Florian vs. RGA [Archive] - Audio & Video Forums

ericl

09-15-2005, 09:43 AM

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?spkrplan&1131501483

Based on Flo's raves they're tempting, but totally impractical for me. I'd have to spend almost as much on an amp, plus they're huge!

Geoffcin

09-15-2005, 11:12 AM

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?spkrplan&1131501483

Based on Flo's raves they're tempting, but totally impractical for me. I'd have to spend almost as much on an amp, plus they're huge!

My old PS Audio 200c could be found pretty cheap on Audiogon, and could drive these no problem.

noddin0ff

09-15-2005, 11:26 AM

I want to know how someone who can afford the gear, AND hook it all up, etc. ...can't seem to figure out a way to hold the camera steady. For $1700, I'd at least take a second picture.

SlumpBuster

09-15-2005, 02:39 PM

Are the speakers behind the screen doors?

Florian

09-15-2005, 02:50 PM

These are easy to drive and amongst the best speakers there are period. No point in a subwoofer and there are no integration issues. Now if you build in new Graz ribbons like in my DIVAS, youd be rocking up and down the street and waking your neighbors. Someone lucky is going to be very happy with them. Keep an eye out for the Duetta 2 Signature!

-Flo

PS: 4ohm impedance, around 86db efficency, down to 20Hz, fullrange, dipole with perfect integration and over 100db of SPL in a 40m2 room. If someone with with good ears and a nice place reads this then try them out and forget about all the stuff you read nowadays :p

RGA

09-15-2005, 05:05 PM

I would make sure you listen to them before you buy them -- I was not impressed.

Florian

09-15-2005, 05:33 PM

What a suprise. The Duetta doesnt go below 30Hz (your original post) is the same your best friend Peter Q said. Unfortunatly you have no clue and neither has Peter. If the person is interested go and listen to them, they all play below 30Hz and if you read the reviews you will see that they have output down to 20Hz same as all the larger Apogee models. This is why they quote "below 25Hz" or "below ?_?Hz". A lot depends on the distance to the wall and amplifiers. Run a 25Hz bass signal on the panel and feel the bass. Now to RGA, this post was as pointless as all the other posts about panel speakers. I wont get into it, since it your loss and afterall you dont know what your missing.

-Flo

Florian

09-15-2005, 05:34 PM

The Duetta Signature I can tell you right now will NEVER get under 30hz not even remotely close. I have heard these in peron and their bass weight isn;t even up to a number of standmount speakers. Apogee themselves don;t even rate their largest speakers to anything deeper than 28hz. And the Duetta was not one of their big bass models -- expect no better than 40hz for that model with any kind of real driving prowess. Also expect a rather beamy sound a brightish upper midbass lower treble sound with plenty of sizzle. And they were also noted to suffer numerous failures so be prepared to start spending big money constantly repairing them. Overpriced loudspeakers with poor construction quality tend to go out of business -- and gee they did. This is the reason why i simpy can't stand you. You have no knowledge of loudspeakers at all. Absolutly no real experience and tend to bash things you do not understand. I guess schoolboys tend to do that. One of the reasons why i dont read these forums much anymore. You have not read one review, eventough you are a review fanatic. That Apogee's still exist over 20 years and still function, is of no concern to you. The best thing for you is to live in that high quality construction of the Audio Note speakers and shut yourself off from the real world completely. I am suprised how someone with such inferior intelligence can reach such a status with some members. Simply amazing.

-Flo

Florian

09-15-2005, 06:02 PM

Just a slight quote from Martin Colloms and other reviewers about the Apogee Duetta.I can asure people that RGA's response was simply to make them look bad. I seriously doubt his knowledge and experience. He has shown in the past to quote directly from the AudioNoteUK (not the original AudioNote maker) specs which are false and display the total lack of first hand experience. Take it from me, someone who owns these speakers and knows how they work. I would love to explain this to RGA, but unfortunatly he can only understand things from Peter. Quite sad, really. I hope that someday you will learn, RGA. Good luck.

Most of all Apogee's play well below 30Hz (all actually) and the larger ones have output at 20Hz but roll of at 25Hz. The large Apogee Studio Grand and Grand play below 22Hz and below 18Hz. For more information about these systems just email me and i will tell you the facts and not the lies and false information that RGA regularly posts on these forums.

I can assure you that it is possible to obtain a room curve using this method which runs within ± 3dB 25Hz to 200Hz, ±2dB 200Hz to 8kHz, with a gentle roll-off thereafter. (This latter effect is due to the finite directivity of almost all commercial tweeters at higher frequencies.) Blind listening tests have shown a consistently good correlation between perceived response and the room measurement.
The bass was well extended to 25Hz, and can be a mite too powerful in some rooms.

Florian

09-15-2005, 06:19 PM

On one of my last emails with Peter Q (not the original AudioNote maker) he statet that the Scintilla did not play below 40Hz. This is quite amusing and what a suprise, is the same thing our friend RGA posts. Here is a quote from John Atkinson from HiFI News.

The bass of the Scintillas just goes down and down. The diagram shows the individual near-field response of the two driver sections in my room. That is real 20Hz extension!
Interestingly enough RGA claims that panel speakers have no real bass output at all. This is a simple lie to make them look bad. I can post literally dozens of reviews, technical papers on these systems to fill up multiple pages but this would be a waste of time, since the knowledgeable folk already know that this is all typical for RGA. I really recomend that you go out and actually play with these systems, play with the placment, phono cartidges, amplifiers and cables. A whole new world will open and flow into your ears.

And as RGA posts "Ignore the Press", i tend to disagree and state the following. "Ignore people with a lack of knowledge".

-Florian

Florian

09-15-2005, 06:54 PM

Also i apeal to the general intelligence to ALL members of this forum. The Apogee Duetta has not been made for at least 14years now. The typical response from some members is that "oh i heard these not too long ago", or that "i heard these at a dealer". The funny thing is that Apogee's are quite rare, and at their times were only avaliable for people with thick wallets. The odds that a member who just now reads this post says that he has heard them is more than suspicious. Dealers dont sell them for 14 years, which means that RGA has either friends who own all the speakers he says he knows and heard or he is simply lying. I belive its the later. By the amount of his posts and the amount of speakers he supposely knows (pretty much the same as Peter) and taken into consideration that he is studying in school leads me to belive that he is lying and infact has no knowledge over these systems at all. We in the ApogeeClub know the seriel numbers of these speakers, we know aprox. how many are made, what series they are and what they changed. Many know the designers personally and have a specialist who makes replacment ribbons to the exact same or better specs.

Please think about those words i just wrote and ask yourself. Does he really know all this, does he have the time? What are the odds that a speaker, as rare as this can easily be found for audition? How come he says that they only play a certain frequency repsonse, why literally dozens of reviewers and specialist come to opposite conclusions? Is he is just full of it and envious that he cannot afford such systems?

-Flo

Florian

09-15-2005, 07:18 PM

I would please like to know how your supposely experiences can be so different from everyone elses? Fact is that what you are saying is wrong, this is not in question anymore. What is in question is why you spread such false lies, there is nothing to gain from it exept personal pleasure maybe? I find it offensive and wrong that you are trying to influence other members by bashing a product you totally lack knowledge off. When i critize the AudioNoteUK (not original AudioNote) speaker model J i speak of sound quality. You speak of facts such as freuquency response, efficency etc. and state false claims. This is very different from me and totally disshonest. If you add something to this post, please explain why you are stating false facts on purpose and 2 minutes later erase your repsonse and edit it?

-Flo

topspeed

09-16-2005, 08:06 AM

If you add something to this post, please explain why you are stating false facts on purpose and 2 minutes later erase your repsonse and edit it?

-Flo
Because RGA is more mature than you are. He's a fanboy. No big deal. You're so egomaniacal that you'll defend to the death a company that has been out of business for how long now? Their speakers still "function after 20 years" you say? What kind of obtuse logic is that? I've got Missions from the early '80s and my dad's AR's from the 70's are still making fine music. That proves nothing.

If you want proof of concept, all you have to do is see if the product is still being made. The market doesn't lie. If the product is good, regardless of price, it will be bought. I'm not saying the Apogee's aren't everything you claim they are, and to be honest I don't care. What I am saying is that you can talk yourself blue in the face defending Apogee and you still won't be able to refute that the vast majority of people disagree with you. That is a fact. How do I know?

Is Apogee still in business?

Florian

09-16-2005, 08:25 AM

The sad matter of fact is that you have not read nor understood the posts that i have written. If you would have read them, then you would know that my problem is that he "lies" and posts "false" information about a speaker manufacturer. Let me repeat that, just for you. He is lying and putting down a speaker with false facts! The fact that i said that they still work after 20 years was only as a reply to RGA's false statment about the "longterm functionality" of a Apogee speaker.

Please only reply to this post when you can prove that RGA's post were correct and that all the specialist and reviews are wrong. I would aslo enjoy it very much to have a intelligent conversation with you, unfortunalty you did not read my posts and lack the knowledge of why Apogee went out of business.

-Flo

Woochifer

09-16-2005, 08:35 AM

This is the reason why i simpy can't stand you. You have no knowledge of loudspeakers at all. Absolutly no real experience and tend to bash things you do not understand. I guess schoolboys tend to do that. One of the reasons why i dont read these forums much anymore. You have not read one review, eventough you are a review fanatic. That Apogee's still exist over 20 years and still function, is of no concern to you. The best thing for you is to live in that high quality construction of the Audio Note speakers and shut yourself off from the real world completely. I am suprised how someone with such inferior intelligence can reach such a status with some members. Simply amazing.

-Flo

And this is why you catch so much flak from some of the other veteran members on this forum, because of your persistent heavy-handed snobbery and intolerance of any opinions that don't square with yours. You bash others for being fanboys, yet here you are attacking anyone that dares to say that the Apogees aren't the best speakers ever made.

You seem to equate your personal opinions with universal fact, and that is a fallacy that's more symptomatic of a "schoolboy" mentality or "inferior intelligence" than anything that RGA posts on this board. I've had more than my fair share of heated exchanges with him over the years. But, he will acknowledge that his opinions reflect his personal preferences and admit when his facts are in error, while you seem to lack that capacity -- instead prefering to condescend, attempt to discredit, or otherwise slander anyone who doesn't share your worldview. Agree with him or not, he does plenty of listening and his opinions of the Duettas are comparable to what I observed in my listenings several years ago.

How many times are other people on this going to have to call you out before you figure out that a knowledgeable person can very well have an entirely different perspective from you?

noddin0ff

09-16-2005, 08:42 AM

Ah, those halcyon days of respectful disagreement...too bad money can’t buy civility.

Florian

09-16-2005, 08:44 AM

The matter of fact is that you guys all seem to have problems with these "panel" speakers. All, and i mean ALL profesional reviews that listen to these extensively and test them come to 100% different conclusions than you. Whenever i write about my personal experience with one box speaker i get bashed to pieces by the GREAT reviews, but as soon as i post "COLD HARD FACTS" i get attacked and i am getting called a snob. This is complete crap and in a matter of fact i am the only one with Bernd and Itch who actually encourage beginner systems and write nice things here. I write about equipment i extensively tested or owned. If i write about my personal "hearing experience" noone can touch that, same as if RGA writes about it. But he and others lie about the facts and lack the knowledge.

My problem lies with people that lie and claim false specs, and ,many on here do. This site is so geard towards box speakers and against people with money in their systems is sickening.

-Flo

Florian

09-16-2005, 08:56 AM

By the way i bet all of you do not even know why i write this.

This is the ORIGNAL post from RGA that i call a lie. He states false frequency response measurments and more.

Originally Posted by RGA
The Duetta Signature I can tell you right now will NEVER get under 30hz not even remotely close. I have heard these in peron and their bass weight isn;t even up to a number of standmount speakers. Apogee themselves don;t even rate their largest speakers to anything deeper than 28hz. And the Duetta was not one of their big bass models -- expect no better than 40hz for that model with any kind of real driving prowess. Also expect a rather beamy sound a brightish upper midbass lower treble sound with plenty of sizzle. And they were also noted to suffer numerous failures so be prepared to start spending big money constantly repairing them. Overpriced loudspeakers with poor construction quality tend to go out of business -- and gee they did.

GMichael

09-16-2005, 09:09 AM

SlumpBuster

09-16-2005, 09:11 AM

Somebody call homeland security, because this thread has been hijacked! :D

FYI, Flo its more about your tone than your speakers or your money. It's not necessarily a snob issue. Many of us have plenty of money too, but also mortgages, kids, jobs, and cars, and saving for retirement. I really like my stereo, but I'm just never going to spend more than one mortgage payment on a pair. What you accuse RGA of simply isn't that bad. Here's an example: "My 8" velodyne plays to 20hz. It is the best subwoofer ever. None of you know subwoofers. This one is different and special because it is mine." See I made a false statement, yet the world still turns.

But to your credit you have been encouraging beginning systems in the photo gallery.

Florian

09-16-2005, 09:17 AM

Why should i take the blame. RGA postes a false statment and i have to write tons of post that obviously prove him wrong and now i should take the blame for it.

-Flo

Florian

09-16-2005, 09:19 AM

Why should i take the blame? RGA postes a false statment and i have to write tons of post that obviously prove him wrong and now i should take the blame for it.

-Flo

ericl

09-16-2005, 09:22 AM

You didn't expect all of this did ya?
hahahaha

no

and i'd like it to stop! mr florian...

Geoffcin

09-16-2005, 09:36 AM

Somebody call homeland security, because this thread has been hijacked! :D

RGA; you were trolling for Florian plain and simple. Stop it. If people want to talk about Apogee speakers, (and in case you weren't looking it was el grande enchilada who opened the thread) then let them talk.

Florian; Don't you see that RGA was playing you like a violin? You did EXACTLY what he thought you would do. Time to take a step back and cool off. Perhaps you should also read some of the comments from the regulars too, your people skills need some work.

Florian

09-16-2005, 09:50 AM

topspeed

09-16-2005, 09:58 AM

The sad matter of fact is that you have not read nor understood the posts that i have written. Guilty as charged. I only glanced over it. Your rhetoric bores the hell out of me after a few sentences.
He is lying and putting down a speaker with false facts! The fact that i said that they still work after 20 years was only as a reply to RGA's false statment about the "longterm functionality" of a Apogee speaker.
Fact: the ad states the ribbons have been replaced. Fact: YOU replaced your ribbons. Now why would anyone question their durability?

Please only reply to this post when you can prove that RGA's post were correct and that all the specialist and reviews are wrong. I would aslo enjoy it very much to have a intelligent conversation with you, unfortunalty you did not read my posts and lack the knowledge of why Apogee went out of business.When you grow up, you'll realize the simple truth about business; you're either in it or not. If you are, you're doing it right. If you're not, find another profession. Anything else is an excuse.

Florian

09-16-2005, 10:04 AM

Well if you would ask me as to why i changed ribbons instead of making stupid asumtions than you would be a lot smarter than you are today. As a tip. There are more than one type of ribbon ;-)

topspeed

09-16-2005, 10:12 AM

Well if you would ask me as to why i changed ribbons instead of making stupid asumtions than you would be a lot smarter than you are today. As a tip. There are more than one type of ribbon ;-)
If your Apogee's are "world reference" speakers from the factory, why change them?

Make sure you look behind you before you start backpedalling.

PAT.P

09-16-2005, 10:18 AM

My people skills are generally very good exept 2 people so far. If he stops ever mentioning planars then i will stop about his box. I recommend a word stop about planars for RGA and a AudioNote stop for me.

-Flo
Best way to stop the box and planars problem is they should have a thread only for these speaker title ESL,Planars,Alternative speaker like this it would be better for all of us .The ones that have knowledge could share their input.As for Florian none of us have a cartoon offending your speakers like you have insulting boxes.This is getting so childish .

Florian

09-16-2005, 10:21 AM

GMichael

09-16-2005, 10:26 AM

HAHAH, i have offended all boxes. Funny how blind some people are. I always name my fav. box speakers. Thiel CS3.6, Genesis V, Avalon Eidolon Diamond and the Kharma 3.2fe, Infinity Epsilon, Infinity IRS 4.5 and IRS 5.....but you guys dont even read my threads as noted above.

To Topspeed: Because there is no limit, lighter drive units and a stronger magnetic field alow me to use tubes in my system and push the envelope further.

-Flo

PS: Its a good idea to make a dedicated section.

I don't feel offended. But I do keep bumping into things.

Sorry I can't join in on the argument. (I like both boxes and planners) But this is the only thread with any action.

Where the heck is everyone?

Florian

09-16-2005, 10:28 AM

PAT.P

09-16-2005, 10:32 AM

HAHAH, i have offended all boxes. Funny how blind some people are. I always name my fav. box speakers. Thiel CS3.6, Genesis V, Avalon Eidolon Diamond and the Kharma 3.2fe, Infinity Epsilon, Infinity IRS 4.5 and IRS 5.....but you guys dont even read my threads as noted above.

To Topspeed: Because there is no limit, lighter drive units and a stronger magnetic field alow me to use tubes in my system and push the envelope further.

-Flo

PS: Its a good idea to make a dedicated section.
Flo I was talking about the cartoon.I also read your treads and yes they should have a dedicated section .On the diyAudio forum its seperated from the loodspeakers and benefit all of us .There the people with their knowledge share them with others that want to learn.

PAT.P

09-16-2005, 10:43 AM

Also i OWN 3 boxes. One VMPS RM30 (6500$ fully loaded) and a 2700$ VMPS 626 fully loaded and a Focal JmLab SW900 subwoofer. Also own .5's Maggies and the DIVAS. But sure, i hate all the boxes. The difference is, i own them and know what they can and cant do and write about it, not some 10 minute listening session.

-Flo
You still have lots to learn go to www.diyaudio.com and these are people that could show you a thing or two.These are people with knowledge from inside and out.

Florian

09-16-2005, 10:45 AM

Well i find the cartoon funny, and everyone keeps telling me to stay cool and not to react so i dont see a problem with the cartoon. Let me make a statment right now.

There are many box speakers i do like!
There are planars i dont like, and some i like!

I just dont agree that some members keep bashing them and generalize them. I have
always say what i dont like about a specific box. But to lie about frequency responses and reliablity is just wrong.

-Flo

PS: Can we please have a section for us planar owners? There are quite a few on here.

Florian

09-16-2005, 10:46 AM

You still have lots to learn go to www.diyaudio.com (http://www.diyaudio.com) and these are people that could show you a thing or two.These are people with knowledge from inside and out.
I am there, i am also in the Apogee Club and the Audiocircle. I have many friends with top world equipment and i learn everyday, but there are quite a few on here that can learn from me too!

-Flo

PAT.P

09-16-2005, 11:20 AM

I am there, i am also in the Apogee Club and the Audiocircle. I have many friends with top world equipment and i learn everyday, but there are quite a few on here that can learn from me too!

-Flo
Learning and the will to learn,but mostly to enjoy ourself at the same time.

Florian

09-16-2005, 11:25 AM

And thats no problem but this wont ever happen when people generalize on a technology that exists in dozens of products. Such as Soundlabs, Quad, Apogee, Magnepan, Innersound, Eminent Technology, Genesis, Dali etc...

-Flo

PS: I am open for all and only speak on speakers that i personally heard for more than 30 minutes at a show. But i ask that members dont post false frequency response posts and quality claims.

Woochifer

09-16-2005, 02:19 PM

Why should i take the blame? RGA postes a false statment and i have to write tons of post that obviously prove him wrong and now i should take the blame for it.

-Flo

And RGA has since deleted it, it's time that you give it a rest. Trying to continually repost items that he's already edited and withdrawn reflects a character flaw on your part since you're the one who's now doing nothing but perpetuating an argument that RGA has already walked away from. If you're trying to look like a dumba$$ who gets off on winning arguments with himself, keep it up bro, you're doing a GREAT job.

The immaturity and blind self-righteousness that you continually display on this forum seems to reach new lows every time you get on one of these tirades. No one gives a crap that you've done all of this listening and bought all of these speakers when the attitude that you continually display is so piss poor. You've got to show respect to get respect, and since it's clear that you've got none to give, that ought to answer your query as to why you're getting crapped on by everybody.

Woochifer

09-16-2005, 02:32 PM

Is Apogee still in business?

Yes they are, but they're in an entirely different line of business now. They quit making loudspeakers about a decade ago, and now focus on digital amplification chips. Their chips are the primary components in high end digital amps such as the Bel Cantos.

http://www.apogeeddx.com

topspeed

09-16-2005, 03:09 PM

Yes they are, but they're in an entirely different line of business now. They quit making loudspeakers about a decade ago, and now focus on digital amplification chips. Their chips are the primary components in high end digital amps such as the Bel Cantos.

http://www.apogeeddx.com
Are you sure that's the same company? If so, talk about taking an wildly different path. Sure, it's still audio, but still...

BTW, not to be a nitpicky ninny here, but I'm pretty sure Bel Canto uses the Tripath chip, itself a variation of TI's design. ICEpower by B&O is the other major player.

Woochifer

09-16-2005, 03:36 PM

Are you sure that's the same company? If so, talk about taking an wildly different path. Sure, it's still audio, but still...

Definitely the same company. Their website mentions their history with ribbon panel speaker manufacturing.

Several other companies out there also use the Apogee name, one of which makes pro audio mixers and another used to make PC games (pioneered first-person shooter games like Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein 3D).

BTW, not to be a nitpicky ninny here, but I'm pretty sure Bel Canto uses the Tripath chip, itself a variation of TI's design. ICEpower by B&O is the other major player.

No prob, your info's probably a lot more current than mine. It's been at least four years since I last looked up this information, so things could have changed a lot in the meantime. Apogee looks like it's still a player in the digital amplification market, but I don't know for sure who currently uses their chips.

Geoffcin

09-16-2005, 04:07 PM

Apogee looks like it's still a player in the digital amplification market, but I don't know for sure who currently uses their chips.

I think Florian has had a few of these chips installed somewhere on his person.

Florian

09-17-2005, 08:59 AM

You all dont know the facts :-)
The President of Apogee died and the company got bought from ADS which found that Apogee was not financially viable. One of the designers (Leo Spiegel) turned to a different field. Thats the truth!

-Flo

RGA

09-17-2005, 09:51 AM

I editied my post about 5 minutes after because I knew it would fall into a mire of arguing. Nevertheless my comment on Apogees' 30hz was taken directly from the Apogee Acoustics spec sheet. An ex poster hear Skeptic kept saying his AR9 was dead flat at 20hz but I have the original AR sheet on the AR 9 which states 28hz- 3db.

I have directly heard the Apogee Duetta sig and I was unimpressed with its bass response and it's fatiguing lower treble upper mid noise and lack of lifelike dyynamics. I like the holographic stage and the big sound but all in all for the money they were to me a rippoff. And that was YEARS before I ever even heard of Audio Note.

And if one is going to get on Peter Q for his comments well firstly -- he's a manufacturer of a different approach just as any boxed speaker maker is so of course they're going to be biased to the sound they think is better.

Peter owned several of these speakers and was a dealer in the UK. He buys many of the best competitors speakers to see what they're doing right (in his view) and determining if there is something to improve.

This is what he stated on AA on and around June 12, 2004

"I am serious, alright!

Ask anyone who has heard my system over the past few years, it [AN E] will play organ notes so deep you will need the toilet to relieve yourself after the first few bars, assorted percussion instruments have both the sparkle, punch, depth, pressure and energy reminicent of the real thing, provided the recording is up to the job (try the Sylvio Gualda, Erato Recording, Percussion II, especially the Xenakis piece on side one).

I had my friends (Bjorn Borja and Jan Paus) from SEAS visiting Wednesday, and Bob Neill from Amherst was here Monday/Tuesday this week as well, they heard it, and so will you if you care to drop by.

It was done with a parallel SET 2A3 amplifiers as well with no more than 8 watts from the 1930's single plates.

Your Apogees have separate coil woofers?

The Scintilla never measured more than about 40 Hz when I had them and they needed a billion watts to give any impression of bass energy, at least as far as my definition of real bass goes, they died very quickly from metal fatigue when pressed hard with a big amplifier for a couple of hours.

The square area needed from panels to give any really low bass depth is considerable, and the Apogees just don't cut it here, I am sorry to say."

"You are just assuming that because the cabinet is undamped (because we told you) that the colouration you perceive comes from the speaker, this kind of uncritical and unsupported conjecture is what has driven the pursuit of better audio round in circles for years.

I recommend that you read Leonard Norwitz's and my piece on the Comparison by Contrast evaluation method, this should give you some idea why I am saying what I just said above.

Ribbons and electrostatics have lower diaphragm mass that may be hard to argue against on a pure pound for pound basis, however what is hard to dispute as well is that they are driven by the most anaemic magnet fields and have so little room to "move", which makes their dynamic ability completely unacceptable, not to mention the fact that their load behaviour is more than a little cruel to the poor amplifier, to add further insult to injury the bandwidth efficiency is laughable and their resulting real world frequency response interesting to say the least (in this regard I recommend a quick study of Harry Ohlsons analysis of the panel speaker principle in several of his books), so how you can find them "better" is difficult to see, at least a good dynamic driver in a decent box offers some meat on the bone dynamically.

In my view we need to remove a great deal of colouration from the recording and reproduction chain in order to be able to say with any certainty where the best of the traditional dynamic speaker problems truly begin, but suffice to say that removing the dynamic energy to get rid of colourations by a combination of low efficiency (most electrostatics, ribbons and I am afraid also most dynamic speakers) or poor coupling to the air in much of the frequency area (electrostatics and panels in general) is not an improvement, it is just another blind alley from which the industry will take years to find it way out of, once it has realised that it is actually there.

Combining a dynamic woofer with a smaller panel or combination of panel and ribbon falls foul of the fact that you need drivers with a very similar sonic signature across the frequency range to sucessfully negotiate most music and get a harmonious and homogenous overall result and an integral part of this is to use drivers that have a similar dynamic ability for a start.

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup "

"I think you would be horrified if you ever heard any of your favourite Infinity or Apogee speakers (I have owned or tried them all!) subjected to the CbyC method against what we consider good, but that is for another day.

I have been around for long enough to have tried pretty much every state of the art solution that has been offered, I still own a Beveridge System II, ESS Transar, Siemens Klangfilm system, several Snell Type A models and one of two more, and have over the years worked on and modified practically every vintage speaker system made and what that has taught me is that the reason panel speakers live in the shade commercially is for good reason, their limitations are simply too glaring for the cold light of the wider market.

You may like them, but that does anything but make you "right".

"Long excursion drivers are only needed because designers for commercial reasons need small size enclosures, they represent such a severe compromise that they can hardly be considered, based on any serious merit, certainly not when we talk high quality, linear excursion is the least of the problems, variations in the magnetic field due to the large movement of the voice coil, cone break-up etc. are at least as problematic.

The older drivers represent a far better example of how a driver should be made to work when made to suit less commercial size and cost requirements, the fact that the old enclosures were resonant and less well made should not be held against the drivers of that time.

You need far more and much wider experience to be able to make the sort of sweeping statements you make, one way would be to join the audio industry circus yourself and test whether your theories "float", but as you may already know only Quad, ML, Soundlab and Magnepan have managed to stay alive making panels and if your expressed preferences are anything to go by then neither of them made or make the best, so draw your conclusions and make your decision from that."

June 03, 2004
"Let's put this to bed once and for all, Mount Everest has a resonance frequency, low yes, but it still resonates.

We can therefore reasonably conclude that everything resonates, there is no such thing as a speaker with no box (popular as the concept may seem, you have to mount the drivers in something, even if it is a panel driver), so we have essentially two choices,

1.) Build a box that minimises the resonant behaviour by applying mass, which does nothing useful in most cases, because whilst a lower resonance frequency at lower amplitude may look great on a waterfall graph, the reality is that it prolongs the amount of time the resonant energy is present, which leaves it present for long enough to disturb the replay.

In addition, damping is "stupid" in the sense that it removes both the sounds you want and the ones you are trying to get rid of.

2.) Build a cabinet which has a fast enough recovery time to stay within the human ear's time constant, that is, be close enough to the original note, to be indistinguishable by the human ear.

Method no. 2.) is much much harder to apply, as working out how to RAISE the resonance frequency and shorten it towards inaudibility requires hundreds of hours of experimentation AND does provide beautiful waterfall graphs with which to present your latest resonance removing technique as another breakthrough of "innovation" with which to sell next years crop of speakers with.

All our measurement methods and conventions dictate that making the cabinet heavier is better, unfortunately the truth is that it is a convenient, but poor way of solving the problem."

And Flo -- you can take him up on his challenge as you live in Europe no?

"While we are on the subject of cheating physics, why don't you study Harry Ohlson's work on panel speakers and then decide who is cheating physics and who is deluding themselves.

I for one would happily put a pair of AN-Es against the Klipsch corner horns and even more so any pair of Apogees, I should be living in Switzerland sometime next year, so I will be close enough to you to do just that.

Horns have great leading edge speed, but generally lack the carry through energy of the complete note, on piano this is particularly apparent, the difference is off course only there if the rest of the system has the ability."

But why not go the Speaker forum at Audio Asylum and ask him whatever you wish if he has the time to reply he will.

This post was about the sound of the Duetta -- if you like them great but for the music I listen to -- my Wharfedales do a better job -- and interestingly have meat on the bones bass that the Duetta seriously lacked. My Wharedales are rated to 40hz and despite thier problems were more musically enjoyable and alive sounding with real balls than the Duetta could muster. I never heard any other Apogee speakers because the press said this was the best one.

cam

09-17-2005, 11:06 AM

I think Florian has had a few of these chips installed somewhere on his person.Thanks Geoff, It has been along time since I fell off my chair laughing. That's one of the funniest one liners I have ever heard. I'll try and top that one day.

Hey Flo, I'm not laughing at you, but come on man, admit it, that was funny.

Geoffcin

09-17-2005, 11:45 AM

Thanks Geoff, It has been along time since I fell off my chair laughing. That's one of the funniest one liners I have ever heard. I'll try and top that one day.

Hey Flo, I'm not laughing at you, but come on man, admit it, that was funny.

Good to know theres' at least one guy here with a sense of humor. ;)

kexodusc

09-17-2005, 05:34 PM

Nevertheless my comment on Apogees' 30hz was taken directly from the Apogee Acoustics spec sheet. An ex poster hear Skeptic kept saying his AR9 was dead flat at 20hz but I have the original AR sheet on the AR 9 which states 28hz- 3db.

Just speculation on my part, I don't think I've ever heard the AR 9, but I've heard speakers that measure approximately 30 Hz -3 dB that will acheive in room response down to 20 Hz or so. Room gain is great. Depends on the measurement techniques, I guess. I always say, who listens to their music in an anechoic chamber though?

"Long excursion drivers are only needed because designers for commercial reasons need small size enclosures, they represent such a severe compromise that they can hardly be considered, based on any serious merit, certainly not when we talk high quality, linear excursion is the least of the problems, variations in the magnetic field due to the large movement of the voice coil, cone break-up etc. are at least as problematic."
This pretty much sums up my beliefs. There are a few exceptions were longer excursion may be desireable, but the pissing contest it's becoming isn't about sound quality, that's for sure.

1.) Build a box that minimises the resonant behaviour by applying mass, which does nothing useful in most cases, because whilst a lower resonance frequency at lower amplitude may look great on a waterfall graph, the reality is that it prolongs the amount of time the resonant energy is present, which leaves it present for long enough to disturb the replay.
This last sentence isn't always true. It's probably not true as much as it is true. Big assumption being made here is that the shifted energy has the potential to always be disruptive. A lot of the energy is pushed beyond perception and can cause no disturbance. I think at times though he has a good point. Interesting thought.

In addition, damping is "stupid" in the sense that it removes both the sounds you want and the ones you are trying to get rid of. This isn't completely accurate either. At least not if we can assume that any unwanted loss as a result of damping is already calculated into the design before choosing how to damp. Most of the spectrum is unaffected by damping anyway. It's not as simple as saying damping takes away both good and bad. "Over"-damping does, I suppose, which might be a problem many people have with a lot of speakers today. But just to say damping is bad is irresponsible. There's stuff outside of the box that contributes to damping too.

RGA

09-17-2005, 06:14 PM

kex --

Agreed on your points but these were simply layman answers to people on AA. Hes was pressed interestingly enough on two major points and he addressed them in another post. One of them was the issue of damping as being "stupid" as you note here -- but the answer was a year later to a different person.

I think his ascertion of shifted energy uis precisely that it is difficult and it requires a lot of work to get it right. It is far easeir to create a speaker and then just damp the hell out of it. I heard a big Canadian speaker the other day and was distressed by how completely DEAD it sounded -- it's been a while to be frank since I've been listneing to other speakers and what I heard was boxy muffled (despite a metal tweeter) and the vocal band sounded like someone threw a wet towel over the proceedings.

As to your point about oom gain - fully agree which is why Peter in his room may not be getting as good a result from the Apogees as someone else might. But then both speakers have to deal with the same rooms.
I think it isn;t so much the bass anyway but the kind of sound that is created. I can't see Tina Turner Rock albums going much under if ever under 40hz -- It is the drum work on many of these kinds of albums that have shown up the weaknesses in most all panels I've heard (except the big ML's but I notice they admit their panels don't do it so they NEED a big old boxed woofer to actually make CREDIBLE realistic bass. Good for ML to recognize the probalem and blatenly admit it for all to see. Big cone woofer.

The problem they have had in the 13 or so years I've heard them is they fall into Peter's noted trap that the the drivers are not of remotely the same dynamicly or a sonic signature match and they just don't mesh properly. Indeed Klipsh has similar problems in that the treble band sounds like it's thrown at you while the bass sort comes around after the fact. Klipsch is called bright, B&W big old metal driver and none of them integrate -- you always hear a suckout in practically every model OR an audible handoff between drivers.

The apogee I heard didn;t get away from being a speaker because as much as the holographic presentaion is "cool" it doesn't sound natural - and after awhile that would be fatiguing to me.

The thing is when I went to AN it was not because they did anything the blew me away...and that was in itself what blew me away. Lastly, an interesting experiment my dealer does with Audio Note J or E is when they are demoing them against anything else they carry they level match with an SPL. Once the person has decided the two sound the same in level -- it is revealed that the AN was actually several db lower...that is why the 705 in my comparison was so frustrating. I would listen to beethoven's Moonlight Sonata with a big expansive full bodied piano with excellent decay and then on the B&W with Much bigger bryston amplifiers I had to turn the volume UP and Up and UP to try and get back what was completely lost...and of course that ends up being futile because the louder I went it then goes into small box compression mode and thins out.

This is why I recommended speakers like PMC in that even though they need a small room and a nearfield listening position man could those things belt it out rock well etc. it may not be my cup of tea going that kinda sound route but if that;s what people like then a transmission line ballsy speaker like these just trounce the 705 like little girlie man speakers -- and the the PMC is cheaper for heaven sake -- and you can turn em active. TB2 versus 705 and I sit in wonder on this one. But the 705 is perty and the TB2 looks like a boring box with a boring name that doesn;t sound like a famous German Car company.

RGA

09-17-2005, 06:49 PM

Further Kex -- just some other interesting things that the adds fuel to Peter being comparatively in left field. Lots here for him to be attacked on know doubt but let's just purge it from the system -- This is fairly long so get a Sleeman's Honey Brown and a nice cigar and have a good read or laugh etc.

Dear Layman,

Correct, the fact that we do not use damping in our speaker cabinets does not make them "singing boxes" at all, what it does is not slug the sound or give the sound excessive "enertia".

Damping is a two-edged sword as you rightly say, and I think that as speaker manufacturers start looking at making more efficient speakers they will have to re-invent ways of distributing the energy from the drivers in a different way that just applying mass, mass and more mass.

In our cabinets we distribute the energy from the drivers by use of different materials and strategically positioned internal dividers or strenghtening blocks, it is done in such a way as to raise the resonance frequency (this is the EXACT opposite of what happens when applying weight) and thereby to shorten the time constant between the original waveform and its subsequent resonance so it is short enough asto be indistinguishable to the ear, in other words we let the cabinet release the energy as fast as possible rather than hold on to it and release it later at lower ampliitude as happens in a damped cabinet.

The benefit is overall improved efficiency (upto nearly 1 dB) and a sound that is far less restrained by the cabinet in a way that heavily damped cabinets are not.

To make this design philosophy possible and effective a designer cannot use drivers with high mass, long throw or large diameter, they are simply too "slow" and release too much energy into the cabinet, so rather than seek a piston effect, I seek a "pressure resonator" behaviour with minimal cone movement.

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

Dear Layman,
Boxes have been unjustly condemned because they have generally been badly designed, made from unsuitable materials or are the wrong shape.

Just because 90% of what is out there is deeply compromised, why condemn everything?

The box offers greatly improved load behaviour which allow size to be reduced making the whole thing domestically acceptable and viable.

I say, let's keep the box, but use it according to the laws of physics (meaning wide baffle and shallow depth) to reduce difraction and internal cancellation effects.

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup
Dear Morricab,
So what it really comes down to in your world is how things measure, not really what they sound like.

The best woofers of the past had much lower distortion and higher efficiency than most of the current crop, power handling was not an issue in the 1950's because amplifiers were low power, so we have not moved forward in any way, and anything that needs "attenuation" or equalisation cannot be right to start with, so that negates the whole design.

I already have the ideal cabinet shape and it makes the lively drivers "sing" just fine, the AN-E is now available with an improved and external crossover AND with a 98dB efficiency without loss of bandwidth or load behaviour, so I see little reason to spend valuable research and development time on improving the boxes.

Nothing flies in the face of the "retro image", as I do not seek to do anything that is retro, but by its very nature audio in its 100 year or so history has created solutions at some stage which have more permanence and viability than later solutions and this is what I prefer to do, use the best solution for each problem without regard for whether it is a new or old solution, or a mix of new and old.

To me the end result is what matters, I could not care less about fashion or reigning technological dogma, because at the end of the day only time sorts the wheat from the chaff and in the regard the value of vintage tube amplifiers keep rising, so making tomorrows classic means more to me than todays flash in the pan "hot property".

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

Dear Soundmind, [known here as Skeptic]

Strangely, I think we are broadly in agreement here.

I sympathise with your disdain for most of passes for product development in audio, because the vast majority of it bears less resemblance to R&D and appear more as visual design exercises to attract short term attention rather than long term value in sound quality terms.

The fact of the matter is that audio is not a good place to make money or even develop a career, it is exceptionally hard work for very little real return and most smart and capable people will seek employment in a field that pays as much as possible with the minimum amount of hassle, or enter fields that are "fashionable", which I suppose no-one can blame them for, but not everyone put money and career prospects before what they are passionate about, most practicing musicians, instrument makers and a few audio designers fall into this latter category.

What I find really problematic about your comments is that they are such a completely blunt "instrument" which taint everyone who makes audio equipment with the same brush, regardless of whether they fall into one or the other category and this leaves most people with the impression that we are already "there" which could not be further from the truth.

Audio is immensely interesting, but you have to look for the challenges, because superficially all the "problems" are under control, so to find them one needs to start with discovering the fact that most so called development done in the past 30 or so years has had more to do with broading the market through a combination of convenience of operation, minituarisation, portability and cost cutting, improving sound quality in any material way hardly appears on the menu, unless one counts "the same sound" at lower cost as an improvement, which in most cases it has not been, mainly because the improvement was in measured performance, not in sound.

This legacy has left most designers with an overly simplified view of what is good and what is bad engineering, take transformers for example, they were vilified by most of the larger commercial enterprises in the 1960's primarily because cost considerations had driven the quality of many transformers down to an unacceptable level, so whilst it is true that a badly designed or matched transformer sounds absolutely dreadful, a custom designed unit fit for its purpose using good materials, is a far better solution that anything else, but to reach this conclusion you have to really wade through masses of "scientific proof" that they are not and most designers are creatures of some degree of convenience and thus avoid transformers everywhere they can, even where their use is essential.

Science was in this regard used as a way to distort the real truth, and if one studies the history of audio going back to its infancy, it quickly becomes obvious that sound quality is mostly coincidental to the proceedings and the "real" work that has been done in audio reproduction has concerned itself primarily with improving measured behaviour with little or no crossreferring to the resulting sound. As a result most of the good sounding technologies and solutions were weeded out as measurement technology improved and our understanding of how to manipulate the end result followed in its footsteps in the relentless search for better - cheaper.

Because most designers do not listen to their creations, nor do they listen to music with any real interest or passion and that prevents them from looking outside the envelope of convention, because they are rarely, if ever, presented with the sonic results of their choices which help reinforce the above.

In another posting you mention that the contentions on our web site are "rubbish" mainly because I decribe the speaker cabinets construction as similar to that of a musical instrument.

The cabinets are designed to resonate, there are no materials which do not in this situation, what we do in contrast to all other speaker makers is use the opposite of damping, by careful choice of materials and internal divider bracing, we instead try to raise the resonance frequencies and shorten them to make them indistinguishable in time for the human ear to hear them as separate from the "first sound" from the driver.

I recognise that this is not the conventional method, but does that make it wrong?

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

Lastly
I am glad you responded to my post, it seems to me that your objections can be broken down into two main areas,

A.) The fact that I use the word "instrument" to describe the resonant behaviour of our speaker cabinets.

May I say that I have sympathy for your objection to the use of the word "instrument", because it is not actually a good description of what we are doing, which is really to design the cabinet and its internal bracing to move all resonances up in frequency to either mutually and simultaneously cancel out, remove standing waves and/or shorten the time the resonance is present sufficiently to bring it to within the human ear's perceptive level of direct sound, i.e. so there is no discernible difference in arrival time as far as the ear is concerned between the direct sound from the driver and its immediate cabinet resonance.

Whilst this is no new science like ADR (atomic dielectric resonance), I would respectfully venture to say that this is a new concept, whether it is revolutionary is really not for me to say, what I can say is that it is a very time consuming process to get the cabinet to behave itself in this regard and therefore does not lend itself to quick model changes.

B.) The fact that I largely disagree with and therefore reject what is passed as scientific theory in speaker design in particular (although to be honest I have largely the same problems with pretty much every other area of current audio science) stems from a number of experiences which clearly demonstrate that current science, if that is what you wish to call it, is a complete farce, just to give you a couple of quick examples,

a.) A few years ago, using the industry standard MLSSA 7 speaker measurement system I matched up a pair of our AN-E speakers, to the same curve we get from our reference AN-E and lo and behold they sounded completely different, FROM EACH OTHER! Many attempts were made to get the system to produce a pair of speakers which were close enough within the pair (bear in mind that I was using the same drivers) to be acceptable to the ear, all were more or less unsuccessful.

The measurement test system I have developed with my engineers is capable of making a reference standard pair of identical speakers every single time, as long as it is recalibrated every 2 - 3 hours to compensate for inevitable temperature variations during the day.
b.) Using our system I have measured a number of highly regarded speakers from several major manufacturers mainly to check the matching within pairs, many of these manufacturers use MLSSA in their final tests, as proof of quality and consistency.

I hold the view that in order for a pair of speakers to reproduce an even moderately reasonable facsimile of a stereo recording within normal room conditions, they must under specific test conditions (reverberant room at some off axis microphone distance) at least be sufficiently acoustically identical to have a response within say 1-2 dB (+/- 0.5 - 1 dB) across their bandwidth (our speakers are hand calibrated to be within well below 1 dB full bandwidth within a pair), so how did the "competition" fare?

Some better than others but generally quite badly I am afraid, the worst example I found was a major UK manufacturer whose highly acclaimed laboratory reference loudspeakers had a variation at one frequency of close to 9dB (+/- 4.5 dB), although the average I observed was in the order of 4 dB at several points over the frequency range of the speakers I tested, this degree of consistency or should I say lack of consistency (?) is deeply problematic in my view.

So my contention is that if the most regarded and used design & test/measurement validation system, which is widely used by a fairly large industry, produces an end product (in this case loudspeakers) which is this inconsistent and this far from what is claimed then there has to be something seriously wrong somewhere and there are several possibilities, none of which are very attractive, one of them being that the science used is pretty useless to put it bluntly.

The sad end result is that the consumer is duped into buying something which is not what he thinks it is, despite the fact the product is backed by the press, the main science community and who knows who else in this industry.

Unlike food, off course, bad sound does not make you ill, it just makes you disinterested in music and also unlike food, we can live without music in the end equation, which at least to some extent explains the rapid decline of so much real music.

So here is my main "beef" with audio science; it does not recognise that our ears are vastly superior to any measurements and the real problem is that conceptually audio measurement theory has not been upgraded since Edison formulated the main problems with his invention in the 1880's (!!),
Noise
Distortion
Bandwidth
And the fact that these three are still the only criteria used combined with the fact that they cannot be improved endlessly with sonic improvement as a result, should have prompted the committed audio scientists to establish better criteria.

Especially considering the fact that there was a point as early as in the late 1940s when all three had already been reduced to levels where the engineering community should have started looking for more complex and therefore sonically more valid ways of correlating what is measured with what is heard, sadly by the late 1950's all the issues were hijacked by the marketing departments in various emerging large players, whose need for simplistic figures to use as proof of "better sound" needed ever lower noise and distortion and wider bandwidth and the ways these were achieved did not much matter, no matter how bad they sounded, because that was not a major part of the agenda.

So in my view, audio science has produced little or nothing of genuine sonic value since the 1950's apart from lowering prices, although there was a brief period in the 1970s where interesting things happened in loudspeaker design (Beveridge, Plasmatronics and the Heil full range speaker the ESS Transar, primarily), but they disappeared pretty quickly and left no trace on the overall picture.
I equate what has happened in the audio industry to what has happened with much of the food we eat, the degree of interference and contamination is on par with the untruths that science has espoused about how much healthier and more nourishing everything has become, when the real truth is that whilst much has improved, these improvements have largely to do with availability and price rather than nutritional quality, not entirely different from the situation with music reproduction.

Now to answer your direct questions,

1.) A violin enclosure is designed as a mechanical amplifier, as are all string and most other natural musical instruments for that matter, this is quite different from what our speakers are designed to do as I explained above.

2.) If the box vibrations decay fast enough to be within the ear's ability to separate direct sound from its box main resonance, then you will hear Stan Getz as he played and was recorded without interference in the way that you mention, which is what the AN-E will comfortably produce if used in a suitable system.

3.) You are simplifying and misinterpreting what I have said, imaging, soundstage and such like are either in the recording or they are not and there are precious few stereo recordings (and no monos!) where this information is present, especially after 1971 when multi-miking – multi track recordings really took off at which time recordings became a studio construction with little semblance to reality, properly designed reproduction equipment should show this and not try to re/deconstruct the content of the software to match expectations which have more to do with visual than aural presentation.

It is easy to demonstrate that much of what the general public, or should I say audiophile community(?) focus on is not real imaging or sound staging, it is a construction of the equipment to the detriment of important tonal, timbral and dynamic qualities, speakers are now designed to focus and image rather than for accurate tonal balance or even flat frequency response, all to the detriment of music.

A true scientist is someone who studies the subject broadly, observes and learns from his experiences and experiments, and engages his critical faculties when it comes to learning from my peers.

All I can say is that I have studied much of the accumulated body of knowledge and unfortunately found that one has to go back to around and before the 1950s to find anything that has any real relevance to sound quality, the improvements since have more to do with marketing, miniturisation or improvement via cost saving (an oxymoron in my view) rather than what I would say are genuine improvements overall.

Go to an AES conference and see for yourself, it is now a forum for manufacturers to promote their latest products and ideas rather than a place where likeminded engineers exchange new ideas and promote improvement that is not necessarily “cost efficient” or the latest technology, in an industry as commercialised as the one I am in submitting ones finding for peer review as you suggest serves no purpose, because if what you have to say runs counter to what the main body of science believes to be correct it will either be ignored or discredited.

At the end of the day I base my concepts and designs on what I perceive to be sonically better and having owned and listened to a large body of what is out there over the years I feel I have some experience.

In addition my company has a very substantial and ambitious R&D program and probably spends a larger proportion of its turnover on research than any other audio company anywhere, unfortunately gestation time is quite long on projects and products researched like this, so much of the work done and the discoveries made have not come to market in the form of products yet, so watch this space over the next year or two.

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

Geoffcin

09-17-2005, 07:27 PM

I think his ascertion of shifted energy uis precisely that it is difficult and it requires a lot of work to get it right. It is far easeir to create a speaker and then just damp the hell out of it. I heard a big Canadian speaker the other day and was distressed by how completely DEAD it sounded -- it's been a while to be frank since I've been listneing to other speakers and what I heard was boxy muffled (despite a metal tweeter) and the vocal band sounded like someone threw a wet towel over the proceedings. .

What was this 'dead sounding" Canadian speaker you were so "distressed by" , or are you afraid that some owners might call you out.

kexodusc

09-18-2005, 04:12 AM

Geoffcin

09-18-2005, 07:20 AM

I put this thread into the "Steel Cage" so Florian & RGA can have a slugfest, and here you go posting worthwhile content!

JohnMichael

09-18-2005, 10:21 AM

I put this thread into the "Steel Cage" so Florian & RGA can have a slugfest, and here you go posting worthwhile content!

It must be nervous energy. In about two weeks he has a wedding to attend.

RGA

09-18-2005, 12:32 PM

Kex.

Interestingly and you may know the answer to this with regards to imaging but when the AN's are positioned as designed in the corners the soundstaging and imaging are far superior then they are when left freestanding -- though with the K in my room when in the corners about 13 feet apart the speaker were much better with the soundstaging when freestanding -- the K is smaller speaker and a sealed cabinet. In the corners they had trouble -- too far apart -- slightly too big a room maybe.

Peter has problems with what he perceives to be a stamped on sound with many speakers imaging in that it is unnatural with most modern recordings and he likes to take out older 60's stuff to point out that his speakers have no problem with creating Soundstage and imaging when it is REALLY there. But that was a whole other thread. In my room now I don;t feel there is any problem with localizing any instrument on a stage that is at least as big as the front wall. And his speakers usually get strong reviews for both imaging and soundstaging.

And the interesting thing is that AN tends to have an incredibly open and big sound creating a vast presentation in space. I have heard many speakers in the press that are called great imagers that sound small and don't get out of their boxes. If you can;t even get one instrument to sound like an instrument then I wonder how one can think they image well.

Geofcin -- the particular speaker was one that would generate too much argument -- and I don;t want to pick on it because much of its direct competition doesn;t fair a whole lot better if even as good. Though I will say it was not a Totem and this company advertises a lot and adds numbers to their speaker every 3-5years.

kexodusc

09-18-2005, 02:52 PM

Interestingly and you may know the answer to this with regards to imaging but when the AN's are positioned as designed in the corners the soundstaging and imaging are far superior then they are when left freestanding -- though with the K in my room when in the corners about 13 feet apart the speaker were much better with the soundstaging when freestanding -- the K is smaller speaker and a sealed cabinet. In the corners they had trouble -- too far apart -- slightly too big a room maybe.

Most AN setups I've seen where always in corners, with absolute perfect toe-in. What I mean by that is that the drivers were pointed straight at the sweet spot, so the acoustic centers would be delivering sound on axis perfectly. This could mitigate any diffraction issues and hindrances to imaging by reducing their apparent leve relative the initial sound...I'm only guessing here though. While slim cabinets might image better, that's not the same as saying fat boxes don't image well. Many do.
I've always been impressed with the imaging abilities of small HTIB speakers. Some image better than some big name, audiophile type stereo speakers. But they lack detail, accuracy and still sound like crap. Imaging is just one aspect of a speaker, important, but not the definitive criteria IMO. Being able to perfectly localize an instrument that <i>should</i> sound like a guitar isn't cutting it.

Peter has problems with what he perceives to be a stamped on sound with many speakers imaging in that it is unnatural with most modern recordings and he likes to take out older 60's stuff to point out that his speakers have no problem with creating Soundstage and imaging when it is REALLY there. But that was a whole other thread. In my room now I don;t feel there is any problem with localizing any instrument on a stage that is at least as big as the front wall. And his speakers usually get strong reviews for both imaging and soundstaging.
Modern recordings do present "fake" imagery and soundstages. But the playing field here is level for all speakers. Being 5% better and soundstaging and 3-D imaging won't compensate for being 10% poorer in resolution and accuracy. Well, that might vary according to taste. Room acoustics and speaker placement contribute a lot here. I'm guessing AN's are generally further separated horizontally than most standard speakers, which are a few feet from the side walls. This would allow the AN's to compensate a bit for presenting slighty more narrow soundstages. So same result, different path? I think the key here is that alone, corner placement or wide baffles might not be ideal. But all the AN design aspects and setup recommendations are designed to work together. Just because it's different doesn't mean it's better or worse. Just different.

And the interesting thing is that AN tends to have an incredibly open and big sound creating a vast presentation in space. I have heard many speakers in the press that are called great imagers that sound small and don't get out of their boxes. If you can;t even get one instrument to sound like an instrument then I wonder how one can think they image well.

Hmm. I don't know about the "stuck in their box thing"...Most speakers I've heard always tend to sound bigger to me than their physical size. I've heard vocals and strings with very accurate timbres on some speakers that really do sound incredibly close to the real thing. But brass instruments, winds, and bagpipes (not sure what they fall under?) I have yet to hear faithfully recreated in a convincing manner to me on any speaker - not the B&W Nautilus, the AN E, not the K-Horn, not any planar or electrostat, no t-line or pipe, not even my beloved Focus Audio FS-788. Close but no cigar. I think speakers still have a long way to go in some areas.

RGA

09-19-2005, 07:17 PM

I was looking for these ones too Kex so I'll add it here. Really one should just buys what they likes. It's all too much of a headache. I go in and let the company prove their technology to me. It's designed to reproduce musuc and all the technobabble in the world can;t save them from the cold light of the listening room side by side comparisons. That is where truth is separated from advertising.

Dear John,
If you have been around for as long as you say then you should be able to remember that many of the self same designers that you mention were espousing different view on many matter 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

You may not recognise the fact that "low diffraction" and small narrow baffles are mutually exclusive, because this is governed by laws of physics that neither I nor anyone else can change, whether we like it or not.

You put your finger on it, being "in" with the latest fads helps little in this regard, as it changes nothing apart from creating the illusion that something important has been done and as you know fashion is only a fleeting "passion".

Not accepting the fact that narrow baffles have poor and very uneven dispersion behaviour is like denying that gravity exists, just step up on a roof and take one step forward and you will soon realise that whilst you may not believe in gravity, gravity certainly believes in you, then let me know which hospital you end up in and I shall send some flowers and a card wishing you a speedy recovery.

Whilst you are recovering may I again recommend reading Beranek, McLaughlin and Ohlsson, they tell you what you need to know about waveform propagation, you will then soon see that there is nothing old fashioned about wide baffles for starters, because there is no "moving on" from the fundamental waveform behaviour, nature sees to that.

All modern designers try to do is to circumvent the laws of physics in order to get an edge in appearance stakes, manipulation of the measurement techniques are widespread and are now more used as marketing tools than as guides to whether the speaker is actually any good.

I know that we are all working on creating an illusion with reproduced sound, but I never thought that the illusion goes as far as creating a belief system which is mightier than mother nature.

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

Dear John,
Firstly, how many speakers have you actually designed and successfully marketed??

Since you are clearly a fully paid up member of current fashion club in speaker design, may I suggest that you go back and study two of the original works on acoustics and speakers, or perhaps 3,

a.) N. W. McLaughlin's Acoustics on McGraw-Hill, I believe it was issued about 1934, McLaughlin was probably the greatest mathematician who ever set foot in acoustics.

b.) L. L. Beranek's Loudspeakers.

c.) Any of Harry Ohlsons books.

These books contain the vast majority of what one needs to understand about sound propagation and acoustics, mostly forgotten knowledge as the industry has "progressed" towards commerciality with all its vagaries.

Now to comment a little on the rest,

1.) There several ways of achieving low frequency response and your contention that only a large diameter driver can do low frequencies is easily disproven, but rather than talk the talk you need to walk the walk and listen to a speaker which provides low frequency from a small woofer in a setting it was designed for.

2.) I don't understand why you would measure a speaker at 180 degrees and I have not measured or seen measurements on the NHT you mention, but I can tell you that I would have no real problem putting the 90 degree off axis response of any of our speakers up against any other forward radiating speaker, we would come out well there.

Remember here that 90% of all recordings are done with microphones that are not omnis and therefore the speaker dispersion at plus 90 and minus degrees is really all you need to "invert" the version picked up by the microphone.

Of all the products we make the speakers are not only the most villified but controversially the only ones which do well on conventional tests, see Hifi Choice's many tests for example.

3.) We go one better that simple time/phase alignment, we individually adjust and match the woofer's behaviour to the tweeter at the points where they both reproduce the same frequency, this is far far more important and sophisticated than the primitive practice of sloping the baffle a bit to "compensate" for the tweeters earlier and shorter response time.

The ear is far more sensitive to incorrectly matched start - stop anomalies than it is to minor static differences in frequency response, a fact which is neither well understood nor practiced by the loudspeaker industry.

We developed a way of measuring this behaviour realtime and ways of adjusting it as well over 15 years ago, and have been refining this since then.

To help you understand what I said in the next paragraph, basically in a 3 way speaker finding drivers which work together in such a way that it is possible to align their timing differences at two crossover points rather than one immense complicates the problem of adjusting the above behaviour.

4.) Again, I recommend that you listen to a speaker that achieves a response in a normal room size from 17Hz to 23kHz with good efficiency and ease of drive.

5.) Whilst I acknowledge that there is a lot still to learn (but not from current convention, I am afraid) I have much of the necessary experience, have you?

6.) The treble and midrange on the Lowthers was one of the best I have ever encountered, and I have owned pretty much everything over the past 35 years, from Voigt's field coil driven horns, Tannoy's original 1950's Westminster's, Siemens Klangfilm and WE cinema systems to B&W DM70s, stacked Quad 57's, Beveridge System 2's, Acoustats, to Hill's Plasmatronics, Heil's full range AMT, Snell A/IIIs you name it, I have at some time or another had them all and what they all has taught me is not insubstantial.

I rate the Lowther PM4 system and the Siemens systems as the best overall, but they are domestically almost impossible unless you live in a mansion, and very few of us do, so something smaller is needed.

Which is why we are here!

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

Dear Greg,
Quite correct, which is why we cross over at below 2.3 kHz and use specially designed units to tailor their response to each other.

Like you say, there are VERY few tweeters who work this far down.
Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

They do not go above 14 Ohms either.

Impedance variation are in my experience not a great problem if it does not have a greater than 10 to 12 Ohm "window" and it does not go below 4 Ohms, but I think it is important to mention that a speaker's impedance is only one of several parameters that make up its general suitability to SET amplifiers.

Reflected load is a major problem in inefficient speakers when seen from the point of view of the amplifier, and whilst single-ended triode amplifiers without feedback have a high'ish output impedance they do not display any of the stability problems associated with feedback amplifiers, provided the circuit, power supply and output transformers compliment each other, the SET struggles with the combined "mass" of the drivers and crossover of inefficient speakers.

One parameter we "match" speaker behaviour to is the power transfer curve of a triode, because at the end of the day it is the end result that counts and we specifically design our speakers to have as flat an in room power response in the listening position as possible, when driven by a low power triode amplifier.

We design the parameters of all our drive units strictly with this in mind.

We also go to great length to make sure that both speakers in a pair have identical acoustic behaviour, in order to get decent stereo (or even mono) reproduction that is far more important than many of the highly touted "important" parameters used by other speaker makers.

It is a major advantage designing and making both "sides" of the "coin" because it allows you to gradually improve your understanding of what goes on between amplifier and speaker and slowly optimise the "match", unfortunately very few speaker or amplifier manufacturers are able to do this as they only design the front or back of the "coin".

The "specialist" speaker industry in particular appears to have very little understanding of what is best for a good amplifier, they have over many years relied on the premise that amplifier power solves all problems and squarely place the responsability for the end result of their poor understanding on the amplifier manufacturers' who have traditionally been forced to follow suit and make higher power amplification, which is a complex and poor sounding compromise

Dear RGA,
The market perception (supported by most magazines and manufacturers as it is) is that if there is "more" or "deeper" bass then you are getting something for your money.

This is not the case, in fact it is rarely the case that a sub qualitatively improves the music reproduction, generally the money would be better spent on bigger speakers or elsewhere.

The AN-E is probably the easiest to add a woofer to, the intention is to start at under 30 Hz and go down to around 12 Hz, it works pretty well, but having tried in different rooms the variability is too great in my view and positioning is very critical to get the right blend.

Single ended triodes is the only way to get proper bass, nothing else will do.

Dear TC,
The "leading" magazines certainly have a lot to answer for, imagine if they had had the courage to write what they REALLY thought about CD when it first came out, rather than just turn their back and bend over?

I spoke to many of the leading reviewers at the time(one advantage of being old is that you were there when it happened!) and what they thought privately was quite different from what they wrote in their articles.

Had they publicly said what they privately thought, it might have changed the course of CD and forced Philips and Sony to rethink their entire modus operandi.

Serious dereliction of duty and care to their readers, much like the stock analysts who recommend shares they privately denigrate.

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

Dear Pat,
There are almost no speakers that have a flat off axis response at say 30 degrees either side.

It is interesting that you mention the average omnidirectional response, when did you last see one of these measurements in a modern audio magazine??

I never said power response was new, but almost no-one uses this today, and it is a good indicator of performance.

I think the reason we see neither of these measurements any longer is that modern speakers with their shallow deep cabinets and resulting poor and very uneven off axis response do badly when measured at listening distance.

50 inches is about 1 meter 25 centimeters, that is close enough to one meter, 2 - 3 meters are not really valid either, as you need to take into consideration the room reflections and their influence on the sound, as what you hear is always in the listening position, so why not measure where you sit?

Paul Messenger from Hifi Choice generally measures at a distance similar to listening distance and his overall measurements tell you more about the sonic balance of most of the speakers he measures.

I aim to make a speaker with a virtually perfect hemispherical dispersion behaviour, which is why I like wide shallow cabinets, in my view a speaker should have an even non jagged drop off as you move from 30 to 60 to 90 degrees off axis in all directions in order to be able to present the room with an even energy waveform.

Likewise, it is important that the speakers within the pair are acoustically identical, otherwise it is difficult to reproduce stereo.

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

kexodusc

09-20-2005, 05:49 AM

You may not recognise the fact that "low diffraction" and small narrow baffles are mutually exclusive, because this is governed by laws of physics that neither I nor anyone else can change, whether we like it or not.

All modern designers try to do is to circumvent the laws of physics in order to get an edge in appearance stakes, manipulation of the measurement techniques are widespread and are now more used as marketing tools than as guides to whether the speaker is actually any good.

This guy can repeat himself a billion times, and his devoted followers can revel in every word he speaks, but it doesn't make his statements true all the time.

I don't even by the fashion argument he's presenting. Wide baffles with pretty wood finishes wood look every bit as good. I don't understand why he thinks baffle size is related to fashion at all. If anything, cabinet depth is every bit as intrusive and annoying, who wants their speakers jutting out 4 feet into a room?

Just use some common sense here. Severity of primary baffle diffractions is directly related to the surface area of the baffle. Given a fixed height, the narrow baffle has less surface area. Less speaker to diffract off of. The wider you make the baffle, the wider the range of frequencies that will experience some diffraction. This will be mitigated some by lowering the frequencies for which edge diffraction becomes a concern (larger wavelengths). Again, the few extra inches of baffle width will impact the imaging ability of a speaker some....but it shouldn't be a deal breaker. The trade-off is the benefits afforded the lower midrange/bass region. This has been well documented for over 50 years too. You can't just pick and choose which laws of physics you want to apply...that's what marketing departments do.

Dear John,
Firstly, how many speakers have you actually designed and successfully marketed??
I get the feeling this John guy must have pissed Peter off? I don't see any relevance in his question. Dr. Bose has successfully designed and marketed more speakers than Peter. Does that make him more of an authority?

1.) There several ways of achieving low frequency response and your contention that only a large diameter driver can do low frequencies is easily disproven, but rather than talk the talk you need to walk the walk and listen to a speaker which provides low frequency from a small woofer in a setting it was designed for.
Peter's quite right here...but then again, all things equal, diameter size is probably the best way to extend bass - then it becomes a question of which side-effects do you want to tackle. I think that's more of a personal taste thing.

2.) I don't understand why you would measure a speaker at 180 degrees and I have not measured or seen measurements on the NHT you mention, but I can tell you that I would have no real problem putting the 90 degree off axis response of any of our speakers up against any other forward radiating speaker, we would come out well there. Who the hell listens to speakers at 90 degree angles? If I was Peter, I wouldn't waste my time responding to nut bars like this guy.

3.) We go one better that simple time/phase alignment, we individually adjust and match the woofer's behaviour to the tweeter at the points where they both reproduce the same frequency, this is far far more important and sophisticated than the primitive practice of sloping the baffle a bit to "compensate" for the tweeters earlier and shorter response time.
I think Peter is out of date with current practices. The "sloping the baffle" trick is rarely done anymore.

The ear is far more sensitive to incorrectly matched start - stop anomalies than it is to minor static differences in frequency response, a fact which is neither well understood nor practiced by the loudspeaker industry.
Yeah, to a point, there's precedence effect where very short delays won't be perceived at all. But I agree with him here. Poor transient response and sloppy driver integration is worse IMO than a +/- 4 dB response.

To help you understand what I said in the next paragraph, basically in a 3 way speaker finding drivers which work together in such a way that it is possible to align their timing differences at two crossover points rather than one immense complicates the problem of adjusting the above behaviour.

It doesn't have to...besides, I thought they had developed a super great 15 year old method of doing this?

Dear Greg,
Quite correct, which is why we cross over at below 2.3 kHz and use specially designed units to tailor their response to each other.

Like you say, there are VERY few tweeters who work this far down.

I wish I knew Greg's question...but I disagree with Peter's last statment. I have in my possession 3 tweeters that can be crossed over below 1600 Hz, one as low as 1200 Hz.
There's plenty out there. Maybe it's a more recent development though? Morel and Usher make a bunch.

Dear RGA,
The market perception (supported by most magazines and manufacturers as it is) is that if there is "more" or "deeper" bass then you are getting something for your money.

This is not the case, in fact it is rarely the case that a sub qualitatively improves the music reproduction, generally the money would be better spent on bigger speakers or elsewhere.

Again, just because Peter says it, doesn't make it true. Some people probably don't like subwoofers. My 15" sealed sub is easily integrated with my speakers, is very musical, and greatly improves the qualitative element for music reproduction. Maybe it's because it's not long-throw, high excursion, gimmicky design?

Serious dereliction of duty and care to their readers, much like the stock analysts who recommend shares they privately denigrate.
Was this for my benefit? Any charted stock analyst wouldn't publicly recommend shares they privately denigrate. That would be in violation of their Code of Ethics (most of us do adhere to these, out of fear of the brutal fines and impossible re-entry to the industy). Any recommendations should be supported by substantial analysis and risk measurement.

The magazine reviewers and speaker manufacturer/marketers would be well served adopting a similar Code of Ethics.

There are almost no speakers that have a flat off axis response at say 30 degrees either side.
Guess it depends by the definition of flat...if +/- 3 dB can be considered flat, then I disagree. If +/- 3 dB up to 15 KHz or so can be considered effectively flat, then I very much disagree...
Is it possible Peter got so frustrated with speakers that he's just completely ignored the market in recent years?

I never said power response was new, but almost no-one uses this today, and it is a good indicator of performance. Yes, Yes, Yes!

I think the reason we see neither of these measurements any longer is that modern speakers with their shallow deep cabinets and resulting poor and very uneven off axis response do badly when measured at listening distance.
Those measurements aren't a trait of the cabinet shape. I think it's fair to say there's just a lot more bad narrow baffle designs than there are bad wide baffle designs these days. Don't blame the baffle, blame designer.

50 inches is about 1 meter 25 centimeters, that is close enough to one meter, 2 - 3 meters are not really valid either, as you need to take into consideration the room reflections and their influence on the sound, as what you hear is always in the listening position, so why not measure where you sit?

Paul Messenger from Hifi Choice generally measures at a distance similar to listening distance and his overall measurements tell you more about the sonic balance of most of the speakers he measures.

I agree that a 1 meter listening position is not indicative of the speakers application. The problem is moving out further into the room will result in measurements being influenced heavily by the room itself. Subtracting this influence from the equation is extemely difficult. Worse, much like a speaker and a cabinet interact differently with each other, a given speaker interacts with a room differently than another speaker beside it. It's not even fair to say that both speakers are in the same room. Problem is we design speakers to fit in rooms, we don't include the room in the design. This is first compromise for all speakers.
Second problem - have you ever heard a speaker that didn't measure as well as nother speaker, but sounded better than it? I have...this tells me there's a few measurements missing.

I aim to make a speaker with a virtually perfect hemispherical dispersion behaviour, which is why I like wide shallow cabinets, in my view a speaker should have an even non jagged drop off as you move from 30 to 60 to 90 degrees off axis in all directions in order to be able to present the room with an even energy waveform.
Just an afterthought...you can eliminate the jagged drop off he describes in the crossover. He's probably doing this anyway with his designs, the wider baffle doesn't eliminate the drops, it just shifts them lower (kind of like what he doesn't like to do with energy by damping).

Likewise, it is important that the speakers within the pair are acoustically identical, otherwise it is difficult to reproduce stereo.
My father listens to more music than anyone I know. I've built him 2 nice systems, but for whatever reason he still spends a great deal of time enjoying music on some lesser equipment he has - ghetto blaster, FM stereo clock radio...
Sometimes I think we get carried away here...if he can get into music with such obviously crappy systems, what is he hearing that we aren't?

RGA

09-20-2005, 10:35 PM

I'm not going to tackle any of the points Kex because I'm not him and I can't speak for him -- I merely let what I hear speak for what I will buy -- it was just for interest sake. It is clear that he doesn't buy into what is viewed in the majority -- and it is precisely why bringing up what is the established practice or view of theory is largley not going to go over well in his books. I spoke to a non audio note dealer who said that slim line is fashion and good for business - because it helps sell home theater packages takes up far less floor space and most have such aneamic bass that eventually most everyone comes back to buy a subwoofer -- This dealer sold M&K to George Lucas and his father invented the sand filling system for Wharfedale) Even Wharfedale went from VASTLY superior Vanguard and their high efficiency series to crappola let's copy B&W tweeter on top Modus speakers. Maybe they image better than the Vanguards but that;s sure as hell all they MIGHT do better.

And the Reference 3a MM De Capo has a sloped baffle as do speakers like Thiel. Neither are particularly old.

John is an NHT Dealer FYI

He said few tweeters -- not no tweeters -- and then knowing him he probably doesn;t consider ones that are not worth considering

In the three way he mentioned I get the impression he is referring to the middle driver which has two points to be worked to match the bass driver and then to the tweeter. That is far more difficult than hust worring about one point. Though, he is working on the type A which was three way. Difficult but he didn't say impossible.

Subs -- still waiting be convinced by one but we've been down that road -- I ain;t buying one on the promise that I will like it -- they have to prove it to me that I will like it -- which means the sub maker should write in stone that they themselves will set-up the store demo if it's an issue that highly trained outlets are incompetant and can't set-up a basic sub. I like to test drive the car too --- don;t promise me that a Hyundai Pony can handle like there's no tomorrow and it will peel off the line like the best of them -- prove it to me.

The AN E measures better off axis than it does on axis - in another thread he wanted the polar response curves broght back.

Slim lines were brought out for appearance - sorry if you can;t see this but slim is sexy - not fat and plump and we see it in fashion. Sleek lines - preferably silver, with cool looking cabinets (Dark Cherry woods) speakers that take up less and less sapce for smaller and smaller apartments. When i first saw the AN speakers my first thought was UUUUUGLY!

I'd probably agree with your points on the baffle if I could be absolutely convinced that say a Paradigm Studio 100, or Totem mani 2 with it's narrow deep cabbinet imaged better in any way. It sure doesn't sound like they do. I have not heard the Mani 2 for long but a fellow teacher in this district took all of ten minutes to decide to trade his mani 2 for the AN E and when talking to him he felt there was not a single area of sionic reproduction that the Mani 2 won out. Much less bass which required way more power, far less headroom less open smaller soundstage, tonally outclassed and on and on. Unlike him I never did a side by side so I can't say. My audition was with parasound and bryston separates and i kept wondering why the Speaker was $4,000.00Cdn. (Apparently $1k down). this fellow I met but another fellow with the exact same speaker trade em in for the E as well.

I can't discuss the technical merits of his layperson arguments - I know that at my listening position when comparing speakers in the same room his sound "clearer" and I can make out more of what is going on -- which is abundantly noted at lower listening levels. With the 705 a speaker that in my view has terrible resolving ability with all it's pluses in the techy arguemnt field it's a piece of unmitigated crap at the price they're charging. it's not IMO good but different it's different and I can;t hear what I hear on another speaker like pressure, scale dynamics remotely half decent bass response.

Then again the answer may be back to the long throw woofer, lack of driver integration, lack of matching driver sonics, the high 4khz crossover point and the kevlar performance at 4khz -- that John guy seems to hate the terrible choice of crossover in the B&W's and the Kevlar midwoofer. I don't know nothing about all that because I don't care -- I just know they irritate me. Just like I don;t care why a bridge can support the weight of 100 cars -- I just know that it does or does not. And as a driver that;s what I want to know. As a listener it's gotta sound good. Unfortunately, when we get into what sounds good then we're into preferneces which then is like arguing about movies. The Shawshank Redemption is a better movie than Oasis of the Zombies -- but I can't prove that it is. Of course RGA is all knowing so I am right :D

kexodusc

09-21-2005, 12:45 PM

Like I said earlier, while unorthodox by some standards, all of Peter Q's design considerations depend on them being used together. This is fine. He's certainly not the only one to ever come up with his ideas though. I can't say anything bad about the AN's I've heard. I just have yet to blown away by them compared to some speakers in their price range (not talking about B&W or Paradigm). In my books they're just another great option.

But then, some people like Maggies better than AN's, to each their own.

As for the slim speakers taking up less space - they don't. a 1 cubic foot box is 1 cubic foot whether it's placed with the fat side staring out or the thin side. A few people might tell you it's all about looks, and to some, maybe it is. I don't buy that though.

I suspect as AN matures and catches on we'll begin to see copy cat designs. Maybe you'll see the retro-fat box look become fashionable? Who knows.

RGA

09-21-2005, 04:42 PM

Well kex I probably should not say this on a public forum but Boston Acoustics owns the same rights to the original Snell design that Peter Qvortrup owns. Theoretically, this means that starting now Boston Acoustics could start building K J and E's. The owner of Soundhounds sells more audio Note speakers than any other speaker they carry and has been badgering BA to make clones of the Audio Notes largely because BA could make less expensive ones which may not have the silver wiring etc and may not be sonically as good but would be huge improvements over the sound of what BA is currently selling etc.

The BA rep said yes the AN sounds better than any of their speakers - and BA's owner had always wanted to be perceived better or more high end than they are. Terry wanted them to bring them out as a sort of classic line. They simply returned by saying, they sound better - but they can't sell because of the style. Peter has discussed the same thing with B&W designers in the past telling them the reason their speakers don't work as well is because of the cabinet. The B&W guys can't change the cabinet because to get the sound they'd have to completely change the cabinets, drivers and tweeters - The reply is that the AN cabinet is too ugly.

Sure YOU and ME may buy a speaker on sound and not care about looks and size and we even may be willing to pay $3-5k on a speaker. But the masses simply are not audiophiles - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. There is a reason B&O is sold at the biggest Vancouver high end chain and Bose at the second biggest high end chain and both are the biggest sellers for those stores. It is about STYLE that those two sell, especially with B&O. Big companies want big sales and in order to get big sales you have to give the AVERAGE person what they want -- affordable sexy speakers that do the job will fit the largest number of living spaces. Most people would not know a good speaker from a bad one and if they did they are never going to hear it at most of the shops selling speakers (BB and Circuit City and pseudo higher end dealers). Bose is number one why? Advertising advertising advertising -- they were excellent at it and they managed to create a mystique using science to back up that their approach really is best. Everyone who knows nothing about it when I talk to them about speakers talks about Bose being the big name. They do it without reviews to boot. Bose is a legend.

These big companies who want to sell use Bose as "THE" model and sound quality simply is not the first priority - which isn't to say they don't care but I get the sense from what I've heard from the speakers themselves dealers and audiophiles that Peter's view of "here's what we want the speaker to look like and how it will be marketed and here is your budget" THEN the engineer is told now make the speaker measurre good we want this line and this line to be flat if someone checks. The engineer goes out with the compromised set of instructions and does the best he can achieving what was requested. No one makes any final judgment on sound quality saying like Daniel Dehay (of Ref 3a) that this sounds better even though it doesn;t measure as perty - this is what sounds better and deliberately makes the decision for reproduction over a marketing decision. Interestingly his speaker gets rave reviews from the same magazine that kinda dissed the measured response which PROVES that what was measured is TOTALLY unimportant to the subjective experience. If the measurement which was said to be bad was of ANY use in the slightest then the subjective response from MOST everybody would be that it sounds like crap. And the fact of the matter is it isn't.

This is why Stereophile is run by a bunch of putzes. JA himself relies only on measured results yet he knows himself that his own experience with DBT was that eventually he went to a more expensive amp because it sounded better beyond the TEST ie beyond the scientific result. Yet for speakers he relies on "good and bad" mneasurements which are ONLY useful if and ONLY if it directly corerelates to the listening session. This is why that most speakers rate +/-3db across a large band say 200hz- 17khz or so and some measure to within 1.5db and still there is just too much of a discrepency in the result that it puzzles me why I ever paid attention to them. the Pradigm 100V3 and B&W 705 measure very well as to what the standardly used measurements consider to be good. To me it's totally unnaceptable

It is precisely that AN will never "catch on" as mass speaker like a Bose Acoustimass or B&W because they simply are out of fashion - even moreso when there are no grill covers.

Interestingly your point about space I will go you one better. Let's say that the slim line model X is the same exact internal volume and same footprint of the AN E. Chances are slim line X to sound it's best is 3-4 feet from the back wall and at least 2 feet from the side wall. The entire area behind the speaker and to the side of the speaker is completely wasted. The AN E would actually take up far less actuall living space because you could shove them out of the way into the corners. To me IF you have corners then these speakers are a benefit because you get more of your living room to live in.

Problem is many new condos and houses have goofball room configurations that seem to avoid rooms with corners or place those fake fireplaces in the dorkiest poisitions - then we're stuck with AN speakers to perform in rooms they are not suited for -- and while they seemed to still do well in the listening sessions of Hi-fi Choice -- it is less predictable to what Peter was going for. Like the Ferrari -- it might do ok off road but it may not either. With the J's out into the room I notice them more as being speakers than being able to ignore them.

AN speakers and really all their products are not supposed to "Blow You Away." If it does that then I'd be worried. I would also recommend you not evaluate the E from what you're hearing on the Kit. The Kit is based off the E/D. I've heard only one Kit E and perhaps not all kits are built equally but the E/LX is playing at a whole other level than what I heard from the Kit construction (which is a shame because the Kit had a way cooler colour finish). The biggest issue for me with the Kit E was that it had a rather dead quality to midrange sounded rather shut in and didn't have the bang on cohesiveness.

I think Bob Neil noticed this as well with his buig naim CD player and the AN cd player which didn't blow him away...it took him quite a while and a number of recordings to hear it "creep up on him"

Even my systems is marginal until I get a real source. I know what I am not getting because I heard what could be -- and all three of my sources are weak ass banes of my stereo.

Of course at the end of the day we just all have to pick something we ENJOY. I like Steven Rochlin's line just so long as we enjoythemusic then all of this is really secondary. It's not like any of it is a big deal. If I had bought the CDM 1NT a few years back and found the AN's it would not have been a huge deal -- a small financial cost to trade him or sell them and buy the AN's. And one day I may find something better. At one time I figured it would be tough to impossible to beat the De Capo int hat price band.

Omega may have something that will blow me away or Lowther or someone.

theaudiohobby

09-22-2005, 12:08 AM

RGA,

I hope that you realise that quite a few who have heard AN-E side-by-side with the LVs, similar rated specs and target market, have stated a marked preference for LVs (even an AN dealer implied this in a conversation), and following from your comments sometime ago, it seems hat AN is definitely a much bigger brand in the US than in UK, there are a couple of reasons for this. It is foolish to speculate as to the exact reasons for, though the presence of the likes of Quad, Sugden, Linn, Naim etc does not help matters. Drastically different typical listening environments probably play a role in this. Also I think that AN speakers have to compete with a wider palette of designs over here.

Florian

09-22-2005, 02:28 AM

kexodusc

09-22-2005, 04:00 AM

Sure YOU and ME may buy a speaker on sound and not care about looks and size and we even may be willing to pay $3-5k on a speaker. But the masses simply are not audiophiles - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Yes, I realize the masses aren't buying $3-5K speakers and that they aren't audiophiles. But read what I'm saying here - For a company like B&W or BA or whoever, there is still that very small niche market of people (internationally it's probably significantly large actually) who are looking for those speakers that they could cater too. Furthermore, niche markets are by nature more profitable than the mass market, because there's less competition eating away profit margins. My experience with "audiophiles" is that they don't give a rat's ass about looks. Tube amps or stacks of mono blocks with messes of cables ain't pretty, except to other audiophiles. But large, well finished wood cabinets aren't sore to look at excactly. I think simple is better, very classic looking. But looks AREN'T important to the people that would want these speakers. I suspect if the majority of people who are in the market for good sound with no compromise for looks, do hear something of value in AN, there will emerge some copycat, knock-off companies - especially from China, who are making some damn good knock-off speakers these days.
Or it could be to many people, they just don't sound as good as some competitors. Which is fine too. Let me invoke my "shape of the ear" argument...we don't all hear the same way, not even close.

It is precisely that AN will never "catch on" as mass speaker like a Bose Acoustimass or B&W because they simply are out of fashion - even moreso when there are no grill covers.

You're missing the point though...99% of all speakers won't catch on like Bose or B&W - they don't have to. The best speakers I've heard in recent months have been small, one or two man operations that aren't selling world wide. Instead, a bunch of carved out, but profitable, niche markets. I don't think most speaker designers or companies even judge success by the sheer size their company grows to. I can think of one designer in fact who really doesn't have much desire to expand at all, except he needs the new market opportunities to fund his research.

Interestingly your point about space I will go you one better. Let's say that the slim line model X is the same exact internal volume and same footprint of the AN E. Chances are slim line X to sound it's best is 3-4 feet from the back wall and at least 2 feet from the side wall. The entire area behind the speaker and to the side of the speaker is completely wasted. The AN E would actually take up far less actuall living space because you could shove them out of the way into the corners. To me IF you have corners then these speakers are a benefit because you get more of your living room to live in.

There ya go...I think AN's look very nice and classy myself. I'm sure someone could jazz them up to be even prettier.

AN speakers and really all their products are not supposed to "Blow You Away." If it does that then I'd be worried. I would also recommend you not evaluate the E from what you're hearing on the Kit. The Kit is based off the E/D. I've heard only one Kit E and perhaps not all kits are built equally but the E/LX is playing at a whole other level than what I heard from the Kit construction (which is a shame because the Kit had a way cooler colour finish). The biggest issue for me with the Kit E was that it had a rather dead quality to midrange sounded rather shut in and didn't have the bang on cohesiveness.
I have never heard the AN E kit, I've heard the AN E'spe. I think that's the standard base AN, maybe one step up? The same guy owns the K's and built the AN E's. He was very impressed with the kit, more so than the K's for the money, but he thinks that AN isn't selling the same drivers or design as the real E.

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Focus Audio...which are the best commercial speaker in the $3-7 K range I've heard...see if you can find'em, they aren't big at all.

RGA

09-23-2005, 04:36 PM

Also don't forget that the original AudioNote maker was AudioNote Japan. But after a fight they broke up and left Peter in england with the sales right. Quite similar what happend to Tact and Lyngdorf Audio. Also the big publications dont rate the AudioNote products very good for their money. I have many old HIFI magazines here and some new ones where they generally ocupy the lower spots with the biggest price tags with the recommendation that you run them with AN electronics and have to like that certain character of the speaker. I am not saying its good or bad, but not for the mass of people.

-Flo

bose is for the mass of people.

Which reviews? Audio Note UK and Japan separated yes and the fact is neither is weaker than the other one. Kondo San is doing very well and focusses on more expensive pieces almost exclusively. AN UK makes some affordable pieces. But AN UK is responsible for a number of highly touted excellent products. They have a few weaker products like the AX -One and the Absolute Zero range which supposedly needs to be together to work best. But then that was the point of thing.

AN is about running them together because they were designed to work together. Nothing should be a surprise there. It's one of the biggest reasons that dealers can;t take them as a line -- dedicaing such a huge amount of resources to one company is not something many can do - not when it's a no home theater company with ugly looks.

RGA

09-23-2005, 04:36 PM

theaudiohobby

09-25-2005, 10:41 AM

Provide the name of the dealer's shop, the name of the dealer and what he actually said and if you can his phione number and e-mail address.

Thanks

I will play a PQ on this one, request declined.

Florian

09-25-2005, 11:24 AM

I would be interested as to how many people on here actually heard a AN UK speaker and what their impressions where. So who on this forum heard them and what did they compare them too. Considering that most people on here own Paradagim, B&W or Axiom i would be very interested in their opinons.

I will give the AN guys this. Running them with all AN gear they have a certain magic in the midrange that some find fascinating. All in all it wasnt a bad speaker, i know i said this many times before but just like RGA we are trying to piss each other off. He trashes my Apogee's and i trash his AN's.

Both speakers are for very special people who look for a very special and different sound. The AN's can provide this and so can Apogee's. I think both systems have their magic and their right to exist together.

So i would like to offer my apology to RGA for trying to completely bash AN products. I do not agree with their sound or price, but then again i am sitting on front of a speaker that cost me 11K used so who am i to judge and talk about price. Your AN speakers have a special magic and character that you find great and i like my Apogee sound. Its both great.

-Flo

RGA

09-25-2005, 01:56 PM

I will play a PQ on this one, request declined.

Thought so.

theaudiohobby

09-25-2005, 02:03 PM

Thought so.

Why would even you expect that I will divulge to you the name and email address of the dealer in question? He's running a business

Florian

09-25-2005, 02:06 PM

To RGA:

I am also sorry for calling you deaf and all the other bad words i have called you. We both have a lot of knowledge and if we both stop pissing each other off we can really help a great deal of people.

Best greetings

-Florian

RGA

09-25-2005, 02:25 PM

Flo does it really matter what other people think or what their impressions are? I mean the fact of the matter is there are many people who have heard the best Audio Notes and the best Apogees and ended up maybe buying Avante Guardes which would be something maybe you and I would not like very much at all.

There are many very experienced audiophiles who have been listening to music longer than we have been alive who would not touch a panel with a fifty foot pole and would discount any speaker like AN not using a big ass 115db sensitive horn.

And then there are the line array fans and the Lowther fans where it either has to have 15 speakers per side or no more than one driver.

It should not be very surprising that with all those different designs people are going to gravitate to something. Horns typically have attack and initial transients that nothing of anyone elses designs are even remotely alike. If one perceives that attack and transient as critical and they percieve it as being "right" then no panel and no Audio Note is ever going to convince them -- even if the Audio ntoe and panel do 50 other things better or may in fact be more accurate and the horn is overblowing it. If one perceives the overblowing as neutral they will argue that panels and the AN are not credible.

And this forum is not the place you should be posting in. Audio Asylum right or wrong is the forum with a wider net of larger bucked people who have heard a wider array of people. Speaker manufacturers enginners amp makers turntable makers cable makers and cd player makers, Stereophile reviewers post on that forum -- how many bother with this one?

You complained a while back that this forum doesn't have high end enough people - well that one does. There are people there with systems well over $100K some with systems over half a million dollars. And there are people who have heard a very wide array of gear some who own panels like Apogee some who used to have panels and went to something else and they may articulate the reasons why they made their choices. Which doesn;t mean anyone has to agree with their choice.

But look at TAH -- he supposedly owned an Audio Note speaker and went to the Quad ESL 57 -- there is a poster there who had stacked Quad 57s for decades and said the AN E blew them out the doors. So the point being that almost the same speakers involved with two very different paths as to their ultimate preferences.

Florian

09-25-2005, 02:40 PM

That is properbly the first post i completely and gladly agree with you. Its very much a question about personal taste and financial ability. For me, i know that i will die with my beloved Apogee's in my hands and its a good feeling.

I am mostly in the Apogee Forum and two of my friends here own system in the 250K area so i get my dosis of High End from them a lot. It is not that i am against beginner speakers, but i simply cannot agree with some people that claim that their 1200 Best Buy box is revolutionary and that it beats systems that i strive to obtain.

All in all, i consider Audio Note (the Kondo), Apogee Acoustics, Magnepan, Dunlavy and some others to be truly special and legends in our fine hobby and ill gladly share it with you.

I am sure we can help a lot here and learn from each other in the process. I am glad we can write normally instead of the usual responses. This thread turned out to be quite good.

-Flo

RGA

09-25-2005, 02:53 PM

Why would even you expect that I will divulge to you the name and email address of the dealer in question? He's running a business

Why he is allowed a preference like anyone else? - It is ok because it is easy to find out as all I have to do is send an e-mail to Peter asking him which of his dealers also carry Living Voice - not many likely do. I was hoping you would save me the step.

I mean Soundhounds' owner isn't afraid to let people know that he and all his salestaff think that AN is by far the best sounding line they carry. They only say it if they are asked for their opinion or recommendation - but by all means if you want Magnepan and Bryston when you walk through the door that is what they are more than happy to sell you. Soundhounds felt that LV was not good enough to carry - and interestingly they had Clearaudio in for turntable and dropped them as well - despite the raves in the press they felt that LINN and AN outclassed them in every way. So like usual it boils down to preferences along with what they feel their customer base will buy.

There is on very Stereophile highly touted amplifier cd player company they carry from England that Terry thinks is unlistenable. He owns the shop but does nto involve himself with selling it. Their sales staff discuss which brands to sell as hot commodities in the here and now and they sell a fair amount of this amplifier, cd player line because it's pre-sold befroe anyone walks through the door. But when the few who do the side by side listenings - they don't walk out with that companies' gear nor if they ask for advice of what the sale's staff's personal choice would be. Of course asking advice like that also leads to issues of profit margin as some dealers will tout which is most profitable for them or what they would like to move to clear stock.

I know Bob Neil carries Jean-Marie Reynaud and won't commit one way or the other because he probably does not need to since it's about preference as to which someone will like. And from his conversations the Reynaud's offer a highly desirable warm kind of presentation and I can understand any audiophile who would like to own a warm sounding speaker -- it is not to my preference but I get it and if I had to choose betweeen say a warmer Reynaud and an ear bleeding bright speaker I'd probably choose the Reynaud as well.

RGA

09-25-2005, 03:09 PM

Flo

AN (Kondo) did not do all of the design work for Audio Note though he made them famous with the legendary Ongaku and Gaku-On. But it was Peter Qovortrup that made it a vaible sustainable and world wide known company and just as much his ears and experience with music (the largest collecetion of music as a personal collection in the world). Audio Note though also has Andy Grove and the top designer at the no longer in business Sonic Frontiers on their payroll. Andy Grove has made more affordable legends in the Kageki and Quad took him from AN for a period of time as well and now he's back.

The break-up out of interests sake was posted on Audio Asylum 5 years ago.

"Of Thieves, Liars & Magpies.
In response to Mr. Kondoâ€™s posting of January 16, 2000, I would like to put his comments into the following perspective.
Mr. Kondo and I worked together for nearly 20 years and during this time we both benefited enormously from each otherâ€™s skills, knowledge and understanding. I have learnt a lot from Kondo-san and I hope that in a quiet moment he also appreciates my love of music, commitment to excellence and unyielding support. Our collaboration worked very well for many years, but as in many relationships, business or otherwise, the parties develop in different directions. I wanted to continue to pursue sound quality through further exploration of the single-ended output stage and all manners transformer coupling.
Mr. Kondo felt in contrast and I believe still feels, as he showed a push-pull 2A3 amplifier at the London High End Show in September 1999. Firstly that the push pull triode output stage can somehow be developed to marshal a return to superiority and secondly that transformers only belong in the output stage of power amplifiers. I always considered this an abandonment of our basic principles and since Kondo-san never presented me with any push pull prototype that proved to be better than any of the SE amplifiers he made, so I have stuck to my views.
The financial crisis in South East Asia in late 1997 polarised these two divergent philosophies, which then became emotionally and commercially incompatible and Mr. Kondo decided to break off our collaboration and we parted our ways.
It is never easy to break up after so many years and especially when it also involves a high profile brand, even more so in an industry infested with rumourmongers, hacks and carpet baggers.
After a brief legal argument Audio Noteâ„¢ UK Ltd. retained the rights to the brand name registration and Mr. Kondo is now selling his amplifiers under the name Kondoâ„¢. The reasons for ANUK retaining the brand name registration are as obvious as they are logical,
1.) The value in the name was created solely and exclusively by Audio Note UKâ€™s and my personal investment. Kondo-san took no part in the financial, strategic or commercial risks involved in building the brand name recognition.
2.) Registering a company under the name Audio Note in Japan does not in itself give the rights to a brand, only the hard work and expense building it is what makes it known and worthwhile, emotional attachment alone accounts for little in the real world. Since the product strategy, investment and most of the concepts were formulated in the UK with Kondo-san co-operating willingly, happily going along for the ride, for as long as the annual rewards were always on the increase. There was no-one crying foul then.
3.) In the end equation is it really so surprising that the brand name stays with the investor, I would have thought that this was normal practice, just ask anyone with money to invest about this and they will tell you the same.
Therefore there is no question of â€œstealingâ€ the brand name, intellectually, morally or otherwise so I think we should leave Rossiniâ€™s masterpiece out of the discussion, attractive as the emotional connections may be.
Now to elaborate with a bit of history.
Since 1990 there were two Audio Note companies, one of which developed and produced its own products under the name Audio Note in the UK and which also specified and distributed Audio Note Japans products and the original company in Japan.
It is important to note here that it was ANUK who decided which products from AN-J should be marketed outside Japan, and the voice you hear in products like the ONGAKU, GAKU-ON, KEGON and M10 is a mixture of Kondo-sanâ€™s and mine. These combination of these two voices are inseparable in these products and was decided upon by myself, and as a result I often deemed many of Mr. Kondoâ€™s products not suitable for wider distribution, much to his considerable chagrin. A fact that undoubtedly contributed to his hostile behaviour during our negotiations in late 1997 and early 1998 and to building his deeply aggrieved attitude later.
The original agreement was that ANUK would develop the more commercial part of the Audio Note product line (Levels Zero to Three). In addition ANUK should develop a product range complimentary to the Japanese products, capable of displaying their qualities and also provide an overall development platform for improving the concept of music reproduction shared by Kondo-san and I at the time.
With an investment over 7 years of well over one million pounds, ANUK went ahead and largely fulfilled its obligations under the agreement (which incidentally ran out in 1995 without being renewed and might I ad without much further discussion about brand name, strategy or new terms of contract).
As a small example, in early 1994 ANUK even paid to send an engineer to Japan to teach and train AN-J staff in quality control procedures, product consistency and layout (amongst other matters showing them how to get the power supply quiet enough to remove the feedback from the ONGAKU). Techniques and concepts that did not at the time exist in any measure at the AN-J factory, one of many such small investments that helped make the AN-J products more saleable.
From late 1993 I kept Kondo-san very busy building NEIROâ€™s, ONGAKUâ€™s, GAKU-ONâ€™s, M10â€™s etc., but by mid-1997 the emerging financial crisis in South East Asia started dramatically slowing sales. So for the first time in our relationship Kondo-san and I had to face the fact that sales were plummeting and orders to Japan would have to be reduced immediately otherwise overstock would kill our joint cash flow very quickly (these products are expensive to build).
Kondo-san absolutely refused to face up to this fact and make the necessary adjustments to his overheads. So instead of dealing with the problem himself and seek our co-operation to minimise the damage, Mr. Kondo pushed the entire responsibility on to ANUKâ€™s shoulders by demanding that we â€œfulfil our obligationâ€. This was in his view that we should buy a minimum of what he could produce to keep staff and turnover regardless of whether we could sell it or not, in other words, ANUK owed him a living regardless of market conditions.
This I in turn refused to do, so stalemate ensued.
Until April 1998 when Kondo-san with complete disregard of all practical facts, our entire history together, all past understandings and with no consultation or prior warning whatsoever gave a UK company, PM Components Ltd., all rights to distributing his products. This in itself was bad enough, considering how the market for these products had been developed, but to add insult to injury and in direct conflict with our common interests (and with ill concealed malicious intent, I now believe). Mr. Kondo also licensed PM to use the Audio Noteâ„¢ brand name whilst renouncing our use of it, completely disregarding the following facts,
a.) Turnover wise AN-J was very much the junior partner in the relationship, despite its longer history, and ANUK represented at least 80% of AN-Jâ€™s turnover.
b.) His ill-considered, irresponsible and callously one-sided action put the 30 or so jobs at ANUK in jeopardy by creating great uncertainty about the brandâ€™s long term future. In addition to that putting 1000â€™s of our customersâ€™ investments in our products in question through a potential loss of warranty and service back-up should ANUK fail as a result of his actions. ANUKâ€™s turnover at its peak in 1997 was well over Â£ 4,000,000.00 and that represents a lot of customersâ€™ investments in the future. How can he single-handedly decide to attempt to scrap that?
c.) The reality was and is that whilst the brand name originated in Japan, the ownership of the brand name had long since passed to ANUK through the way the original agreement was structured and the fact that the brand name recognition was paid for and created solely through ANUK efforts.
d.) PM Components had no experience in this sector of the market, a sector solely created by ANUK.
Interestingly and surprisingly, it appears that the terms granted PM were substantially less severe than what Kondo-san had demanded of ANUK in order to renew our agreement. One can only wonder why?
When you add the above up, I did what anyone else in my position would do, in order to protect our employees jobs, our customers and our own investment and ANUKâ€™s future, I sued AN-J and PM. We soon won the first round, an injunction preventing AN-J from giving a licence to the name to PM effectively blocking its use.
So since it was Kondo-san who broke our co-operation and made the decision to venture out on his own, what is he so aggrieved and resentful about? Let me give you a brief analysis for your consideration.
1.) Without ANUKâ€™s involvement in 1990, he would still have a small company in Japan, making high quality audio products. He still has, what happened from 1990 to 1997 were in the most part due to my efforts not his, so any profits or experience he has gained as a result should be considered a benefit, not a disadvantage.
2.) He is not longer travelling to shows that I pay for, showing demonstration amplifiers that I also finance. True, because to do this he needs to work within the framework of my strategy and concepts, using my money and my contacts built up over 20 years of selling quality music reproduction equipment. But this was his own choice, so why am I being blamed?
3.) He would have been unknown to most audiophiles because contrary to his own internal beliefs, Kondo-san became famous through my staffâ€™s, our distributorsâ€™ and my efforts to put him in the limelight and explain our joint philosophy to the world. In this regard we gave Kondo-san a head start not many in the audio industry have had the benefit of, how can he be unhappy with that? His decision to leave the partnership has done all the damage necessary and nowhere has this been more clearly demonstrated than what has happened to our joint reputation, as a result, our time has been spent on damage limitation and thinking up new products.
4.) So now all he is having to do is what I did when we started seriously promoting Audio Note in the late 1980â€™s, start with an unknown brand name (Kondo) and build it to fame and fortune himself. Still without the drawback of complete obscurity (testament to our success putting Kondo-san in the limelight is the fact that you read his posting and that you are reading this now). The clock has been turned back to 1989, due in no small part to Kondo-sans own inability to act responsibly, logically and with respect for other peoples efforts, commitment, time and money.
All in all, misplaced anger and aggression rarely gets you anywhere, hard work generally does. So do what I did with the ONGAKU and our other products, go out, demonstrate your products successfully enough to be able to convince people to part with their money and show people that your products are as good as you believe they are.
Regardless of what anyone may think, I would like Kondo-san to do well, partly because I genuinely believe he deserves to, but partly also for more selfish reasons, who else is there out there to compete with at the very leading edge of audio technology?
Nothing drives you better forward than the hot breath of a benign, likeminded, but pursuing competitor!
I truly cherish the prospect of a genuine intellectual and practical competition with Kondo-san over whose creativity, ideas and skills result in the products with the best sound quality. In my opinion such a competition is in everybodyâ€™s interest and should benefit the knowledge base and debate generally. As a starting shot I am gratified to see that Mr. Kondo has adopted my suggestion of 1993, in his new d/a converter, of removing the over sampling and digital filters and replacing them with a simple analogue filter. I regard this new Kondo product a great recognition of the idea, so thank you for that Kondo-san!
There will always be some of you who prefer a different dynamic balance to the voice that my products speak with, so there is room for us all and if you are in the market for the best, both Kondo-sans and my products should definitely be on your shortlist.
This requires Mr. Kondo to stop wasting his time slandering and back stabbing ANUK and strictly concentrate on spending his time promoting his new products instead, which is more fun, more profitable and more positive anyway!

At the end of the day it is worth remembering that the treasure does not belong to the one who says he knows where it is buried, but to the one who invests in looking for it and as a result eventually finds it.

A simple truth, this particularly applies to anyone who claims that I usurped their â€œideaâ€ of the over sampling free digital filter less DAC, as Justin Benn claims in his follow-up to Kondo-sans posting. This practice has, for your information, been around since the very first CD-players in 1982, so anyone who thinks this was their idea will have had to have been up mighty early, another severe case of sour grapes if you pardon my saying so.

The first Sony 16Bit machines used no over sampling or digital filters with a brick wall analogue filter, it sounded terrible. The novelty of our idea is to configure the analogue filter such that it does as little damage to the signal as possible.

I welcome debate on this and other matters.

Peter Qvortrup
Audio Note UK Ltd
18.01.2000

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=general&n=36887&highlight=Kondo+Peter+Qvortrup&r=&session=

Florian

09-25-2005, 03:21 PM

Thats quite an interesting read indeed. I heard the big Kondo against my friends big Transendend preamp on a pair of Thiel CS6 driven by a unknown tube amp builder in Zurich. It sounded fantastic and the Transcendend was extremely close which is quite good especially since it only cost about 9000US which is still quite a bit cheaper than the big Kondo here.

Are you planing on coming to the big High End show next year in Munich?

-Flo

RGA

09-26-2005, 04:53 PM

I graduate in December -- My hope is to have some money to go to the big CES show in Vegas. Kondo shows in Vegas I believe (so does everyone it seems). AN UK will have two rooms with their Half million dollar set-up in one and an affordable one in the other room.

I want to go because I can directly put them up against some other system I've been curious about like GMA, Merlin, Spendor, JM Reynaud, Innersound, Maggies top system, Harbeth, ATC and the big Dynaudios.

Soundhounds hopefuly will be able to sell Magnepan this time around if they do well then Terry will bring in the 20.1 and then customers can compare it directly against the AN E ?SEC Silver and the B&W Diamond $25k model. The problem for Soundhounds as I see it right now is space and SS amplification as they carry Bryston, MF and McIntosh(sorta) and I would like to see a higher end SS amp maker with the Maggies - and a fairer match with B&W because Bryston to me is not a good match for B&W.

Soundhounds staff went to the CES two years ago and were on the hunt to pick up some better gear. I might be able to be a roving scout (to use a baseball term) for them. To steer them to stuff that may be more saleable and better sounding than some of the weaker lines they carry. Von Sweikert perhaps.