. For instance, if the Vanatoo was at 50% volume I'd have to push windows volume almost all the way to 100 just to create an "equal loudness" to the logitechs. At first this kind of disappointed me, but it almost seems like there's a steep volume curve from the 80%-100% range of the volume knob. Once I got used to that, it was no big deal. (I was also scared of outputting too much and potentially blowing the speakers or something by maxing out the T1 volume knob)

 

But HOLY SMOKES. Keeping the treble and bass knob at their centered points, I started playing different genres of music. Lo-fi hip hop, drum and bass, EDM, melodic death metal, folk metal, and even some orchestral music. The quality of sound truly amazed me. I realized that when the speakers are simply standing on my desk, they are too low, because when I lowered my head down so the speakers were at "ear-level" the ability to really hear the T1s range of sound became much more apparent. I stacked a few books under the speakers for the time being (need to build 2 stands for these over the weekend), and gave them some good use with a game with my buddy.

 

Even his voice sounded much different, and thankfully I could tone down the bass knob while in voice chat so I don't have to deal with his "bass-heavy" voice anymore. The game soundtracks were equally as amazing, and the sound effects and voice-overs in game were much more pleasant to listen to compared to my old setup.

 

For how "tiny" these speakers are, they still output a great deal amount of bass, however can no way replace a subwoofer in my opinion. I do not currently have a sub to attach to this setup as of yet, but I have subwoofers in my car, as well as the logitechs had a 8inch, and I've had an old passed down 10-12 inch that broke some time ago. I just prefer bass for certain music and movies, but these T1s really sound amazing for the "higher" bass end and up through the treble ranges.

 

The Verdict

 

It's hard for me to judge whether these are worth $500. I don't really have anything to compare these to in this price range. However if you have the budget for some new speakers but don't want to go overboard with tons of different equipment just to get some "higher quality" speakers hooked up. These definitely get the job done, look very well on my desk and are simple to plug-and-play. It's hard to describe an "Improvement of sound" and I can't say these are "at least 70% better" than my old speakers, but as my first step into improving my audio setups... I can't see myself returning these within the 30 days.

 

[SSL]

5 minutes ago, NinJake said:

with my windows volume set from 30-50.

 

If you're using the digital input on the speakers, your Windows volume should probably be set a bit higher than that.

 

Glad to hear you like them overall. As for the bass, these are after all ruler flat down to 50ish Hz or so, so they are not going to have the mid-bass peak of the Logitech sub.

[NinJake]

I'm using the usb at the moment. My mobo has an optical out though, so would it benefit to use that if I got an optical cable over usb? @SSL

 

Edit: I have read that there is no difference between usb and optical aside from potentially having no "electrical interference" from the optical.. but I don't have any through usb.

 

And yeah, I'm probably just used to adjusting my windows volume from 20-60 normally, so I'll turn the master volume down a bit on the T1s and turn windows volume up.

 

I also want to point out that while I said there is a lack of bass, not using a subwoofer really makes me appreciate these T1s even more with how well they sound given their specs.

[spwath]

for usb/optical, set Windows volume to 100%

[SSL]

25 minutes ago, NinJake said:

I'm using the usb at the moment. My mobo has an optical out though, so would it benefit to use that if I got an optical cable over usb? @SSL

 

Edit: I have read that there is no difference between usb and optical aside from potentially having no "electrical interference" from the optical.. but I don't have any through usb.

 

And yeah, I'm probably just used to adjusting my windows volume from 20-60 normally, so I'll turn the master volume down a bit on the T1s and turn windows volume up.

 

I also want to point out that while I said there is a lack of bass, not using a subwoofer really makes me appreciate these T1s even more with how well they sound given their specs.

 

Optical isn't needed if you aren't getting noticeable interference from USB and may even have worse jitter. So I wouldn't bother.

[NinJake]

1 minute ago, spwath said:

for usb/optical, set Windows volume to 100%

I'll probably set to about 85-90 once I get home. I like to have a little head room for adjusting using my keyboard volume wheel instead of reaching to the back of the speaker. But I'll definitely bump it up as it's currently set to like... 35.

 

Also... any drawbacks to having an "excess" amount of speaker wire still coiled up? I haven't trimmed the wire down since I plan on re-arranging my desk and room within the next week or two. @spwath @SSL

[SSL]

46 minutes ago, NinJake said:

I'll probably set to about 85-90 once I get home. I like to have a little head room for adjusting using my keyboard volume wheel instead of reaching to the back of the speaker. But I'll definitely bump it up as it's currently set to like... 35.

 

Also... any drawbacks to having an "excess" amount of speaker wire still coiled up? I haven't trimmed the wire down since I plan on re-arranging my desk and room within the next week or two. @spwath @SSL

 

I would still use Windows to control the volume, but you can crank it up if need be. It won't hurt anything.

 

Speaker wire won't bother anything if there is some excess around.

[V2Guy]

Full disclosure, I'm one of the Vanatoo guys. I can give you the Vanatoo answer for a few of these questions. The T1s are designed to be fully protected from over driving them.  As such it is just fine if you leave the volume knob on the back of the T1 set to 100% all the time.  If you choose to run your computer's volume to 100% as well you will be driving the T1s into clipping (which is by design) and they will sound really bad.  If that happens, just turn the computer volume down a bit until it sounds good again. By the way, this is the way I use my T1s at my home all the time.

As for the speaker cable length, there is no down side to leaving the speaker cable as you received it.  If you want to shorten it you can do so by simply cutting the cable to the desired length and stripping the insulation.