Joe

I think you read Peter incorrectly - he noted that his all time favorites are not the AN E and noted this

"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!"

and "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."


But as he notes the best of these are domestically not feasible for the VAST VAST VAST majority of audiophiles - even the Altecs are very large and obtrusive for the normal sized apartment or home - the picture you just posted is illustration of that. The AN E Sec Silver Sig in a 200 square meter room (which is the max size room they recommend for the AN E) is as good as I have heard from anyone ever in such a living room. And I think they do better than most in considerably larger rooms as well. They don't compete in the dynamic ease department (though the new hemp higher efficiency alnico versions help immensely) with big horns - but they also don't have that honkiness that E-Stat notes. And that has been an issue with most every horn speaker that comes out. The best horns that I have heard which includes the one I heard from Silbatone at CES (The Aporia) are still BIG. Here in Hong Kong the two would have to touch each other to fit in the living room. So no matter how good the speaker is the room can't support them. So you look at something else that the room can support.

I have often described the AN E has a between the poles speakers - my favorite speakers have tended to be large horns and Panels (and single drivers) because both poles bring certain things to the table (but at the expense of the other) while the E is a compromise of sorts retaining much of what I like about horns and much of what I like about panels (but not to their degree but also not bringing the weaknesses to the fore) Which is a long way to say they're a superb all-rounder and why I can play any music on them - most rooms at shows I noted had a few recordings - play the same ones all day over and over because apparently they're afraid to play real music - just play what their speaker is good at playing.

Some people only listen to one genre of music in a narrow volume level - if the speaker does that well and that's what you listen to then great - but an all-rounder needs to play it all equally well. And I don't hear that from panels or horns - I heard the steely hardness of horns - but I get presence and a jump factor that no panel I have heard remotely captures - but I also get a holographic sound and staging and imaging and openness that arguably is peerless.


Emotional impact and musical involvement is somewhat subjective. Terms that people reading this discussion who have not heard the products in question will roll their eyes at. The system is also more than the loudspeaker - the AN E I have heard in a number of configuration with a number of amps from Audio Note and not from Audio Note (ditto for sources) and in a number of rooms. And IME they have topped the Emotional and musical involvement charts against their competition. But that goes out the window with some amps - and not just SS but some tube amps as well.

Their competition is not speakers designed for massive rooms however - for that you need speakers like the ones you posted.

But Audio Note tends to get a lot of reactions like the one from Wes Philips - over the course of the years I have read many such over the top reactions - and it is disproportionate to AN. I never read such reactions to say an AvanteGarde or B&W for example (I discount some magazines that I find have track records of lies or crookedness mind you).

But this is pretty over the top praise by one of their leading 3-4 reviewers and basically says there was only ONE system in the entire show that was worth listening to and you don't have to read between the lines to figure that out. Ongaku Means Ecstasy | Stereophile.com