$1200 vs $200 cd players

[Feanor]

...
2) Amp & Pre-amp......
4) Source - Important, but don't get carried away.....

My recent experience confirms this. I was considering a CDP upgrade but then I swapped my NAD C270 for a better amp. There was much more improvement with the latter. I ended up postponing the source upgrade in order to by a Bel Canto eVo2i integrated amp.

I.e. upgrading from a entry-level to high(er)-end amp made far more difference than doing the same for source.

[RGA]

I want to stress that my listening audition was between a $400.00Cdn TEAC and a $4000.00 AN 3.1one box CD player. I have heard top cd players from NAIM, Wadia. Enlightened Audio Designs, Mark Levinson, LINN, Krell, Arcam, Cal Labs, YBA, over the years. I have heard those against cheaper units and IMO the demo at Soundhounds was the most noticable improvement going from a lesser priced to a more expensive cd player. This does not mean I would not prefer the Linn etc if i heard that unit up against the AN. I made a basic assumption that because of it's design approach it may be getting at more of what is there - the Audio Hobby provides a link where those following up say nothing about a lack of transparency - he's on his usual anti all things Peter Qvortrup(who didn't design the DAC's but an industry respected fellow by the name of Andy Grove). And Martin Colloms - well he rated the Dac 5 the highest rating of ANY stereo componant ever created - and the DAC 5 has been improved twice since that review? The fact that the Naim or Linns are good I don;t dispute that because they were when I auditioned them - but the improvements of the Linn $30,000.00 cd player versus my lowly Cambridge CD 6 (which just as a refresher is higher grade than any of the current Cambridge units), at about $850 - yes the Linn was better but on a lesser system not as noticeable IMO to warrant the added money. Ditto for the $3k Arcam Alpha 9 ring dac at the time.

System synergy Audio Note stresses almost more than anything else - and it is ridiculous to argue the importance when you can plainly hear it. I listened to the AN E/L (the chipboard copper wired model with a Rotel RA1 and TEAC cd player. The dealer was tryying to create a good budget stereo which as a package would sell for $3100.00Cdn (not including cables or stands) but still a very good sounding system to be sure. Tanking the AN E out for the AN K/SPE(SIlver wired Birch ply) and the sound became discordant in the treble - even bright which is something a bit surprising for the speaker - the overall presentation lacked weight scale and sounded considerably more cojested on complex music with the 2001 a Space Oddyssy Also Sprach... track I often use. Switching the cd player out for the 3.1 and things got much better - switching the amp to the OTO and there was now a proper 3dimensional stage which was startling on horns that leaped forward as they should on crescendos. The treble was more extended without the grain of the SS gear and the bass hit deeper and lower and far more tunefull separating different bass lines rather than the usual subwoofer one note bass line where everything is just the same. Now out of system - and I want to be extremely CLEAR on this that out of system I can offer you no information - I know that if I owned that Rotel amp and that TEAC player I would not be overly thrilled with the AN K -- in fact the AX Two sounded better and so dod the basic E/L.

On the higher end system with SET the K opened up and got significantly better - This is why you will see my upgrade path - my system is being held back and I know it because it's one of the few companies I have heard where when something gets cheanged out the difference is immediately and VERY noticable - my Sugden isn't nearly as open as the AN amps sounding shut in and veiled in comparison - The Sugden isn;t the most transparent amp nor des it throw a particular big soundstage - but it had to compliment the system I had at the time - the Sugden "saves" lesser cd players by coveringt he grain by smoothing the treble - This is good thing for budget systems becuase it can TRICK you into believing your system is better than it is and in a way it is better than it really is since this about creating the illusion of the event. The double edged sword of this is that when you have an UPSCALE highly resoplving set-up the Sugden's weakness which were strengths on lesser gear are now veiling the good stuff you want to hear - if the cd player is open and grain free you want an amp to tell it like it is - but if your cd player is a bit screechy and your speakers are open and extended then you don't want the amp that will veil that screechy treble.

So I would like the AN E/L with the Teac/Rotel but if I were going to spend my money and had the choice ONLY to have the AN E/SPE(the more transparent speaker) with the TEAC and Rotel OR the AN K/SPE and the CD 3.1 and OTO/Soro I'll take the latter - Preferably I'd take the J/Spe because in a smaller room the E is too much bass. Ideally of course I would want the AN E/Spe and CD 3.1 and OTO over the AN K/spe. So it's bass versus refinement.

I go by what I hear - and that's the way I heard it. But to bring up reviews is puzzling but since everyone loves reviews and the GOAL of a repoduction system is to give the impression that the musical event is being captured then well:

Bob Neill did a review in Positive Feedbalc AGAINST Naim's upmarket cd player(which he owned and felt was one of the best on the market) and he claimed that the Naim has a STAMP on the sound which is terrific but the AN DAC 4.1 was more truthful to the event. Incidentally he was impressed so much that he picked up the entire Audio Note line. http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue8/audionote.htm The one box 3.1 is the same approach with lower grade parts

There is an issue with AN DAC's you HAVE to have the correct input to output impedence - AN DAC's are designed for a certain impedence - if it's not right it's a disaster.
http://www.hifichoice.co.uk/review_read.asp?ID=439

Hmm
"The DAC5 has received unanimous praise from the reviewing press, Stereophile's Peter van Willenswaard said in an article in April/May 1999, that the DAC5's "return to its roots" vision and originality was remarkable, Peter also praised its sound quality as truly outstanding. Martin Colloms wrote in Hifi News & Record Review in February 2000 how the circuit despite its obvious technical short comings shone beautifully sonically, "it is like you have to strain less to listen to what goes on in the performance with the DAC5" and graded it with the highest level for sound quality with 53 points! Paul Messenger in Hifi Choice gave the DAC5 the best rating ever for a DAC with 9 stars, and Hifi Review in HK, Mr. Robert Ray pronounced the DAC5 the finest DAC he had ever heard"

BTW I trust Martim Colloms expertise since he is a world authority on audio having started up Monitor Audio and wroiting several books and chairing the AES than some guynamed The Audiohobby who tries to twist everything against AN. http://user.tninet.se/~vhw129w/mt_au...akpage_dac.htm

How about the basic DAC 1 from enjoythemusic.com VERSUS the beloved WAY more expensive MSB Link DAC http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazin...anmeetsmsb.htm
DAC 5 http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazin...ac5special.htm
And even UHF's panel reviewers who didn't review the DAC in an all AN system claimed the Basic Dac1 and transport one(no longer made) were superior in many ways to their reference room cd player - they commented that the DAC was bright in spots - which is even more interesting to me because that is the exact opposite of some of the comments from others who call it dark(ie less transparent) - umm yeah it's call contrasting the source discs.

BTW I stress a few things - I did not A/B the 3.1 against anything really good like the Naims or LINNs - so i may have noticed a VAST improvement with one of those - maybe because I was using the AN Es and not B&W's and Paradigms etc i used in the past when judging cd player differences

Also, Audio Note works best in all Audio Note systems and it is noticable(not any old thing will do and my dealer's first question to anyone looking t get the system is what are you going to run them with) - how it works outside of that system is something else and your results may vary. But Andy Grove and Peter work on these DACs and amplifiers by ear and by computer THROUGH the rest of their gear not in a vacum or from a text book. They have an entire chain in mind - take soemthing from here and you lose resolution there so that speaker will work better with that amp add something here then you will need that cd player. As ridiculously over the top and anal as it sounds to the one stop magazine shopping approach - I heard it in action in person and I doft my cap.

[theaudiohobby]

RGA,

Please try to write more concisely, these tedious long posts are no good. You never seem to give up on any viewpoint no matter how discredited it is sounding like a broken record a lot of the time . It was just a few weeks ago that some of the guys took you to task on subwoofers and yet I still read comments like 'one-note bass from subwoofers' in your posts betraying dogmatic ignorance on the subject. I will suggest that you go back and listen to a well integrated subwoofer/bookshelf speaker combo before you offer any more comments on this topic. A good subwoofer will transform not just the bass but the lower midrange of many bookshelf speakers that have little (or rolled off) output below < 50Hz increasing perceived midrange transparency. A well integrated AN -K/subwoofer will sound more agile than the AN-E though it may still fall short in the area Max SPL depending on preferred integration technique.

No amount of superlatives you quote about the AN digital products can really shift the fundamentals, they are not transparent and the objective measurements clearly show that. Transperency and good sounding are not synonymous terms and I said that they are not transparent and none of the quotes that you have provided offers anything more than subjective preference for the DAC which is okay in itself but is an insufficient basis upon which to build an argument about the transparency of any component.

You talk about dark, bright and transparency in the same breath, a component may be dark or bright and not be transparent ( faithful to the source signal) more often thy are neutral. Go back and go and read Martin Colloms assessment of the DAC 5, it was not transparent, read the other reviews of the lesser DACs that have accompanying measurements, absolutely none of them refers to any of the AN DACs as transparent, the universal opinion is that they are colored, no bad thing, since a lot of folks including reviewers love them that way, so the package obviously works, but that doesn't make them transparent.

[musicoverall]

Best to say simply, as per Mr Colloms, that the DAC sounded like music rather than "digital". I'd trade that for transparency any day! I'm not in this hobby to listen to measurements and what the objectivists believe is accurate, particularly if one chooses, say, a cheap plastic CD player over the Audio Note due to its measurements. It appears that RGA is in the same boat. It's the old argument of whether to listen to a believeable reproduction of actual instruments or a very much NOT believable reproduction of a processed signal.

Or...perhaps what RGA meant is that the Audio Note portrays a transparent reproduction of live music rather than this processed signal? Perhaps he can expound on the matter.

[theaudiohobby]

Best to say simply, as per Mr Colloms, that the DAC sounded like music rather than "digital". I'd trade that for transparency any day! I'm not in this hobby to listen to measurements and what the objectivists believe is accurate, particularly if one chooses, say, a cheap plastic CD player over the Audio Note due to its measurements. It appears that RGA is in the same boat. It's the old argument of whether to listen to a believeable reproduction of actual instruments or a very much NOT believable reproduction of a processed signal.
.

An old cliche, as per my reply to RGA, read Martin Collums (not my favoured reviewer by any means) et al comments about the Naim CDS3 that cost less than half of the AN DAC 5, measures much better, is more transparent, does not sound digital (i.e. does not ring) and sounds like music. It is a pity that most of the folks who claim that they only want to listen to the music, measurements be damned are actually the most gullible and they are just too gullible to see it , pun intended. A digital component does not have to measure atrociously to sound good and vice versa. I restricted my comments to Naims and the AN DAC in order to directly address RGA comments and the last time I listened to my rig, it was giving a believable reproduction of actual instruments if that was what was captured on the recording. As Jim Austin put it 'If it is not in the recording, where is it? Comments like 'believeable reproduction of actual instruments vs. believable reproduction of a processed signal' have absolutely no merit when analysed very closely because if they did, the quality of a recording will cease to be an issue and arguments about analog/digital recordings etc would have very little merit.

[kexodusc]

Oh, god, I hate it when people use "musical" as an adjective to describe components...it so much easier to say "sounds better", than "sounds musical".

Without using other vague references, could someone explain to me what "sounds like music" vs. "sounds digital" means so I understand the message being conveyed here.

[theaudiohobby]

Without using other vague references, could someone explain to me what "sounds like music" vs. "sounds digital" means so I understand the message being conveyed here.

'sound musical' is a pet hate of mine, I notice it is always used to justify a personal preference. Digital sounding to the best of my knowledge means that the digital component and does not suffer from ringing and jitter in any audibly perceptible degree.

[musicoverall]

. A digital component does not have to measure atrociously to sound good and vice versa. Comments like 'believeable reproduction of actual instruments vs. believable reproduction of a processed signal' have absolutely no merit when analysed very closely because if they did, the quality of a recording will cease to be an issue and arguments about analog/digital recordings etc would have very little merit.

Yes, and also a digital component doesn't have to measure well to sound good. And I disagree that my comment you quoted has no merit. You're talking about two separate issues as though they were the same. They aren't.

[theaudiohobby]

Yes, and also a digital component doesn't have to measure well to sound good.

I said that in my post..

And I disagree that my comment you quoted has no merit. You're talking about two separate issues as though they were the same. They aren't.

what are the two separate issues?

[RGA]

Best to say simply, as per Mr Colloms, that the DAC sounded like music rather than "digital". I'd trade that for transparency any day! I'm not in this hobby to listen to measurements and what the objectivists believe is accurate, particularly if one chooses, say, a cheap plastic CD player over the Audio Note due to its measurements. It appears that RGA is in the same boat. It's the old argument of whether to listen to a believeable reproduction of actual instruments or a very much NOT believable reproduction of a processed signal.

Or...perhaps what RGA meant is that the Audio Note portrays a transparent reproduction of live music rather than this processed signal? Perhaps he can expound on the matter.

Actually what you say is quite interesting - measurements are ONLY useful if they correlate to the human perception or subjective evaluation that came first. Martin Colloms first of all is not your average reviewer - He's not a subjective only reviewer. He is a world renowned expert on acoustics design and is an acoustics engineer - Awarded Chartership of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 1981. and a MacRobert Award Finalist 2000 (with Neil Harris and Henry Azima), Royal Academy of Engineers. As opposed to the AudioHobby who is a nobody from the internet. Paul Messenger also has a nice list of credentials as well. Both have said that the DAC 5 is the best Digital to analog converter on the market PERIOD. That does not mean there are NO other good players - and it does not mean that YOU or I will go and listen and not like something else better. Hi-Fi CHoice has done blind level matched listening to Bose speakers and given them recommended tags and like the CM series of B&W over the CDM series?? I would disagree. http://www.colloms.com/

People will still have opinions - the fact that somthing is more or less accutrate or more or less transparent - well I only need to go and listen for that to become readily apparent. Single Ended amplifiers are less accurate if you go by one set of measurements and far more accurate than any and all SS amplification devices if you go by measurements around linearity. To me these debates are ridiculous - you can tell when you hear it - and assuming you're not stacking the deck as most do then you can get excellent results either way.

This is the heart of the DAC 5 that despite the fact that there will be some very odd measured anomolies - the RESULT of this is a more truthful analog of the musical event. Audio Note (and they're not alone on this no times oversampling DAC), use computers and measuring equipment which is supposed to be quite sophistacated from the reviewers who have been to their plant. They have more advanced measuring equipment than makers that are quite a bit bigger than themselves - for instance they can closely match speakers to .2db something that not even KEF and B&W are capable of even in their top models - Kef brags about .5db in their flagship. Now of course this is silly because .5db is good enough of course to the ear - and this kind of thing is more about bragging rights - but it is not done by some guy sitting in a chair doing it by ear - it's with measuring equipent and sophisticated computer software. Which is why Audio Note is getting about 25hz more bass from the same cabinet and drivers that Snell got with his speaker - you don't just rebadge something to get those results.

If you pick up issue #68 of UHF magazine they reviewed the Audio Note entry level DAC's and measured them objectively "The -60db sine wave... was pretty well perfect...Jitter was very low, and remained low even on deliberately damaged CD tracks( it muted with a cut of 2mm or more)." "Well I'm impressed! This High End player produces an ambience that makes the presence of musicians palpable. Faithful Reproduction is accompanied by exceptional definition.../..Pile on the p[iano, voice, percussion, and a big orchestra, and you won;t note any distortion (Reine Lessard) "There's almost nothing bad to say about this player, except that it sounds slightly forward compared to my other favorites. But "forward" in this case doesn;t translate into shrill, or clinical, or flat. In Musical terms, everything comes out of this player sounding as it should. If higher praise exists, I don;t know what it could be." (Gerard Rejkind) "Nothing seemed overdone, no musician tried to take over the stage.../...did I mention that their timbre is always right on? nothing seems to be added, nothing seems to be missing across the well-balanced stage. Colors were distinctly displayed, as musical textures appeared in transparent shades. And you know what? Nothing was meant to impress...that's what impressed me about it.(Albert Simon).

As you know UHF is maybe the most picky magazine review outfit available when it comes to cd players. "In Patricia Barber's Like FT fromthe live Compaion disc, the kick drum's impact was actually startling. But that wasn't all. Barber's piano sounded better than with our reference, sounding much more like a quality grand piano, each note carrying new energy. The percussion amazed us too, because it was so detailed we could follow the movement of the drumsticks on the varied surfaces. Amazing...and exciting too!" (BTW they use a very good Counterpoint CD player as their reference). http://www.uhfmag.com/Issue68/Issue68.html You can click to open as a PDF and read much of it for free - though they blank part of the review out because they ant you to buy the download or the issue. Still this player is far cheaper than the Counterpoint reference model.

This was snippets of their review for the bottom of the line Dac One 1x and CDT one transport($1650US each box). If you think digital glare and etchy bright fatiguing treble is accurate then that is your opinion - I think being able to produce instruments the way i hear them when i listen to live music is what is accurate - the standard measurements are geared to the former sound. i believe the cd medium gets a bum rap too - the fault is not the cd's themselves but the players trying not to make most discs sound like caca when they are actually pretty good.

But don;t believe the reviews or me - real simple listen to an ALL audio note systemm(and it is important and then IN THE SAME room listen to a top of the line Krell/Mark Levinson/Classe solid state system with a B&W N801 or the top Paraidgm or Energy or Wilson or Martin Logan. Make sure this non Audio Note system totals 4 times the money - I have. I'll stand by my opinion as to which set-up makes music sound like music. It has to measure differently in order to be better - since it sounds better it should by logic measure differently. If it measured exactly the same as the Arcam's of the world then it would sound the same -- and I got rid of such players and amplifiers for a reason - not for warmth not for midrange bloom - but to get a realistic presentation of music.

[theaudiohobby]

RGA,

Get your facts right, Martin Colloms gave the honour of best digital playback ever to the Naim CDX3, where he said that 'It has surpassed every digital implementation to date, and that it does this for the existing CD catalogue...' (HFN 10/2003)

[RGA]

There is nothing wrong with my facts. Nice try but there is a date issue here. He reviewed the DAC 5 in 1998 and again in 2000. You post a review from him of a $24,000.00 cd player in 2003. This still does not apply to Paul Messenger or Bob Neill - both of whom like Naim as well. And to give Naim their just credit from my own personal standpoint if I were looking at SS gear Naim would be on my shortlist. I am not going to get into this debate that you seem to be under the impression that the ONLY product I will recommend is Audio Note. What I am saying to you is that if a reviewer you respect wheher it be audio or film - comes out and lists a DAC or cd player as best - do you take his word ONLY? No anyone who did that would be an idot. Even if I respect him or say a Roger Ebert I am not goingt o JUST accept his word for it and agree that Citizen Kane is the greates of all film ever. No, I am going to find out about his runner ups.

The fact of the matter is the BOTH Naim and Audio Note(and they're not alone) make in the reviewers opinions "WORLD Class" sounding DACs. The decision STILL rests with YOU and ME and every other individual. Would you say that if a DAC such as the AN Dac 5 with all the unanimous praise and the odd detractors is now totally not worth even auditioning? That the same reviewer who loved the DAC 5 is a nut but now that he says somehting good about Naim he's now a genius again? No only a moron would say don't audition it. So If someone was shopping in the $25,000.00 range they would or should be listening to several such CD players and decide which sounds best for them. After all Stereophile had a Cambridge Audio CD player in their recommended componants listing and the same model was totally rubished with a 2 star rating in What Hi-fi - OBVIOUSLY the reviewers didn't hear it the same in that system.

If you notice I never ever tell someone to BUY Audio Note unless they can go and hear it first. I don't want anyone buying without auditioning - by the same token though people look for personal experiences - I tell people what I compared what I heard directly against other equipment. I merely stated way back that having heard mega buck cd players compared to cheap entry cd players - I noticed the most improvement in sound a more open natural presentation which allowed me to hear more of what was going on with the 3.1 cd player. That does not mean that if the Naim player in this system was used that I would not have preferred the Naim - it may very very very well be the case that I would rather the Naim player. I am not glued to one piece of gear. For instance in my signiture you cans ee my upgrade path - but you can bet your ass that when it comes time to actually buy I'll be auditioning several of the competitors in my price range. Those are there becuase I liked what I heard from them but I did not do an A/B test with other Turntables - ie; I did not spend all day or several days a/bing the TT1 versus a similarly priced Rega or Linn. I can say that I very much liked the TT1 musically. But Rega and linn are not dogs by any means. This applies to DAC's amps Speakers etc.

However ultimately there is also a system matching componant to all of this as well - you simply cannot match anything with anything and get a truly great system - even the magazines quantify their reviews by saying that. So in fact you may elect the 4 star cd player over the 5 star cd player because the 4 star sounds a helluva lot better in your system and the 5 star could be pretty banal sounding. The constantine Soo article of the AN E suggested that with matching amps - some worrked a lot better than others -- all the amps were excellent from several different manufactures and by themselves terrific pieces of gear - Bryston makes great amplifiers - but it REALLY depends on what speaker you plan to use because the result can be abysmal then again the result can be "you don't need to spend more on a Krell" excellence.

[RGA]

I will suggest that you go back and listen to a well integrated subwoofer/bookshelf speaker combo before you offer any more comments on this topic.

Great that was, if you READ my response the problem - I have NEVER EVER heard a well integrated Subwoofer system from anyone - including the people who designed the subwoofers who set-up the room. So by all means tell me where I can hear a good set-up - I will go to CES in the bnext 2 years - so I will make it a point to stop by Paradigm and Rel etc and let them prove to me that they have tuneful well integrated bass response - I'll keep an open mind - but you would think there would be one dealer in all of British Columbia in the last 15 years that could even get REMOTELY decent sound with a subwoofer. My dealer carries them sells them and roll their eyes at em.(and they have a paremetric EQ).

A good subwoofer will transform not just the bass but the lower midrange of many bookshelf speakers that have little (or rolled off) output below < 50Hz increasing perceived midrange transparency. A well integrated AN -K/subwoofer will sound more agile than the AN-E though it may still fall short in the area Max SPL depending on preferred integration technique.

The AN K doesn't have nearly the midrange openness nor the high frequency extension/air of the E or J, nor does it have the big bold tuneful body through the midrange . No subwoofer can change the tweeter a subwoofer should add sub bass (feeling bass) to the mix. Audio Note does not recommend the use of subwoofers for their speakers (except the AX Two - the reason should be obvious that subs are best in the front corner - but that is where the AN speakers should be placed.

No amount of superlatives you quote about the AN digital products can really shift the fundamentals, they are not transparent and the objective measurements clearly show that. Transperency and good sounding are not synonymous terms and I said that they are not transparent and none of the quotes that you have provided offers anything more than subjective preference for the DAC which is okay in itself but is an insufficient basis upon which to build an argument about the transparency of any component.

Umm of course subjective views are the ONLY thing of importance - if you can not listen to the two types of players and HEAR it - then why are you in the hobby? You obviously have no ear for transparency or to what sounds more like the live event. The objective measurements? what the hell are you talking about. First Audio Note DAC's fall down on THD just as ALL tube devices do - but THD has nothing whatsoever to do with transparency - Feedback destroys any bnotion of transparency - it is used to "trick" the measurements into looking better than they actually are. Indeed, the AN Dacs use none they don't oversample they use no brickwall filters which HACKS OFF everything above a certain frequency - study up and listen to one instead of touting this dysmal tripe the industry would like you to belive.

You talk about dark, bright and transparency in the same breath, a component may be dark or bright and not be transparent ( faithful to the source signal) more often thy are neutral. Go back and go and read Martin Colloms assessment of the DAC 5, it was not transparent, read the other reviews of the lesser DACs that have accompanying measurements, absolutely none of them refers to any of the AN DACs as transparent, the universal opinion is that they are colored, no bad thing, since a lot of folks including reviewers love them that way, so the package obviously works, but that doesn't make them transparent.

Then give me an example of a perfectly transparent speaker - the words annalytical or cold are not transparent not your ELACs not NAIM certainly not Naim as Bob Neill shows is totally not a transparent cd player nor is the Sony.

Transparent is a bad word just like accuracy is a bad word - because both imply the same thing - NOTHING is trulty transparent and Nothing not anything is accurate. It is either accurate or it is not. The units that reveal the most differences in recordings are morre accurate than those that homogonize the sound - you can ONLY tell this by listening - the theory behind the AN DAC's make more sense - you have a one time play through approach with out correcting devices to fix all the errors your player makes - It should scan pass through and output to the Preamp not have 12 stages of feedback and correction and digital smoothing and endless time domain fixing that sounds like crap but measures better.

There is no point in further discussion - We are polar opposites on our views of audio Equipment.

[Geoffcin]

NO name calling.

[theaudiohobby]

The AN K doesn't have nearly the midrange openness nor the high frequency extension/air of the E or J, nor does it have the big bold tuneful body through the midrange . No subwoofer can change the tweeter a subwoofer should add sub bass (feeling bass) to the mix. Audio Note does not recommend the use of subwoofers for their speakers (except the AX Two - the reason should be obvious that subs are best in the front corner - but that is where the AN speakers should be placed.

Your comments about the actual role of a subwoofer are evidence of your appalling ignorance on main speaker/subwoofer integration. The very benefits that you attribute to the J and E models are where a subwoofer bass augmentation offers the greatest benefits. The 'the midrange openness' ,the 'high frequency' extension/air of the E or J, (and) 'the big bold tuneful body through the midrange' are benefits of extra bass extension. When the music fundamentals in the 20 - 100 Hz region are augmented by the subwoofer, a greater sense of transparency is perceived, as the system is more transparent as a result of the extra bass extension which mitigates the loss of transparency caused by the higher bass roll-off (~70Hz) of the bookshelf model, in this case the K model.

Then give me an example of a perfectly transparent speaker - the words annalytical or cold are not transparent not your ELACs not NAIM certainly not Naim as Bob Neill shows is totally not a transparent cd player nor is the Sony.

Transparent is a bad word just like accuracy is a bad word - because both imply the same thing - NOTHING is trulty transparent and Nothing not anything is accurate. It is either accurate or it is not. The units that reveal the most differences in recordings are morre accurate than those that homogonize the sound - you can ONLY tell this by listening - the theory behind the AN DAC's make more sense.

• Body Fullness of sound, with particular emphasis on upper bass.
• Analytical Highly detailed
• Detail The most delicate elements of the original sound and those that are the first to disappear with lesser equipment (Hifi Choice Glossary)
• Definition or resolution the ability of a component to reveal the subtle information that is fundamental to high fidelity sound.

Nothing is life is perfect, but various terms are used to decribe various conditions when those conditions are satisfied within certain acceptable limits. Moving on, analytical and transparency are related audio terms, analytical is closer in meaning to transparency than it is to homogeneous, homogeneous is the antithesis of analytical, as an analytical system by definition has the ability to reveal the most differences between recordings. By definition a more analytical system will be more transparent than a less analytical one in direct contrast to your comments. The rub here is this, whilst you proclaim that listening is important, you have made comments about various components that you have never heard, even your comments about homogeneity are picked entirely out of the PQ article as opposed to being something that you have arrived at on your steam. Have your ever heard the Burmester or the Naim or Audio Capitole or the Reimyo or the top Teacs? You have not heard them, so how do you know that the Audio Note DAC 5 is more transparent, accurate and/or better sounding than any of these components? How do you know that the AN DAC5 is more accurate than any of these other components? You do not know because all your comments on these components is based entirely on what you have read not on any listening experience of yours.

You make a lot of noise, but that is all it is, noise.

[RGA]

Your comments about the actual role of a subwoofer are evidence of your appalling ignorance on main speaker/subwoofer integration. The very benefits that you attribute to the J and E models are where a subwoofer bass augmentation offers the greatest benefits. The 'the midrange openness' ,the 'high frequency' extension/air of the E or J, (and) 'the big bold tuneful body through the midrange' are benefits of extra bass extension. When the music fundamentals in the 20 - 100 Hz region are augmented by the subwoofer, a greater sense of transparency is perceived, as the system is more transparent as a result of the extra bass extension which mitigates the loss of transparency caused by the higher bass roll-off (~70Hz) of the bookshelf model, in this case the K model.

You made a claim that the AN K with a Sub would sound better than the E - it does not because the fundamental soundin the midrange and the treble of the K isn;t as good as the J or E. You cannot run Audio Note speakers cutting frequencies off and shifting them to a subwoofer. The reason is that Audio Note requires the active involment of the internal cabinet esonances to work - the resulting sound is quite poor. The K being an acoustic suspension design is already a difficult speaker to mesh with a sub but will work better than the J or E - but no sub can make the midrange or treble good enough to beat the J or E...the spekaer doesn't use the same drivers for a start.

never heard, even your comments about homogeneity are picked entirely out of the PQ article as opposed to being something that you have arrived at on your steam.

Not so - i have been saying years before I ever heard of Audio Note that most stuff I've been hearing is similar sounding drek. Audio Note certainly helped me notice it a lot better.

You have not heard them, so how do you know that the Audio Note DAC 5 is more transparent, accurate and/or better sounding than any of these components? How do you know that the AN DAC5 is more accurate than any of these other components? [/QUOTE]

But i never made any such claim that he DAC 5 was the best DAC or that I felt it was the best DAC - I specifically said what I thought of "A" Audio Note CD player versus another and that it made more of an improvement than i have heard in the past with other oplayers. You are inventing my position for some reason.

[theaudiohobby]

The K being an acoustic suspension design is already a difficult speaker to mesh with a sub but will work better than the J or E - but no sub can make the midrange or treble good enough to beat the J or E...the speaker doesn't use the same drivers for a start.

You better stop digging your yourself into a hole, an acoustic suspension design is already a difficult speaker to mesh with a sub , that is a new one. , care to explain?