Upgraded to Audio Note J - and other musings.

[benil]

I'm the kind of person who likes to look under the hood and kick the tires before I buy something. I want to know WHAT I'm getting for my money, not just the fact that I like the way it works. I have to feel that any product I buy delivers real value for money. I will not pay any price just to get what I want or like.

sure. but you should, at the very least, look under the hood, kick the tires and do a test drive.

I'm not going to buy a speaker with two drivers I could buy for $150, a small wooden box, and a handful of coils and capacitors for $5000 a pair. I'm not going to pay $2500 for a power amp and another $2500 for a preamp which has about $300 worth of parts and took 4 hours to assemble by semiskilled workers.

there is always the kit option which saves you about $4,000.
click the link here:audionotekits.

btw, such a socialized/discriminating pricing strategy only goes to show that audio note does not need to hype. I suppose if you have the money but don't have the time, going for the $5,000 factory-built pair may just be the logical thing to do.

why don't you have your scientist friends build these speakers for you if you really want them done well? ...unless it will turn out to be more expensive given the high opportunity cost of such a project will be to your friends.

Having worked around real scientists for many years, I do not consider the creative tinkering most audio equipment manufacturers' so called R&D departments do "research." They don't rise to that level. And tweaking 20 to 70 year old designs isn't either.

What' s so bad about old designs? My LPs still sound far better than most of the digital material i've heard thus far. I understand the skepticism against most R&D departments. This is why i support those who prefer to take the DIY route. However, as i mentioned above, I'm equally (or probably even more) skeptical about the notion that scientific research is all one needs to make or design audio equipment that sound good.