Speaker/Hardware Recommendations/Help with set up please

[Humanate]

Decided to get some new speakers and so far not impressed with sound at all. I am a complete noob to speakers but did a bit of reading and the speakers I tried got good reviews. So far I have tried:

1. Ruark-MR1 connecting straight out of my mobo soundcard with 3.5mm jack and tried bluetooth
2. Audioengine A2+ B via USB as it has onboard DAC and also tried 3.5mm jack

With both of these I have connected a Yamaha YST FSW050 Subwoofer

So far, the sound has not been good at all - it sounds muffled, I appreciate this is not the highest end set up but the speakers get good reviews and I think with some guidance I can get good setup.

Questions:

1. I notice that if I use the software equaliser on my Radium (online radio player for Mac) player I can improve the sound a lot just by increasing the treble, but I can't do that on Spotify for example so do I need some sort of in line amp that will allow me to adjust the sound?
2. The Audioengine speakers seem the better of the two I have tried, should I stick with its USB input or are there drawbacks to that for improving the sound?
3. Should it make any difference if I connect via USB 2 or 3?

Apologies for such basic questions, hope someone can point me in the right direction

 

[toleda]

Suggestion: no disrespect intended, Spotify is not a legitimate audio reference; use a CD or an uncompressed audio file.

 

[Humanate]

Suggestion: no disrespect intended, Spotify is not a legitimate audio reference; use a CD or an uncompressed audio file.

I understand what you are saying, however, I use Spotify a lot and with no equaliser, sound is muffled. I have found a solution which seems to sound really good, Eqmac and this allows me to increase the treble system wide which is what I needed.

Couple of questions still @toleda as you are the audio guru

1. Is there any significant disadvantage using 3.5mm audio out on my motherboard vs USB audio. The reason I ask is that the system wide EQ I have now doesn't work if I use USB audio rather than 3.5mm. Happy to use 3.5mm unless USB provides any significant quality benefit.
2. Am I correct in thinking that the USB audio output cannot be equalised before it is output, eg. with EQ Mac utility as it is a digital signal and has to be decoded by the DAC in the speakers?

Thanks for help, appreciate these are quite basic questions

 

[toleda]

1. Is there any significant disadvantage using 3.5mm audio out on my motherboard vs USB audio.
2. Am I correct in thinking that the USB audio output cannot be equalised before it is output

1. No disadvantage, personal preference
2. Correct