Advice about speakers

[RGA]

TAH

Soundhounds has the AN E and the D800 - anyone on this forum is welcome to audition the two on full tilt classical music at volume levels capable of damaging your hearing.

As a long time B&W fan, lover, supporter, owner, and nearly Nautilus series owner I am well aware of what B&W can do and what the AN line-up can do.

[theaudiohobby]

RGA

As a long time B&W fan, lover, supporter, owner, and nearly Nautilus series owner I am well aware of what B&W can do and what the AN line-up can do.

No worries Soundhounds keep the 800 series around because they know what the AN E can't do

[RGA]

Yes the B&W can indeed play louder, and they look quite sexy to boot. I wonder why every single person working there decided to have the uglier AN E in their home - oh yeah because they sound better to everyone who walks into the store and compares them!

And that is why I want people to listen for themsleves in a direct comparison - unlike you I am not afraid to let the people themselves decide on the matter.

All those ex B&W owners selling and trading for Audio Note E's and gee I know no one who went the other way. And all those reviewers who have heard all those B&W's over the years and yet so many more of them bought Audio Note - a tiny company - and so few go to B&W.

25hz flat in room at over 105db in a 25 X 25 room is more than enough for anyone who values their long term hearing and covers in full piano and bass. And um for $7k for the AN E versus $22k for the B&W D800 - I can buy two high powered subwoofers for $15,000 (the difference) that will hit 5hz at 130+decibals that will destroy the D800.

So do we trust TAH - a person who claims to own a speaker but can;t proivide a serial number for verification and his observations about listening to speakers or do we trust all the reviewers who have heard or owned B&W and bought Audio Note. Is TAH a member of the B&W team - worried about the economy while AN can't keep up with orders?

Granted I don't trust every reviewer but Art Dudley of Stereophile (who by the way owns them now). Granted the competition but still...

"the sound of the electric bass was deep, full, and strong, with believable timbre and excellent clarity of attack. The Es were also excellent in their sense of sheer impact, as in the percussion on that album's "Heart of Gold""

"Throughout their time here I was consistently impressed by how loudly the Audio Notes could play, and by how utterly big they could sound when doing so with orchestral music. There was something of a disconnect, seeing those not-terribly-large speakers with their 1" tweeters in front of me, yet hearing them make flutes sound like real instruments moving reasonable amounts of air, and not like precise little images in some audio nerd's fantasy-ass "soundstage." The crescendo at the end of János Starker and Antal Dorati's recording of Dvorák's Cello Concerto (a recent and brilliant Speakers Corner LP reissue of Mercury SR90303) showed that off especially well—as did Ruggiero Ricci and Ølvin Fjelstadt's wonderful recording of the Sibelius Violin Concerto, also on a Speakers Corner LP (Decca SXL 2077). Also on orchestral music, the overall spatial quality of the Audio Note AN-E Lexus Signatures was closer than usual to the way I hear things in the concert hall."

"I used the Audio Note AN-E Lexus Signatures to play David Grier's I've Got the House to Myself (CD, Dreadnought 0201), and skipped to the Civil War–era fiddle tune "The Girl I Left Behind Me." Eight or so bars in, my attention was completely captured by how real the performance sounded—not in the Quad sense of heightened neutrality, transparency, and spatial precision (fine though those things are!), but real in the sense that the notes started, flowed, and stopped in a manner that was eerily convincing, for hi-fi. It was also dynamic as all get-out."

The Audio Notes are on a different plane altogether: easy, adaptable, and, in the best sense, mostly invisible. That they manage all that while being compatible with the very-low-power amps that some of us love is a heck of a thing.

It's joined the Lowther horns and Quad electrostats as one of the very few speakers I know I could live with and love, indefinitely."

Hmm no B&W's - they look nicer and they play louder. Oh yeah that's right this about music reproduction not looks, marketing, and being loudest.

[theaudiohobby]

25hz flat in room at over 105db in a 25 X 25 room

In your dreams @50Hz the speaker is off >9dB off its midrange peak, corner loading can only lift the bass so much.

Granted I don't trust every reviewer but Art Dudley of Stereophile (who by the way owns them now

And other reviewers who do not own Audio Note are not to be trusted At least Mr. Dudley is consistent. The Audio Note E is in good company with a Lowther Horn and a Quad ESL 989. sharing common features namely a thin lower midrange/upper bass and varying degrees of upper midrange/LF treble emphasis I bet they are always revealing of what is on the recording. Funny that

[RGA]

From a real actual competing speaker designer!

"Peter, I think that Donald North has nuked my theory. As far as I can tell the theoretical maximum gain from corner placement is indeed 18 dB because the energy reflected off the floor and walls (or directed by the floor and walls) is in-phase with the rear-firing port's output.
Simply put, I was wrong.

I apologize for saying that your speakers cannot do what you claim they can even with corner loading. I gave you a hard time about it and you took it like a gentleman.

I guess that different people are convinced by different kinds of evidence, and as long as I had the mistaken conviction that 9 dB was the theoretical maximum gain from corner placement I wasn't going to believe your claimed in-room measurements bass extension. Now I have no solid basis for disputing your claim of -6 dB at 17 Hz with corner loading.

Ah, there's my dessert now. Yum."

Art Dudley is wrong (Stereophile)
Constantine Soo is wrong (Dagogo) http://dagogo.com/Events/2008RMAF/Coverage-I.html
Martin Colloms is wrong (Hi-Fi News, Stereophile, Hi-Fi Choice, Hi-Fi Critic) Stereophile technical advisor
B&W designers are wrong (they like the AN E more than the D800 and they made the D800 - LOL
SEAS designers are wrong
Richard Austen is wrong (Dagogo)
Paul Messenger is Wrong (Hi-Fi Choice)
Steven Rochlin is Wrong (enjoythemusic)
Bob Neil (Positive Feedback magazine)
Chris Redmond (dagogo)
the best sound of the show (6 moons) http://sixmoons.com/industryfeatures...83/vsac_2.html
Jack Roberts is wrong (dagogo)
Peter Van Wellinsward is wrong (speaker designer, Stereophile technical advisor)

Please - I am happy you like the B&W model _____ - enjoy it for many years.

[theaudiohobby]

Just one post earlier, you said

Granted I don't trust every reviewer but Art Dudley of Stereophile (who by the way owns them now). Granted the competition but still...

Yet you've just reference almost every single reviewer that you know that has favourably reviewed Audio Notes in the press : It is "kitchen sink" throwing time, eh? Reviewers are only to be trusted when they recommend Audio Note then .

Duke said "theoretical maximum gain from corner placement is indeed 18 dB" you cannot get that in a real room and certainly not for over such a wide bandwidth. Look at the blue curve below (measured in Art's listening room), as expected corner loading does not do much for the lower midrange and upper bass which is down about 6dB from the reference point and the exaggerated upper midrange is there in all its glory.



There is no getting away from it loverboy, the E is one lean, bass challenged speaker. And I daresay that's probably one of its major selling points with domestic customers as its lack of mid and upper bass energy means that many room resonances in that region will be benign. downside, certain types of music will sound thin and bright through these boxes and any piece whose foundation is set in the bass will sound lifeless.

[Feanor]

Just one post earlier, you said

Yet you've just reference almost every single reviewer that you know that has favourably reviewed Audio Notes in the press : It is "kitchen sink" throwing time, eh? Reviewers are only to be trusted when they recommend Audio Note then .

...

Some say it's impolite to discuss religion. Audio Note is religion with RGA.