Adventures at SoundHounds today - good times

[RGA]

Don't laugh but I am such a NON builder that I had Paul put together the stand when I bough the K/Spe. They filled it with some weird blue sand(for free). The stands are heavier than the speakers by a lot.

5 inches lower is not very much - it reduces the height by 1/4 and will reduce the weight of the stand - but the base is the heaviest part.

I would ask Woochifer what he paid for his stands - his are adjustable which is nice and heavier than the Skylans - Pretty sure they're high mass. They may cost the same or more than the Audio Note's though - and really I would not want the hassle of buying from the States and getting nailed a bunch of other costs.

I just think it's ludicrous to spend $500.00Cdn on a stand.

I think the skylan stands ire heavy enough because the Audio Note's while large for standmounts really are not that heavy. Indeed the instruction manual on the J states that you can get good results from an open frame stand provided that it is is rigid and has spikes - but they then go on to say that a spiked high mass stand will give best results.

The speakers will come with blue tak so you don't need to buy it. After reading through the manual - not exciting just photo-copied pages with a staple in the corner - LOL talk about not wasting money these are actually Infinite baffle designs.

I think I get how they match speakers so closely

"The individual adjustment, and matching to a reference, of each crossover network to each pair of drive units allows an unparalleled degree of sample to sample consistency not only within pairs of loudspeakers, but also from one pair to another. This adjustment, carried out under dynamic opertaing conditions compensates for the slight variations that always exist in drive units and assures precise uniformity of sonic performance. Complete quality assurance can only be achieved by such a system of 100% sample testing."

As to your question about vinyl versus veneered.

"We recommend that you occasionally (perhaps once a year) was the veneered surface of your speakers."

The speakers have a 5 year warranty but unlike many companies the warranty is fully transferable.

[92135011]

Paul said I could get the AN stands for 4 bills.
50 bux more shouldnt be a problem
So I would be looking into 350.
I think Wooch's sound anchors are something like 400 or so US, which would work out to be way too much for me.

Blue sand you say? I think maybe that is playground sandbox sand. A nice sanitary stuff rather than some of the stuff you can buy in large loads extracted from a river or something.

Well, its not like a real wood veneer matters too much anyways. Afterall, black will always look black anyways. Too bad they didnt have any of the nice stuff left over. I wouldnt mind a nice Cherry or something like that.

Another thing about the skylan is that it has 2 posts. The J is quite a bit wider than most speakers. In fact, it's dimentions are close to that of the early 70s technics my old man got a long time ago. Wonder if that would make a difference in stability.

[RGA]

Well I'm using the J's right now on Skylan's and without a proper top plate and they're fine stability wise.

$400.00CDN? That is not too bad I guess - depends what they'll give me for my Skylan's.

[RGA]

Hey - you might be interested if you're following that guy ranting against Audio Note on AA (people need to listen before ranting) that the E/LX was given a Best Buy in Hi-fi Choice's August issue(technically that is the highest award they give). They reviewed E's in 1992 and 2000 and recommended them then and they are still chosen best against new competition - shows you that speaker design has really come a long way over that time when a a 1940's inspired speaker is still pounding the competition eh? And to my mind what is more impressive is that this is despite being positioned 1 meter into the room and described by Peter as about the worst place you could put them Paul Messenger has apparently not returned the speakers to boot.

I have asked to get the full review scanned and e-mailed to me - I have page one but my hotmail can only take 1 at a time for some bizarre reason.

Why they don't let you buy the issue in the from of a PDF I don't know. You're in Vancouver so maybe the bigger Chapters stores carry the magazine.

[46minaudio]

Hey - you might be interested if you're following that guy ranting against Audio Note on AA (people need to listen before ranting) that the E/LX was given a Best Buy in Hi-fi Choice's August issue(technically that is the highest award they give). They reviewed E's in 1992 and 2000 and recommended them then and they are still chosen best against new competition - shows you that speaker design has really come a long way over that time when a a 1940's inspired speaker is still pounding the competition eh? And to my mind what is more impressive is that this is despite being positioned 1 meter into the room and described by Peter as about the worst place you could put them Paul Messenger has apparently not returned the speakers to boot.

I have asked to get the full review scanned and e-mailed to me - I have page one but my hotmail can only take 1 at a time for some bizarre reason.

Why they don't let you buy the issue in the from of a PDF I don't know. You're in Vancouver so maybe the bigger Chapters stores carry the magazine.

RGA I went to the AN web sitet and looked up the AN ks and I read this
"The AN-K is a bookshelf-sized loudspeaker capable of a bandwidth from 50 Hz to 20 Hz (-6 dB) with an efficiency of around 90 dB/m. "
Where are you gitting these 16 HZ figures from?And if you would please give me the 8" driver specks thats in This woofer..?

[RGA]

We are talking about the E. The K can produce 36hz -6db only if place in a corner.

The AN J/Spe was rated by Hifi choice as Follows: Though this rating was not done in a corner as Audio Note recommends:

"Not as sensitive as the bigger floorstanders in this test, the AN-J/SPe still musters a full 89.5dB (re. 2.83V/1m) from its essentially undamped, reflex-loaded cabinet.

Neither is the load especially tough with a minimum 5 Ohm at 150Hz and an average of 12.3 Ohm to keep any valve amps from wheezing. The port resonance looks very broad indeed, providing a deal of reinforcement from 20Hz-90Hz (-3dB points) while the driver itself rolls off to 60Hz (-6dB).

Bass distortion remains very low indeed at ~0.15-0.2% but climbs closer to 0.6% through the midrange where the pulp-coned bass/mid driver is obviously working a little harder.


The E is rated at 16hz -6db - basically the same as the J but a bigger cabinet.

"There is a Martin Colloms article in HiFi News & RR June 2002 about level 5 AN system . MC checked in the lab AN-E/SEC Silver speakers with claimed sensitivity of 94.5dB. He wrote:

"I checked out the speaker in the lab and confirmed the high 94dB sensitivity, with 3.6 ohm minimum impedance, a wide 28Hz to 20kHz (+/-3dB) response when adjusted for near wall palcement, and a 29Hz tuned port with an in-room -6dB point of 18Hz at reasonable drive levels.."

It should be noted that Peter continously works to achieve better. The sensitivity for example in the 1992 version of the E mustered only 90.2db(a chipboard box copper wiring) in 2000 got 92db and this latest batch are 94db. The higher versions trade a more difficult impedence swing apparently though - the cheaper E's don't go under 5ohms but the more silvered E/Sec by Colloms went to 3.6. This is still pretty easy.

Hi Fi Choice did note with the new E/XL that at two times the speaker dips to 4ohms at the tuning frequency of 30hz and throughout the upper bass lower mid octave of 150hz to 300hz. This could cause some lesser amps some difficulty.

The top E/Sogon is rated at 98db and bottoms out at 12hz are matched to within .1db of each other - I don't know anything about that speaker except that it sells for 69,500 British pounds and have external crossovers.

There are ten different E speakers coming and will have slightly different results in the measuring of sensitivity etc. There is the company measurement which is 2hz lower than what Colloms got but rooms are different and so is positioning - but they get pretty similar results.

Paul Messenger does note some colouration which could be argued as better decay - So listening for oneself is the only way to know. I think it's fair concern because frankly it has to sound considerably different to sound considerably better - so if one is perfectly happy with what is on the market they may not love the compromises made by Audio Note.

All speakers are compromised in some way and while I get overly passionate about the sound to my ear I do want it known that I don't think they're PERFECT speakers. I have heard a number of speakers over the years that do various things at a micro level better - but not to my ear on a macro level.

Mr. Messenger noted several things that are weaknesses and could be off-putting to some listeners(he also curiously contradicts himself) - but in the end the strengths in musicality were too hard to ignore and it garnered the best buy tag even at 2,650GBP. This is the basic E.

It should also be noted that these are just reviews and like I always say you have to listen for yourself - but hey at least Mr. Messenger said as much. I wonder if Hi-fi CHoice will trade the old E they took in 1992 in for the new E with the better cabinetry. Pretty cool to keep the same reference speaker for 12 years - as does one of the Stereophile writers. Enjoythemusic's chief editor has used the J/SPx as his reference speaker for the last 10 years and still going - I'm not a big supporter of reviews but it's interesting to know what the reviewers themselves use to listen to music for enjoyment.

The K as good as it is is a significant step down from the J or E. But it's significantly cheaper as well.

[92135011]

The 3.6 ohms minimum impedence doesnt sound very good. Well not nearly as good as 5 anyways.
I thought that the advantage of the AN speaker was to have a flat-line impedence curve so that it wouldnt go choking on a tube amp or something.
Does the review show the lab results too? like the graphs and stuff?

[92135011]

Hey - you might be interested if you're following that guy ranting against Audio Note on AA (people need to listen before ranting) that the E/LX was given a Best Buy in Hi-fi Choice's August issue(technically that is the highest award they give). They reviewed E's in 1992 and 2000 and recommended them then and they are still chosen best against new competition - shows you that speaker design has really come a long way over that time when a a 1940's inspired speaker is still pounding the competition eh? And to my mind what is more impressive is that this is despite being positioned 1 meter into the room and described by Peter as about the worst place you could put them Paul Messenger has apparently not returned the speakers to boot.

I have asked to get the full review scanned and e-mailed to me - I have page one but my hotmail can only take 1 at a time for some bizarre reason.

Why they don't let you buy the issue in the from of a PDF I don't know. You're in Vancouver so maybe the bigger Chapters stores carry the magazine.

Yeah, the downtown Chapters has all the audio magazines like hifi choice, hifi world, UHF, stereophile, and the other big names. Could you possibly send me to review too?

BTW, 46minaudio, the 16hz is for the AN/E not the K.