Florian vs. RGA

[RGA]

I was looking for these ones too Kex so I'll add it here. Really one should just buys what they likes. It's all too much of a headache. I go in and let the company prove their technology to me. It's designed to reproduce musuc and all the technobabble in the world can;t save them from the cold light of the listening room side by side comparisons. That is where truth is separated from advertising.

Dear John,
If you have been around for as long as you say then you should be able to remember that many of the self same designers that you mention were espousing different view on many matter 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

You may not recognise the fact that "low diffraction" and small narrow baffles are mutually exclusive, because this is governed by laws of physics that neither I nor anyone else can change, whether we like it or not.

You put your finger on it, being "in" with the latest fads helps little in this regard, as it changes nothing apart from creating the illusion that something important has been done and as you know fashion is only a fleeting "passion".

Not accepting the fact that narrow baffles have poor and very uneven dispersion behaviour is like denying that gravity exists, just step up on a roof and take one step forward and you will soon realise that whilst you may not believe in gravity, gravity certainly believes in you, then let me know which hospital you end up in and I shall send some flowers and a card wishing you a speedy recovery.

Whilst you are recovering may I again recommend reading Beranek, McLaughlin and Ohlsson, they tell you what you need to know about waveform propagation, you will then soon see that there is nothing old fashioned about wide baffles for starters, because there is no "moving on" from the fundamental waveform behaviour, nature sees to that.

All modern designers try to do is to circumvent the laws of physics in order to get an edge in appearance stakes, manipulation of the measurement techniques are widespread and are now more used as marketing tools than as guides to whether the speaker is actually any good.

I know that we are all working on creating an illusion with reproduced sound, but I never thought that the illusion goes as far as creating a belief system which is mightier than mother nature.

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup


Dear John,
Firstly, how many speakers have you actually designed and successfully marketed??

Since you are clearly a fully paid up member of current fashion club in speaker design, may I suggest that you go back and study two of the original works on acoustics and speakers, or perhaps 3,

a.) N. W. McLaughlin's Acoustics on McGraw-Hill, I believe it was issued about 1934, McLaughlin was probably the greatest mathematician who ever set foot in acoustics.

b.) L. L. Beranek's Loudspeakers.

c.) Any of Harry Ohlsons books.

These books contain the vast majority of what one needs to understand about sound propagation and acoustics, mostly forgotten knowledge as the industry has "progressed" towards commerciality with all its vagaries.

Now to comment a little on the rest,

1.) There several ways of achieving low frequency response and your contention that only a large diameter driver can do low frequencies is easily disproven, but rather than talk the talk you need to walk the walk and listen to a speaker which provides low frequency from a small woofer in a setting it was designed for.

2.) I don't understand why you would measure a speaker at 180 degrees and I have not measured or seen measurements on the NHT you mention, but I can tell you that I would have no real problem putting the 90 degree off axis response of any of our speakers up against any other forward radiating speaker, we would come out well there.

Remember here that 90% of all recordings are done with microphones that are not omnis and therefore the speaker dispersion at plus 90 and minus degrees is really all you need to "invert" the version picked up by the microphone.

Of all the products we make the speakers are not only the most villified but controversially the only ones which do well on conventional tests, see Hifi Choice's many tests for example.

3.) We go one better that simple time/phase alignment, we individually adjust and match the woofer's behaviour to the tweeter at the points where they both reproduce the same frequency, this is far far more important and sophisticated than the primitive practice of sloping the baffle a bit to "compensate" for the tweeters earlier and shorter response time.

The ear is far more sensitive to incorrectly matched start - stop anomalies than it is to minor static differences in frequency response, a fact which is neither well understood nor practiced by the loudspeaker industry.

We developed a way of measuring this behaviour realtime and ways of adjusting it as well over 15 years ago, and have been refining this since then.

To help you understand what I said in the next paragraph, basically in a 3 way speaker finding drivers which work together in such a way that it is possible to align their timing differences at two crossover points rather than one immense complicates the problem of adjusting the above behaviour.

4.) Again, I recommend that you listen to a speaker that achieves a response in a normal room size from 17Hz to 23kHz with good efficiency and ease of drive.

5.) Whilst I acknowledge that there is a lot still to learn (but not from current convention, I am afraid) I have much of the necessary experience, have you?

6.) 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!

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

Dear Greg,
Quite correct, which is why we cross over at below 2.3 kHz and use specially designed units to tailor their response to each other.

Like you say, there are VERY few tweeters who work this far down.
Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

They do not go above 14 Ohms either.

Impedance variation are in my experience not a great problem if it does not have a greater than 10 to 12 Ohm "window" and it does not go below 4 Ohms, but I think it is important to mention that a speaker's impedance is only one of several parameters that make up its general suitability to SET amplifiers.

Reflected load is a major problem in inefficient speakers when seen from the point of view of the amplifier, and whilst single-ended triode amplifiers without feedback have a high'ish output impedance they do not display any of the stability problems associated with feedback amplifiers, provided the circuit, power supply and output transformers compliment each other, the SET struggles with the combined "mass" of the drivers and crossover of inefficient speakers.

One parameter we "match" speaker behaviour to is the power transfer curve of a triode, because at the end of the day it is the end result that counts and we specifically design our speakers to have as flat an in room power response in the listening position as possible, when driven by a low power triode amplifier.

We design the parameters of all our drive units strictly with this in mind.

We also go to great length to make sure that both speakers in a pair have identical acoustic behaviour, in order to get decent stereo (or even mono) reproduction that is far more important than many of the highly touted "important" parameters used by other speaker makers.

It is a major advantage designing and making both "sides" of the "coin" because it allows you to gradually improve your understanding of what goes on between amplifier and speaker and slowly optimise the "match", unfortunately very few speaker or amplifier manufacturers are able to do this as they only design the front or back of the "coin".

The "specialist" speaker industry in particular appears to have very little understanding of what is best for a good amplifier, they have over many years relied on the premise that amplifier power solves all problems and squarely place the responsability for the end result of their poor understanding on the amplifier manufacturers' who have traditionally been forced to follow suit and make higher power amplification, which is a complex and poor sounding compromise

Dear RGA,
The market perception (supported by most magazines and manufacturers as it is) is that if there is "more" or "deeper" bass then you are getting something for your money.

This is not the case, in fact it is rarely the case that a sub qualitatively improves the music reproduction, generally the money would be better spent on bigger speakers or elsewhere.

The AN-E is probably the easiest to add a woofer to, the intention is to start at under 30 Hz and go down to around 12 Hz, it works pretty well, but having tried in different rooms the variability is too great in my view and positioning is very critical to get the right blend.

Single ended triodes is the only way to get proper bass, nothing else will do.


Dear TC,
The "leading" magazines certainly have a lot to answer for, imagine if they had had the courage to write what they REALLY thought about CD when it first came out, rather than just turn their back and bend over?

I spoke to many of the leading reviewers at the time(one advantage of being old is that you were there when it happened!) and what they thought privately was quite different from what they wrote in their articles.

Had they publicly said what they privately thought, it might have changed the course of CD and forced Philips and Sony to rethink their entire modus operandi.

Serious dereliction of duty and care to their readers, much like the stock analysts who recommend shares they privately denigrate.

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

Dear Pat,
There are almost no speakers that have a flat off axis response at say 30 degrees either side.

It is interesting that you mention the average omnidirectional response, when did you last see one of these measurements in a modern audio magazine??

I never said power response was new, but almost no-one uses this today, and it is a good indicator of performance.

I think the reason we see neither of these measurements any longer is that modern speakers with their shallow deep cabinets and resulting poor and very uneven off axis response do badly when measured at listening distance.

50 inches is about 1 meter 25 centimeters, that is close enough to one meter, 2 - 3 meters are not really valid either, as you need to take into consideration the room reflections and their influence on the sound, as what you hear is always in the listening position, so why not measure where you sit?

Paul Messenger from Hifi Choice generally measures at a distance similar to listening distance and his overall measurements tell you more about the sonic balance of most of the speakers he measures.

I aim to make a speaker with a virtually perfect hemispherical dispersion behaviour, which is why I like wide shallow cabinets, in my view a speaker should have an even non jagged drop off as you move from 30 to 60 to 90 degrees off axis in all directions in order to be able to present the room with an even energy waveform.

Likewise, it is important that the speakers within the pair are acoustically identical, otherwise it is difficult to reproduce stereo.

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

[kexodusc]

You may not recognise the fact that "low diffraction" and small narrow baffles are mutually exclusive, because this is governed by laws of physics that neither I nor anyone else can change, whether we like it or not.

All modern designers try to do is to circumvent the laws of physics in order to get an edge in appearance stakes, manipulation of the measurement techniques are widespread and are now more used as marketing tools than as guides to whether the speaker is actually any good.

This guy can repeat himself a billion times, and his devoted followers can revel in every word he speaks, but it doesn't make his statements true all the time.

I don't even by the fashion argument he's presenting. Wide baffles with pretty wood finishes wood look every bit as good. I don't understand why he thinks baffle size is related to fashion at all. If anything, cabinet depth is every bit as intrusive and annoying, who wants their speakers jutting out 4 feet into a room?

Just use some common sense here. Severity of primary baffle diffractions is directly related to the surface area of the baffle. Given a fixed height, the narrow baffle has less surface area. Less speaker to diffract off of. The wider you make the baffle, the wider the range of frequencies that will experience some diffraction. This will be mitigated some by lowering the frequencies for which edge diffraction becomes a concern (larger wavelengths). Again, the few extra inches of baffle width will impact the imaging ability of a speaker some....but it shouldn't be a deal breaker. The trade-off is the benefits afforded the lower midrange/bass region. This has been well documented for over 50 years too. You can't just pick and choose which laws of physics you want to apply...that's what marketing departments do.

Dear John,
Firstly, how many speakers have you actually designed and successfully marketed??

I get the feeling this John guy must have pissed Peter off? I don't see any relevance in his question. Dr. Bose has successfully designed and marketed more speakers than Peter. Does that make him more of an authority?

1.) There several ways of achieving low frequency response and your contention that only a large diameter driver can do low frequencies is easily disproven, but rather than talk the talk you need to walk the walk and listen to a speaker which provides low frequency from a small woofer in a setting it was designed for.

Peter's quite right here...but then again, all things equal, diameter size is probably the best way to extend bass - then it becomes a question of which side-effects do you want to tackle. I think that's more of a personal taste thing.

2.) I don't understand why you would measure a speaker at 180 degrees and I have not measured or seen measurements on the NHT you mention, but I can tell you that I would have no real problem putting the 90 degree off axis response of any of our speakers up against any other forward radiating speaker, we would come out well there.

Who the hell listens to speakers at 90 degree angles? If I was Peter, I wouldn't waste my time responding to nut bars like this guy.

3.) We go one better that simple time/phase alignment, we individually adjust and match the woofer's behaviour to the tweeter at the points where they both reproduce the same frequency, this is far far more important and sophisticated than the primitive practice of sloping the baffle a bit to "compensate" for the tweeters earlier and shorter response time.

I think Peter is out of date with current practices. The "sloping the baffle" trick is rarely done anymore.

The ear is far more sensitive to incorrectly matched start - stop anomalies than it is to minor static differences in frequency response, a fact which is neither well understood nor practiced by the loudspeaker industry.

Yeah, to a point, there's precedence effect where very short delays won't be perceived at all. But I agree with him here. Poor transient response and sloppy driver integration is worse IMO than a +/- 4 dB response.

To help you understand what I said in the next paragraph, basically in a 3 way speaker finding drivers which work together in such a way that it is possible to align their timing differences at two crossover points rather than one immense complicates the problem of adjusting the above behaviour.

It doesn't have to...besides, I thought they had developed a super great 15 year old method of doing this?

Dear Greg,
Quite correct, which is why we cross over at below 2.3 kHz and use specially designed units to tailor their response to each other.

Like you say, there are VERY few tweeters who work this far down.

I wish I knew Greg's question...but I disagree with Peter's last statment. I have in my possession 3 tweeters that can be crossed over below 1600 Hz, one as low as 1200 Hz.
There's plenty out there. Maybe it's a more recent development though? Morel and Usher make a bunch.

Dear RGA,
The market perception (supported by most magazines and manufacturers as it is) is that if there is "more" or "deeper" bass then you are getting something for your money.

This is not the case, in fact it is rarely the case that a sub qualitatively improves the music reproduction, generally the money would be better spent on bigger speakers or elsewhere.

Again, just because Peter says it, doesn't make it true. Some people probably don't like subwoofers. My 15" sealed sub is easily integrated with my speakers, is very musical, and greatly improves the qualitative element for music reproduction. Maybe it's because it's not long-throw, high excursion, gimmicky design?

Serious dereliction of duty and care to their readers, much like the stock analysts who recommend shares they privately denigrate.

Was this for my benefit? Any charted stock analyst wouldn't publicly recommend shares they privately denigrate. That would be in violation of their Code of Ethics (most of us do adhere to these, out of fear of the brutal fines and impossible re-entry to the industy). Any recommendations should be supported by substantial analysis and risk measurement.

The magazine reviewers and speaker manufacturer/marketers would be well served adopting a similar Code of Ethics.

There are almost no speakers that have a flat off axis response at say 30 degrees either side.

Guess it depends by the definition of flat...if +/- 3 dB can be considered flat, then I disagree. If +/- 3 dB up to 15 KHz or so can be considered effectively flat, then I very much disagree...
Is it possible Peter got so frustrated with speakers that he's just completely ignored the market in recent years?

I never said power response was new, but almost no-one uses this today, and it is a good indicator of performance.

Yes, Yes, Yes!

I think the reason we see neither of these measurements any longer is that modern speakers with their shallow deep cabinets and resulting poor and very uneven off axis response do badly when measured at listening distance.

Those measurements aren't a trait of the cabinet shape. I think it's fair to say there's just a lot more bad narrow baffle designs than there are bad wide baffle designs these days. Don't blame the baffle, blame designer.

50 inches is about 1 meter 25 centimeters, that is close enough to one meter, 2 - 3 meters are not really valid either, as you need to take into consideration the room reflections and their influence on the sound, as what you hear is always in the listening position, so why not measure where you sit?

Paul Messenger from Hifi Choice generally measures at a distance similar to listening distance and his overall measurements tell you more about the sonic balance of most of the speakers he measures.

I agree that a 1 meter listening position is not indicative of the speakers application. The problem is moving out further into the room will result in measurements being influenced heavily by the room itself. Subtracting this influence from the equation is extemely difficult. Worse, much like a speaker and a cabinet interact differently with each other, a given speaker interacts with a room differently than another speaker beside it. It's not even fair to say that both speakers are in the same room. Problem is we design speakers to fit in rooms, we don't include the room in the design. This is first compromise for all speakers.
Second problem - have you ever heard a speaker that didn't measure as well as nother speaker, but sounded better than it? I have...this tells me there's a few measurements missing.

I aim to make a speaker with a virtually perfect hemispherical dispersion behaviour, which is why I like wide shallow cabinets, in my view a speaker should have an even non jagged drop off as you move from 30 to 60 to 90 degrees off axis in all directions in order to be able to present the room with an even energy waveform.

Just an afterthought...you can eliminate the jagged drop off he describes in the crossover. He's probably doing this anyway with his designs, the wider baffle doesn't eliminate the drops, it just shifts them lower (kind of like what he doesn't like to do with energy by damping).

Likewise, it is important that the speakers within the pair are acoustically identical, otherwise it is difficult to reproduce stereo.

My father listens to more music than anyone I know. I've built him 2 nice systems, but for whatever reason he still spends a great deal of time enjoying music on some lesser equipment he has - ghetto blaster, FM stereo clock radio...
Sometimes I think we get carried away here...if he can get into music with such obviously crappy systems, what is he hearing that we aren't?

[RGA]

I'm not going to tackle any of the points Kex because I'm not him and I can't speak for him -- I merely let what I hear speak for what I will buy -- it was just for interest sake. It is clear that he doesn't buy into what is viewed in the majority -- and it is precisely why bringing up what is the established practice or view of theory is largley not going to go over well in his books. I spoke to a non audio note dealer who said that slim line is fashion and good for business - because it helps sell home theater packages takes up far less floor space and most have such aneamic bass that eventually most everyone comes back to buy a subwoofer -- This dealer sold M&K to George Lucas and his father invented the sand filling system for Wharfedale) Even Wharfedale went from VASTLY superior Vanguard and their high efficiency series to crappola let's copy B&W tweeter on top Modus speakers. Maybe they image better than the Vanguards but that;s sure as hell all they MIGHT do better.

And the Reference 3a MM De Capo has a sloped baffle as do speakers like Thiel. Neither are particularly old.

John is an NHT Dealer FYI

He said few tweeters -- not no tweeters -- and then knowing him he probably doesn;t consider ones that are not worth considering

In the three way he mentioned I get the impression he is referring to the middle driver which has two points to be worked to match the bass driver and then to the tweeter. That is far more difficult than hust worring about one point. Though, he is working on the type A which was three way. Difficult but he didn't say impossible.

Subs -- still waiting be convinced by one but we've been down that road -- I ain;t buying one on the promise that I will like it -- they have to prove it to me that I will like it -- which means the sub maker should write in stone that they themselves will set-up the store demo if it's an issue that highly trained outlets are incompetant and can't set-up a basic sub. I like to test drive the car too --- don;t promise me that a Hyundai Pony can handle like there's no tomorrow and it will peel off the line like the best of them -- prove it to me.

The AN E measures better off axis than it does on axis - in another thread he wanted the polar response curves broght back.

Slim lines were brought out for appearance - sorry if you can;t see this but slim is sexy - not fat and plump and we see it in fashion. Sleek lines - preferably silver, with cool looking cabinets (Dark Cherry woods) speakers that take up less and less sapce for smaller and smaller apartments. When i first saw the AN speakers my first thought was UUUUUGLY!

I'd probably agree with your points on the baffle if I could be absolutely convinced that say a Paradigm Studio 100, or Totem mani 2 with it's narrow deep cabbinet imaged better in any way. It sure doesn't sound like they do. I have not heard the Mani 2 for long but a fellow teacher in this district took all of ten minutes to decide to trade his mani 2 for the AN E and when talking to him he felt there was not a single area of sionic reproduction that the Mani 2 won out. Much less bass which required way more power, far less headroom less open smaller soundstage, tonally outclassed and on and on. Unlike him I never did a side by side so I can't say. My audition was with parasound and bryston separates and i kept wondering why the Speaker was $4,000.00Cdn. (Apparently $1k down). this fellow I met but another fellow with the exact same speaker trade em in for the E as well.

I can't discuss the technical merits of his layperson arguments - I know that at my listening position when comparing speakers in the same room his sound "clearer" and I can make out more of what is going on -- which is abundantly noted at lower listening levels. With the 705 a speaker that in my view has terrible resolving ability with all it's pluses in the techy arguemnt field it's a piece of unmitigated crap at the price they're charging. it's not IMO good but different it's different and I can;t hear what I hear on another speaker like pressure, scale dynamics remotely half decent bass response.

Then again the answer may be back to the long throw woofer, lack of driver integration, lack of matching driver sonics, the high 4khz crossover point and the kevlar performance at 4khz -- that John guy seems to hate the terrible choice of crossover in the B&W's and the Kevlar midwoofer. I don't know nothing about all that because I don't care -- I just know they irritate me. Just like I don;t care why a bridge can support the weight of 100 cars -- I just know that it does or does not. And as a driver that;s what I want to know. As a listener it's gotta sound good. Unfortunately, when we get into what sounds good then we're into preferneces which then is like arguing about movies. The Shawshank Redemption is a better movie than Oasis of the Zombies -- but I can't prove that it is. Of course RGA is all knowing so I am right

[kexodusc]

Like I said earlier, while unorthodox by some standards, all of Peter Q's design considerations depend on them being used together. This is fine. He's certainly not the only one to ever come up with his ideas though. I can't say anything bad about the AN's I've heard. I just have yet to blown away by them compared to some speakers in their price range (not talking about B&W or Paradigm). In my books they're just another great option.

But then, some people like Maggies better than AN's, to each their own.

As for the slim speakers taking up less space - they don't. a 1 cubic foot box is 1 cubic foot whether it's placed with the fat side staring out or the thin side. A few people might tell you it's all about looks, and to some, maybe it is. I don't buy that though.

I suspect as AN matures and catches on we'll begin to see copy cat designs. Maybe you'll see the retro-fat box look become fashionable? Who knows.

[RGA]

Well kex I probably should not say this on a public forum but Boston Acoustics owns the same rights to the original Snell design that Peter Qvortrup owns. Theoretically, this means that starting now Boston Acoustics could start building K J and E's. The owner of Soundhounds sells more audio Note speakers than any other speaker they carry and has been badgering BA to make clones of the Audio Notes largely because BA could make less expensive ones which may not have the silver wiring etc and may not be sonically as good but would be huge improvements over the sound of what BA is currently selling etc.

The BA rep said yes the AN sounds better than any of their speakers - and BA's owner had always wanted to be perceived better or more high end than they are. Terry wanted them to bring them out as a sort of classic line. They simply returned by saying, they sound better - but they can't sell because of the style. Peter has discussed the same thing with B&W designers in the past telling them the reason their speakers don't work as well is because of the cabinet. The B&W guys can't change the cabinet because to get the sound they'd have to completely change the cabinets, drivers and tweeters - The reply is that the AN cabinet is too ugly.

Sure YOU and ME may buy a speaker on sound and not care about looks and size and we even may be willing to pay $3-5k on a speaker. But the masses simply are not audiophiles - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. There is a reason B&O is sold at the biggest Vancouver high end chain and Bose at the second biggest high end chain and both are the biggest sellers for those stores. It is about STYLE that those two sell, especially with B&O. Big companies want big sales and in order to get big sales you have to give the AVERAGE person what they want -- affordable sexy speakers that do the job will fit the largest number of living spaces. Most people would not know a good speaker from a bad one and if they did they are never going to hear it at most of the shops selling speakers (BB and Circuit City and pseudo higher end dealers). Bose is number one why? Advertising advertising advertising -- they were excellent at it and they managed to create a mystique using science to back up that their approach really is best. Everyone who knows nothing about it when I talk to them about speakers talks about Bose being the big name. They do it without reviews to boot. Bose is a legend.

These big companies who want to sell use Bose as "THE" model and sound quality simply is not the first priority - which isn't to say they don't care but I get the sense from what I've heard from the speakers themselves dealers and audiophiles that Peter's view of "here's what we want the speaker to look like and how it will be marketed and here is your budget" THEN the engineer is told now make the speaker measurre good we want this line and this line to be flat if someone checks. The engineer goes out with the compromised set of instructions and does the best he can achieving what was requested. No one makes any final judgment on sound quality saying like Daniel Dehay (of Ref 3a) that this sounds better even though it doesn;t measure as perty - this is what sounds better and deliberately makes the decision for reproduction over a marketing decision. Interestingly his speaker gets rave reviews from the same magazine that kinda dissed the measured response which PROVES that what was measured is TOTALLY unimportant to the subjective experience. If the measurement which was said to be bad was of ANY use in the slightest then the subjective response from MOST everybody would be that it sounds like crap. And the fact of the matter is it isn't.

This is why Stereophile is run by a bunch of putzes. JA himself relies only on measured results yet he knows himself that his own experience with DBT was that eventually he went to a more expensive amp because it sounded better beyond the TEST ie beyond the scientific result. Yet for speakers he relies on "good and bad" mneasurements which are ONLY useful if and ONLY if it directly corerelates to the listening session. This is why that most speakers rate +/-3db across a large band say 200hz- 17khz or so and some measure to within 1.5db and still there is just too much of a discrepency in the result that it puzzles me why I ever paid attention to them. the Pradigm 100V3 and B&W 705 measure very well as to what the standardly used measurements consider to be good. To me it's totally unnaceptable

It is precisely that AN will never "catch on" as mass speaker like a Bose Acoustimass or B&W because they simply are out of fashion - even moreso when there are no grill covers.

Interestingly your point about space I will go you one better. Let's say that the slim line model X is the same exact internal volume and same footprint of the AN E. Chances are slim line X to sound it's best is 3-4 feet from the back wall and at least 2 feet from the side wall. The entire area behind the speaker and to the side of the speaker is completely wasted. The AN E would actually take up far less actuall living space because you could shove them out of the way into the corners. To me IF you have corners then these speakers are a benefit because you get more of your living room to live in.

Problem is many new condos and houses have goofball room configurations that seem to avoid rooms with corners or place those fake fireplaces in the dorkiest poisitions - then we're stuck with AN speakers to perform in rooms they are not suited for -- and while they seemed to still do well in the listening sessions of Hi-fi Choice -- it is less predictable to what Peter was going for. Like the Ferrari -- it might do ok off road but it may not either. With the J's out into the room I notice them more as being speakers than being able to ignore them.

AN speakers and really all their products are not supposed to "Blow You Away." If it does that then I'd be worried. I would also recommend you not evaluate the E from what you're hearing on the Kit. The Kit is based off the E/D. I've heard only one Kit E and perhaps not all kits are built equally but the E/LX is playing at a whole other level than what I heard from the Kit construction (which is a shame because the Kit had a way cooler colour finish). The biggest issue for me with the Kit E was that it had a rather dead quality to midrange sounded rather shut in and didn't have the bang on cohesiveness.

I think Bob Neil noticed this as well with his buig naim CD player and the AN cd player which didn't blow him away...it took him quite a while and a number of recordings to hear it "creep up on him"

Even my systems is marginal until I get a real source. I know what I am not getting because I heard what could be -- and all three of my sources are weak ass banes of my stereo.

Of course at the end of the day we just all have to pick something we ENJOY. I like Steven Rochlin's line just so long as we enjoythemusic then all of this is really secondary. It's not like any of it is a big deal. If I had bought the CDM 1NT a few years back and found the AN's it would not have been a huge deal -- a small financial cost to trade him or sell them and buy the AN's. And one day I may find something better. At one time I figured it would be tough to impossible to beat the De Capo int hat price band.

Omega may have something that will blow me away or Lowther or someone.

[theaudiohobby]

RGA,

I hope that you realise that quite a few who have heard AN-E side-by-side with the LVs, similar rated specs and target market, have stated a marked preference for LVs (even an AN dealer implied this in a conversation), and following from your comments sometime ago, it seems hat AN is definitely a much bigger brand in the US than in UK, there are a couple of reasons for this. It is foolish to speculate as to the exact reasons for, though the presence of the likes of Quad, Sugden, Linn, Naim etc does not help matters. Drastically different typical listening environments probably play a role in this. Also I think that AN speakers have to compete with a wider palette of designs over here.

[Florian]

Also don't forget that the original AudioNote maker was AudioNote Japan. But after a fight they broke up and left Peter in england with the sales right. Quite similar what happend to Tact and Lyngdorf Audio. Also the big publications dont rate the AudioNote products very good for their money. I have many old HIFI magazines here and some new ones where they generally ocupy the lower spots with the biggest price tags with the recommendation that you run them with AN electronics and have to like that certain character of the speaker. I am not saying its good or bad, but not for the mass of people.

-Flo

[RGA]

RGA,

I hope that you realise that quite a few who have heard AN-E side-by-side with the LVs, similar rated specs and target market, have stated a marked preference for LVs (even an AN dealer implied this in a conversation), and following from your comments sometime ago, it seems hat AN is definitely a much bigger brand in the US than in UK, there are a couple of reasons for this. It is foolish to speculate as to the exact reasons for, though the presence of the likes of Quad, Sugden, Linn, Naim etc does not help matters. Drastically different typical listening environments probably play a role in this. Also I think that AN speakers have to compete with a wider palette of designs over here.

Provide the name of the dealer's shop, the name of the dealer and what he actually said and if you can his phione number and e-mail address.

Thanks

[kexodusc]

Sure YOU and ME may buy a speaker on sound and not care about looks and size and we even may be willing to pay $3-5k on a speaker. But the masses simply are not audiophiles - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Yes, I realize the masses aren't buying $3-5K speakers and that they aren't audiophiles. But read what I'm saying here - For a company like B&W or BA or whoever, there is still that very small niche market of people (internationally it's probably significantly large actually) who are looking for those speakers that they could cater too. Furthermore, niche markets are by nature more profitable than the mass market, because there's less competition eating away profit margins. My experience with "audiophiles" is that they don't give a rat's ass about looks. Tube amps or stacks of mono blocks with messes of cables ain't pretty, except to other audiophiles. But large, well finished wood cabinets aren't sore to look at excactly. I think simple is better, very classic looking. But looks AREN'T important to the people that would want these speakers. I suspect if the majority of people who are in the market for good sound with no compromise for looks, do hear something of value in AN, there will emerge some copycat, knock-off companies - especially from China, who are making some damn good knock-off speakers these days.
Or it could be to many people, they just don't sound as good as some competitors. Which is fine too. Let me invoke my "shape of the ear" argument...we don't all hear the same way, not even close.

It is precisely that AN will never "catch on" as mass speaker like a Bose Acoustimass or B&W because they simply are out of fashion - even moreso when there are no grill covers.

You're missing the point though...99% of all speakers won't catch on like Bose or B&W - they don't have to. The best speakers I've heard in recent months have been small, one or two man operations that aren't selling world wide. Instead, a bunch of carved out, but profitable, niche markets. I don't think most speaker designers or companies even judge success by the sheer size their company grows to. I can think of one designer in fact who really doesn't have much desire to expand at all, except he needs the new market opportunities to fund his research.

Interestingly your point about space I will go you one better. Let's say that the slim line model X is the same exact internal volume and same footprint of the AN E. Chances are slim line X to sound it's best is 3-4 feet from the back wall and at least 2 feet from the side wall. The entire area behind the speaker and to the side of the speaker is completely wasted. The AN E would actually take up far less actuall living space because you could shove them out of the way into the corners. To me IF you have corners then these speakers are a benefit because you get more of your living room to live in.

There ya go...I think AN's look very nice and classy myself. I'm sure someone could jazz them up to be even prettier.

AN speakers and really all their products are not supposed to "Blow You Away." If it does that then I'd be worried. I would also recommend you not evaluate the E from what you're hearing on the Kit. The Kit is based off the E/D. I've heard only one Kit E and perhaps not all kits are built equally but the E/LX is playing at a whole other level than what I heard from the Kit construction (which is a shame because the Kit had a way cooler colour finish). The biggest issue for me with the Kit E was that it had a rather dead quality to midrange sounded rather shut in and didn't have the bang on cohesiveness.

I have never heard the AN E kit, I've heard the AN E'spe. I think that's the standard base AN, maybe one step up? The same guy owns the K's and built the AN E's. He was very impressed with the kit, more so than the K's for the money, but he thinks that AN isn't selling the same drivers or design as the real E.


I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Focus Audio...which are the best commercial speaker in the $3-7 K range I've heard...see if you can find'em, they aren't big at all.