Upgraded to Audio Note J - and other musings.

[skeptic]

The "box" in a loudspeaker system serves one or more of several useful purposes, most having to do with low frequency reproduction. Since vibrating membranes like loudspeaker cones produce sound from both the front and the back, and since sound from the back is 180 degrees out of phase with sound from the front, if the speaker has no enclosure, the sound from the back will cancel the sound from the front and the bass will be very weak. Ported enclosures cause the wave from the back to invert in phase and emerge in phase with the wave from the front. Unfortunately, they are very frequency selective and usually have a series of resonance and antiresonance nodes. Infinite baffles try to just prevent the back wave from reaching the front. Acoustic suspension speakers use the air pressure trapped in a relatively small box to control the cone motion in additon to preventing it from emerging out of phase and canceling out the front wave. Horn enclosures are the mechanical equivalent of electrical transformers efficiently coupling the energy from the front of the speaker to the room by providing a suitable back pressure at the narrow end of the horn to load the driver efficiently while providing a transition to a low pressure end which couples efficiently with a large room. Enclosureless speakers like Magnepan magneplanar types have to take special measures to overcome this out of phase problem. They are probably effectively back to back drivers in a bi polar configuration having the back wave emerge in phase with the front wave instead of out of phase. There are many others clever enclosure ideas like isobaraks which have an inner driver to effectively increase the effective size of the enclosure for loading purposes without increasing its physical size. I don't see how you can glibly dismiss the role of a loudspeaker enclosure. One thing all of them have in common. The guy who builds them does NOT want them to add spurious resonances to the sound of his speaker.

"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."

Once again this kind of statement flies in the face of accepted and well proven facts. This should be especially evident to anyone who tries to design an acoustic suspension speaker system like A/N K. Of the three parameters which control the frequency response of a loudspeaker; mass, springiness, and damping, the internal damping material used to control overshoot of the cone is the only thing that prevents it from exhibiting boomy undamped resonances. This is a direct application of Newton's second law of motion applied to the phenomenon of forced resonance. It is presented in every freshman college physics textbook along with its solution and explanation. BTW, it is one of the most widely used equations for analyzing and designing mechanical systems including for example the suspension on your car. For ported systems, the driver suspensions are usually much tighter so the damping can be done mostly by the driver itself. The box can be "tuned" to any frequency desired given the right dimension and internal configuration. I'd like to see a cutaway view of the A/N J and E series which are two way 8 inch ported designs. The extremely low claimed low frequency cutoff suggests a kind of transmission line loading to tune the relatively small cabinet to such a low frequency.

I do not and will not post on AA. For me the site is unacceptable. As I said on the cable message board, I posted there for a short time many years ago. I was not thrown out, I left on my own but had I stayed, the outcome would not have been in doubt.

[RGA]

With the E anyway apparently the cabinet is tuned nearly a full octave below the driver midbass driver cuttoff - well according to an advert I was reading.

The Audio Note Absolute Zero floorstanders are essentially Transmission line speakers from what the dealers were saying. The back of the speaker about 3/4 the way up was cut completely out and you could look down inside the speaker. AN calls it [Two-way folded, parabolic, rear-loaded, quarter-wave quasi-horn-loaded floor-standing loudspeakers] instead of transmission line I guess.

Way back when I was looking at the AN/K specifically - Peter told me exactly where to get info on them:

"You may find this even funnier, they are actually 1940's cabinet shapes, read L. L. Beranek's Loudspeakers and you will find the calculation for all our speakers, cabinet shape, driver position etc.
What you will not find is how we match the drivers to each other to maximise efficiency, dispersion and overall tonal balance."

This L.L Beranek guy - I've seen his name a lot in acoustics even for car companies to control vibration and B&W referred to him in their FAQ section - you would likely be WAY more familiar with him than I.

RE: the K
"As to the drivers, they are both from Vifa in Denmark, the tweeter is a highly modified version of the TD19, no ferro fluid, no damping and a special ferrite magnet, the woofer is also a Vifa which is a derivative of the original standard driver.

But really if you want to know exactly what is inside the speakers and all there other products why not go to that AudioAsylum board - they now have a dedicated Audio Note Kits forum - can't get into trouble if you just read through what the builders are saying http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/au...ekits/bbs.html - I can't find the picture of the inside of the E kit but they had all the parts all sitting there ready to placed in the box.

[92135011]

RGA,
why not go for a kit2 with preamp kit.
I know that the dealer advised against a preamp, but probably means he is against using a pre with the A48b. Plus the kit2 with preamp kit are both tube so it should be ok.
The 2 units will run you 1700US (probably a notch less after negotiation) Plus you can sell off your Sugden for a little bit. Save 7% on taxes, which is another 150 or so. So at the end you are looking at about the same as the soro.

Good thing is that you can easily upgrade it when you get more cash. If you are uncomfortable with kit building, I can help you build it if you would like and if you can trust me of course. Light electronics is sort of a hobby for me anyways.

[RGA]

Yeah it's going to be at least a year before I could do something like this. I'm already WAY over budget in going with the J's in the first place. Thanks for the generous offer though. You are right they were not against the preamp kit or preamp but they didn't feel it was a worthy move to use my amp as power amp as it is solid state.

I'll probably wait until I come back from Japan - roughly 4 years from now before I make a move - unless I marry a rich girl by then who loves music too. Or a lottery happens my way.

I will probably keep the Sugden and run it as a power amp for my Marantz receiver. Of course this assumes the receiver lasts five years.

Sugden has pulled themselves from north America apparently - probably because people here buy based off of looks and features over actual sound quality and build construction. .

I also noticed that Soundhounds was selling some of the AN amplifier Kits which they assembled for $3000.00. UGLY freakin things with a lot of tubes and uncovered transformers. - Definitely pay extra to get the covers - I mean there is acceptable ugly and then there is UGGGLY. From the looks of it they were very well built.

[92135011]

Actually, check out Audionotekits.com
The new kit1 is larger and has a stainless steel chassis. Looks better than the old one.
And yes...the covers are a MUST.

I'm going to build myself some of those kits in due time.
When I'm done you are welcome to drop by to give them a listen to see if its your cup of tea. Then it will give you a good idea what you getting yourself into if you do decide to invest. The kits are undergoing a lot of change. The preamp kit right now looks like the M2. But in a few months time they will look closer like the M3 (to accomodate more transformers and such). The excellent thing about kits is that you can upgrade it bit by bit rather than buy a whole new unit (OPT, caps, atteunators, etc.)

[RGA]

Actually, check out Audionotekits.com
The new kit1 is larger and has a stainless steel chassis. Looks better than the old one.
And yes...the covers are a MUST.

I'm going to build myself some of those kits in due time.
When I'm done you are welcome to drop by to give them a listen to see if its your cup of tea. Then it will give you a good idea what you getting yourself into if you do decide to invest. The kits are undergoing a lot of change. The preamp kit right now looks like the M2. But in a few months time they will look closer like the M3 (to accomodate more transformers and such). The excellent thing about kits is that you can upgrade it bit by bit rather than buy a whole new unit (OPT, caps, atteunators, etc.)

How much are these kits - the Kit two says it's only $999.00US Is it an integrated amp? How much is the Kit one? They say all you need is a soldering iron besically.

[92135011]

Kit 2 is a power amp, but it has a volume pot so that if you have a source with a high enough output you can run it without a pre. The kit2 is built based on the Kit1 except that its the non-triode version running on 6550 pentode. The kit1 runs $1349 and is 300B SET, no feedback, directly heated running about 9 WPC. The upgrades entitle a "high-B" OPT, black gate caps, copper film oil caps, tantalum resistors, silver wiring, better pot). The preamp kit runs $699, as upgrades like the above, and as I said, a new chassis coming soon.
BTW, they are coming out with some 211 monos soon, probably for the extra power or something. Also, a new integrated is in production. However, this will be a budget push-pull integrated probably much like the soro pp. Hence, even after these new products, the kit1 will remain their most popular amp. As you can see, I have asked Brian many many questions.
In regard to the equipment needed, I think a soldering pen, solder, stripper, cutter and pliers is enough to get the job done. I think they include everything else. Plastic wire ties may be worth the extra 50 cents too as it will make everything nice and tidy. Just the soldering pen and solder would do...but then the result would look very messy amateur. Actually, I'm going to buy a new stripper just for this project as my old one is dull and no longer does the job well.

[kexodusc]

I dunno RGA, I kinda like the earlier idea of going with the PSB Alpha's....I have some old Alpha bookshelfs in my garage I suppose I'd be willing to trade you straight up for your new AN J's...
Whaddya say, buddy???

[lattybuck]

On the subject of the AN box design, I am curious about the concept. I have met and talked with a few folks who made insturments, strings mainly but dome precusion/drums also, and they all focused heavilly on the way the material they used focused the sound in a certain way. All said that different materials and shapes had different sounds so you tuned for that when building them. I am not an insturment maker/designer but It seems to me that if these guys are correct than any box design would inherently hvae some "sound" they would be tuned for. So trying to isolate and eliminate that sound would create an overall more "neutral" sound. That said, and if i am reading this correctly, why would trying to utilizing the box's "sound" as opposed to trying to "neutralize" the boxes sound be preferable? Aren't you fine tuning the sound toward a certain "type" rather than the neutrality I tend to lean so heavilly towards.
Maybe it's just me, but I want my crappy old 70' and 60's rock to sound the closest to the way they were recorded just as much as I want my old Gramaphone masters and newer recordings to sound. I would rather hear whats recorded as neutrally and accurately as possible and decide the music I enjoy more than I would like to decide what I enjoy listening to on a specific system. I know this is a pipe dream in many ways, nothing is that accurate or neutral. This has always been my approach to music. But maybe I am proceeding from a false assumption here. I always loved the Maggie sound and the ML sound nowdays partly due to what I percieved as maybe not as full a range but a less "colored" range or reproduction. Admittedly I auditioned some B&W 803's driven by Krell stuff last week and was floored by the tonality. They doubled in the deep base area some but were increadible for the 5k or so they sell for.
So am I stumbling blindly here or are you saying that the sound speakers recreat has to be non-neutral so plan on it rather than trying to eliminate it?
Your help is appreciated.