Quote Originally Posted by Ajani
Seconded.... The concept that one brand is the best in every category is perplexing (to say the least).... Even die-hard Naim fans, will often prefer speakers or cables from other brands....
First E-Stat should know better and so should several other attackers. E-Stat knows for example that his "one maker" attack is a lie.

AN Speakers are in fact Snell Loudspeakers - the AN E is a Snell Type E. How exactly is that "one make?" Explain it to me. Linn, Rega, Naim etc all design their own stuff and I don't think any of these is remotely in the same class as Audio Note simply because contrary to popular opinion I agree that being a jack of all trades is very tough and very expensive. And incidentally, Rega, Naim and Linn all make good products - Linn makes nice speakers for the price, so does Rega - have not heard Naim - they all make nice amps in their price ranges. None of them go to cost no object lengths except Linn and they only do it with their source. It's simply NOT the same kind of company.

Take the DAC - they went and hired Michael Kerster the head designer at Sonic Frontiers who in their hayday were arguably making the best digital on the planet. He helped in the design of the zero-times oversampling design - that is not a 100% in house design anymore if you go out and hire someone from another company. Turntables are improved versions of Systemdek. They didn't design Systemdek now did they - Systemdek did. Audio Note basically tweaked it rewired them - upgraded the motors - created a two and now a three motor version of them but that's different than designing the whole thing from scratch.

So when I recommend AN it is like recommending

What is a good $2000 speaker? AN (SNELL)
What is a good $80,000 speaker AN (SNELL)
What is a good DAC? AN (AN/SF)
What is a good amplifier? AN (AN) and incidentally I don't recommend them as often as I recommend other amps - and I will put $10,000 on this fact - bring it on.
What is a good turntable? AN (SystemDek IIX)
What is a good cartridge? AN (Goldring)
What is a good speaker cable? AN ( I don't recommend cables)

So E-Stat is reading things that are not there - I recommend SET - he Reads AN, I recommend High Efficiency speaker - he reads AN.

I have recommended speakers from Klipsch, Trenner and Friedl, Tannoy (not mine or anything resembling mine), KingSound, Sonist, Studio Electric, Gallo, Usher, Sillbatone, Wilson, Wharfedale, ProAc, Harbeth, Acapella, Vandersteen, Gershman Acoustics, Reference 3a, Energy, Quad, Sonus Faber, Meridian etc. So E-Stat's Hyperbole aside there are plenty of loudspeakers alone that I like.

I have not recommended AN cables, and rarely do I recommend a specific amp from them unless the OP is particularly looking at a Single Ended amp in the given price points and wants to accumulate an "audition list" - and AN is one of if not the biggest selling SET maker on the planet so I hardly think it's out of the question to bring them up.

I happen to share Peter's belief about how audio should be approached - because it is one of the few that is based in any sort of logic in a field that is woefully lacking it.

The best system that I have ever heard happens to be an all Audio Note system. So it stands to reason that I would therefore recommend them. I would hope that if I were asking - people would be recommending their favorites to me - and not just list a bunch of different stuff in the hopes to be seen as objective. There is a difference between being objective and pretending to be objective. I don't have time for posers.