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.