Why not?
With such small speakers psycho-acoustics matter, and that's an area where Bose's shine.
Psycho-BS. A good speaker reproduces all frequencies taking into account that:
1. Humans eardrums are less sensitive to certain frequencies than measuring equipment, so crossover tuning is very important.
2. The environment may have adverse effects on certain frequencies more than others, so it is important to go back to point 1 and tune for the most common environment and materials within the environment.
3. Certain frequencies are just difficult to reproduce based on size of the driver, quality of materials, and manufacturing process.
Bose fails all three.
1. Physics. It is impossible to tune a crossover for a 2" dynamic driver to be accurate at all frequencies. Pointing a subwoofer in single direction is not the answer.
2. They create their own environment everywhere their products are sold, and this is mandatory. i don't know anybody who's room allows them to have 5 speakers surrounding their head...
3. Refer back to 1.
And the same can be said about the Audioengine A2, but at least they are better than Bose at step 3. They still fall short at step 1 because of dimension restrictions.
If you look at what Garfield suggested, you'll see that 3/4 speakers sport a 5" driver. The A2 is a bastard child that can be tuned to sound half decent for those with little space.
