Audio Note speakers

[Purité Audio]

I tried a pair here pre PA, started with them in the usual ‘free space’ position there was no bass, pushed them really close to the wall, no bass, it was suggested to push them tight into the corners and sit in between like a giant pair of ( extremely coloured) headphones.
A triumph of marketing.
Keith

 

[DanielT]

Here is what Troels writes:

Following the Audio Note path, I also came across the review of the Audionote AN-E Lexus Signature and this is interesting reading: http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/506an/index.html. First of all the claimed sensitivity of 98 dB (!) turns out to be 92.5 dB as from John Atkinson's measurements. Some difference I should say. I'm sure the answer from Audio Note would be that this speaker should be placed in corners, giving the additional low-end decibels, at least in the bass. But it won't raise the response in the midrange and treble by 6 dB, that's for sure. However, this clearly shows there's no limit to how much producers will overrate their products. The point of crossover is claimed to be around 2 kHz and it turns out to be close to 3 kHz.

His own build with a SEAS CA21REX bass/mid and DT300 tweeter with WG (the same tweeter + WG as I showed in #11)

The quote above plus more information and various measurements on that construction and others in the category he calls HES, High Efficiency Speakers can be found here:

High Efficiency Speakers

Edit:
What happens if you squeeze the Audio Note AN-E Lexus Signature into, for example some corners, regarding bass response, one might wonder?
Something will happen.Anyway Troels is right that it will not raise the midrange area. Exaggerated sensitivity numbers that Troels mentions are a sad classic that some manufacturers resort to. Here's Erin's take on it:

 

[Mart68]

They have bass?
Keith

They have mid bass - lots of it especially when in the corners. And it's loose and woolly.

I know some are crazy about Audionote and they've been going a long time but they don't actually sell much product which I suspect accounts for the discrepancy between the price and the material content.

There's a show quite near me which I go to most years and there's always an Audionote room. One year there were two Audionote rooms next to each other (exact same room design as it's a modern hotel).

One had the speakers jammed into the corners, the other one had them out a bit. The one with them out into the room a little was better but still not a system I would contemplate spending forty grand on even for a second.

In the context of that show both rooms were not actually that bad - not unpleasant, just wrong. There were many horror stories that year which boosted them up the ranking a bit. Subsequent years the standard of exhibition has been a bit higher, relegating the Audionote room to the status of a curiosity.

 

[JiiPee]

This is a serious postulate that requires elaboration or at least should be backed up by valid sources.

Their production line is more similar to that of Volvo: they have product platforms that comes in different categories with different components and therefore different prices.

I have listened to a lot of systems over the years and I must admit that it is seldom that I come across systems with such finesse and musicality.


How do they sound "wrong"?

Just like in Scientology, Audio Note has created a theoretical system of levels that is claimed to be based on increased level in sophistication. The sales message is clear: Pay us more and You gain higher level of sophistication, and consequently, higher esteem in Your peer group.

If You want to check sources, just Google "Audio Note levels"

 

[Mnyb]

Just like in Scientology, Audio Note has created a theoretical system of levels that is claimed to be based on increased level in sophistication. The sales message is clear: Pay us more and You gain higher level of sophistication, and consequently, higher esteem in Your peer group.

If You want to check sources, just Google "Audio Note levels"

And they have manufactured their own reality where normal engineering principles don't apply .

 

[Mart68]

And they have manufactured their own reality where normal engineering principles don't apply .

In the 1990s they would advertise in the UK press. Two whole pages of text in type so small it needed a magnifying glass to read it.

I did once, it was just waffle about how they have got it right and everyone else has got it wrong. Real 'Through the looking-glass' stuff.

 

[Mnyb]

They must have made up thier own laws for how sound-waves move as neither directivity or diffraction are factors in their speaker design but magic capacitors etc is ?

 

[Richard Austen]

This is a serious postulate that requires elaboration or at least should be backed up by valid sources.

Their production line is more similar to that of Volvo: they have product platforms that comes in different categories with different components and therefore different prices.

I have listened to a lot of systems over the years and I must admit that it is seldom that I come across systems with such finesse and musicality.


How do they sound "wrong"?

I am certainly in the AN cult group so take what I have to say with a grain of salt - and indeed, this forum is not exactly safe for anyone with personal preferences. I currently own three pairs of AN speakers - the AN E/SPx AlNiCo, the AN K/SPe, and the AN AX Two V1. Previously I owned the AN J/Spe and AN K/Spe (2002 model) and AN E/Lx Hemp.

As a bit of a frame of reference - these are some of the speakers I have auditioned over the last 30+ years: Mostly I gravitate to their top-of-the-line offerings
Wilson Audio/Magico/KEF/B&W(yes the Nautilus)/QUAD/Magnepan/FOCAL/ATC/JBL/AvanteGarde/Acapella Audio Arts/PMC/Harbeth/DeVore (not the newest flagship)/Spendor/Wharfedale/Gryphon/Meridian/MBL/Trenner and Friedl/Tannoy/Genelec/Cicero/Rossofiorintino/Reference 3a/Martin Logan/Rogers/ProAc/Totem/Lorenzo/Gobel/Audio Physic/Wilson Benesch/M&K/Meyer Sound Laboratories/PSI/AVID HIFI/Rockport/Fyne/ELAC/Ruark/Gallo Reference/Von Gaylord/Acoustic Zen/Joseph Audio/Sound Kaos/Odeon/Sigma Acoustics/Kharma/Kondo speakers/Burmester speakers/PSB/Yamaha/Paradigm (Yes the Persona 9H), Audionec, Finale, Revel (Yes the Ultima Salon 2) etc.

Many fine speakers in that group - many I could listen to all day every day. The AN E isn't going to win a measurements shootout against some of these - I think every AN owner knows this. I mean let's be real here - they sell NOS CD players that measure the worst of any CD player design - that gets fed into a SET amplifier - which measures worse than SS amplifiers - that gets fed into middling measuring speakers.

We can all read the specs and if one can't Stereophile or ASR or Hi-Fi Choice or UHF or Soundstage have measurements that show the warts and people to explain the warts to people not able to read the graphs.

Every Audio Note owner doesn't come out of high school and buys a SET system - Most everyone starts with some sort of system from Best Buy - maybe a Yamaha receiver and Klipsch speakers (damn see I forgot Klipsch from my above list - heard buckets of these over the decades). Then if they have interest they go on forums and read the press - hey the recording studio bought B&W (George Lucas and Lucas film) as did Abbey Road Records - therefore they must be the most accurate and the most bestest because if the thing was recorded on a B&W you too should have the sam speaker so you get the "ideal sound." My logic seemed sound so I bought B&W and had Bryston (also used in buckets of recording studios. Look at the vanishingly low distortion of the amp - and the speakers were not perfect but then no speaker is perfect and all the magazines that did measurements gave them high ratings.

I think most audiophiles go down this path - it's a safe path I went down myself so I get it.

Moving FROM that setup to something that measures as ridiculously bad as AN with all their magic fairy dust hocus pocus voodoo silver black gate stuff is the question that makes people scratch their heads. But that is the reality - no one starts with AN (or stuff like AN ) - they often end up there.

What people don't allow for is "taste" - and what subjectivist audiophiles don't seem to acknowledge is that they are choosing taste over the best-measured performance - a subjectivist needs to be able to say the following "I auditioned a Benchmark preamp and power amp and DAC with Genelec speakers and this system measures VASTLY better than an AN system" - One must acknowledge facts - and that dear reader is a fact. But it's also perfectly fine to say - but for some strange reason every album I play from Eva Cassidy to Slipknot sounds so much better on the AN System - maybe it's the second harmonic distortion - maybe it's the TOOOOOBS - maybe it's the fatter bass or rounded treble - but I can enjoy listening to the AN system for 10 hours straight while I want to turn off the ATC/Benchmark system after 15 minutes. Am I buying the gear to impress posters on a forum or to enjoy music?

That is why Art Dudley of Stereophile bought those bad-measuring AN E /SPE speakers. Art Auditioned everything so in the end you make your choices based on how it sounds to you - that's why there are so many speaker makers out there. I am often surprised how many reviewers who have heard almost everything actually buy AN speakers in spite of their measured performance.

It's kind of funny because Audio Note actually can't keep up with their order book - back in 2002 they had 4 dealers in North America - they have over 20 In the US and Canada now and North America is only 5% of AN's business.

Even Stereophile, no doubt begrudgingly, chose the Audio Note Meishu 8-watt 300B SET amplifier as Amplifier of the Year - you can look up the measurements I suppose but all you needed to read was 300B and/or SET and you already know it's horrendously bad! Yet the people deciding based on listening picked it - yup even against the multitude of bomb-proof SS and class D amplifiers.

I know the measurements first guys will have to look it up - so here - the awful 300B measurements https://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-note-meishu-tonmeister-phono-integrated-amplifier

It's really tough for me because back in the day (2002) I was all set to buy Bryston Separates and I walked out of the dealer with a 10 wat SEP tube amp from a no-name brand (to me at the time) - I passed on ultra-low distortion 160 watts per channel - 20-year warranty - Big Name brand Bryston - for a plain box with no remote - didn't even have the tubes showing so it could at least look kind of interesting. So it goes. It won when the music played. And that's what the system is for - the music.

 

[Rosenild]

Hello Richard.


I appreciate your response however I find it troublesome to find logic behind your reasoning.

The postulate that a so-called "subjectivist audiophile" is wrong when he/she denies certain measurements is logical. Sir, you have to acknowledge the basic fact that human experience of sound is subjective. I do not deny the value of measurements however I question the value of them in regards to ones experience of sound. Let's imagine you are listening to an audio system and you think it is great. At the end of the listening demonstration you are shown that the measurements doesn't really match up with things like Genelec. Would the measurements matter more to you than your personal experience? Would the latter make you a "subjectivist" audiophile? No sir. There are no such thing as a subjectivist audiophile, because the opposite does not exist.

It's interesting in terms of valve-based amplifiers. I have heard a few amplifiers that I really enjoy and they are all valve-based and mostly Japanese. I would have a hard time understanding why Kondo, Audio Note, Shindo does so bad in measurements but sound so godly. Please tell me.

I excuse my poor English; it is not my native language.

 

[DanielT]

I am certainly in the AN cult group so take what I have to say with a grain of salt - and indeed, this forum is not exactly safe for anyone with personal preferences. I currently own three pairs of AN speakers - the AN E/SPx AlNiCo, the AN K/SPe, and the AN AX Two V1. Previously I owned the AN J/Spe and AN K/Spe (2002 model) and AN E/Lx Hemp.

As a bit of a frame of reference - these are some of the speakers I have auditioned over the last 30+ years: Mostly I gravitate to their top-of-the-line offerings
Wilson Audio/Magico/KEF/B&W(yes the Nautilus)/QUAD/Magnepan/FOCAL/ATC/JBL/AvanteGarde/Acapella Audio Arts/PMC/Harbeth/DeVore (not the newest flagship)/Spendor/Wharfedale/Gryphon/Meridian/MBL/Trenner and Friedl/Tannoy/Genelec/Cicero/Rossofiorintino/Reference 3a/Martin Logan/Rogers/ProAc/Totem/Lorenzo/Gobel/Audio Physic/Wilson Benesch/M&K/Meyer Sound Laboratories/PSI/AVID HIFI/Rockport/Fyne/ELAC/Ruark/Gallo Reference/Von Gaylord/Acoustic Zen/Joseph Audio/Sound Kaos/Odeon/Sigma Acoustics/Kharma/Kondo speakers/Burmester speakers/PSB/Yamaha/Paradigm (Yes the Persona 9H), Audionec, Finale, Revel (Yes the Ultima Salon 2) etc.

Many fine speakers in that group - many I could listen to all day every day. The AN E isn't going to win a measurements shootout against some of these - I think every AN owner knows this. I mean let's be real here - they sell NOS CD players that measure the worst of any CD player design - that gets fed into a SET amplifier - which measures worse than SS amplifiers - that gets fed into middling measuring speakers.

We can all read the specs and if one can't Stereophile or ASR or Hi-Fi Choice or UHF or Soundstage have measurements that show the warts and people to explain the warts to people not able to read the graphs.

Every Audio Note owner doesn't come out of high school and buys a SET system - Most everyone starts with some sort of system from Best Buy - maybe a Yamaha receiver and Klipsch speakers (damn see I forgot Klipsch from my above list - heard buckets of these over the decades). Then if they have interest they go on forums and read the press - hey the recording studio bought B&W (George Lucas and Lucas film) as did Abbey Road Records - therefore they must be the most accurate and the most bestest because if the thing was recorded on a B&W you too should have the sam speaker so you get the "ideal sound." My logic seemed sound so I bought B&W and had Bryston (also used in buckets of recording studios. Look at the vanishingly low distortion of the amp - and the speakers were not perfect but then no speaker is perfect and all the magazines that did measurements gave them high ratings.

I think most audiophiles go down this path - it's a safe path I went down myself so I get it.

Moving FROM that setup to something that measures as ridiculously bad as AN with all their magic fairy dust hocus pocus voodoo silver black gate stuff is the question that makes people scratch their heads. But that is the reality - no one starts with AN (or stuff like AN ) - they often end up there.

What people don't allow for is "taste" - and what subjectivist audiophiles don't seem to acknowledge is that they are choosing taste over the best-measured performance - a subjectivist needs to be able to say the following "I auditioned a Benchmark preamp and power amp and DAC with Genelec speakers and this system measures VASTLY better than an AN system" - One must acknowledge facts - and that dear reader is a fact. But it's also perfectly fine to say - but for some strange reason every album I play from Eva Cassidy to Slipknot sounds so much better on the AN System - maybe it's the second harmonic distortion - maybe it's the TOOOOOBS - maybe it's the fatter bass or rounded treble - but I can enjoy listening to the AN system for 10 hours straight while I want to turn off the ATC/Benchmark system after 15 minutes. Am I buying the gear to impress posters on a forum or to enjoy music?

That is why Art Dudley of Stereophile bought those bad-measuring AN E /SPE speakers. Art Auditioned everything so in the end you make your choices based on how it sounds to you - that's why there are so many speaker makers out there. I am often surprised how many reviewers who have heard almost everything actually buy AN speakers in spite of their measured performance.

It's kind of funny because Audio Note actually can't keep up with their order book - back in 2002 they had 4 dealers in North America - they have over 20 In the US and Canada now and North America is only 5% of AN's business.

Even Stereophile, no doubt begrudgingly, chose the Audio Note Meishu 8-watt 300B SET amplifier as Amplifier of the Year - you can look up the measurements I suppose but all you needed to read was 300B and/or SET and you already know it's horrendously bad! Yet the people deciding based on listening picked it - yup even against the multitude of bomb-proof SS and class D amplifiers.

I know the measurements first guys will have to look it up - so here - the awful 300B measurements https://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-note-meishu-tonmeister-phono-integrated-amplifier

It's really tough for me because back in the day (2002) I was all set to buy Bryston Separates and I walked out of the dealer with a 10 wat SEP tube amp from a no-name brand (to me at the time) - I passed on ultra-low distortion 160 watts per channel - 20-year warranty - Big Name brand Bryston - for a plain box with no remote - didn't even have the tubes showing so it could at least look kind of interesting. So it goes. It won when the music played. And that's what the system is for - the music.

Well spoken. You should of course listen to what you like and if it colors the signal in the form of distortion and or deviations from an ideal FR, so be it.

BUT a big difference from you and a lot of other subjectivists is that you reflect. You know what measurements are. You've listened to lots of different speakers and figured out what you like. That's the way it should be.

Just to show taste. Some like to use the loudness function on an amp at lower volumes, others don't. Some like speakers that have a little extra boost in the bass range, others don't.
Then we have the question of how the speakers should spread the sound, narrow and pinpoint focused or wide and large but then perhaps at the expense of accuracy or pinpoint focus. To take it to an extreme, omni speakers. It cannot be said that those who like them are wrong or right. They like what they like or they don't.

There is no strictly sonic reason why I use a vintage amp with a VU meter. I might as well have a modern class D amp. I have my vintage amp because I think it is beautiful and because it is part of Swedish HiFi history:



(not mine but that model)

Should probably be added that I think in and of itself with my current speakers I wouldn't hear any difference, even in a blind test between two such different amplifiers, vintage Luxor 7082A vs modern class D amp.

Blind test my current speakers vs speaker X, hell yes I could easily hear the difference. But hearing a difference between amps, as long as they are not driven into clipping and are able to power up the speakers you listen to in a good way, is a completely different matter.That is the conditions that the speaker's impedance fluctuations not cause deviations from FR then via the amp you listen to. By the way, which many modern TPA 3255 chip based class d amps can do. It in a way that vintage solid state class AB based amps don't.

 

[Mnyb]

I do understand why no one wants modern B&W speakers either , they are broken in a different way as can be seen in measurements of them . Showroom sounds that’s impressive for 15 minutes.

The last decades we got more and more designs that seems to work well with typical living room acoustics. Thats why i only pick from speakers with reasonable behaviour as measured in a spinorama
You quickly get used to anything btw.

 

[DanielT]

I do understand why no one wants modern B&W speakers either , they are broken in a different way as can be seen in measurements of them . Showroom sounds that’s impressive for 15 minutes.

The last decades we got more and more designs that seems to work well with typical living room acoustics. Thats why i only pick from speakers with reasonable behaviour as measured in a spinorama
You quickly get used to anything btw.

You might get used to the sound but it's best to have a few speakers to switch between and I'd venture to guess that most people then, even if they don't do intensive comparative speaker listening tests, after a number of months, if they listen to a lot of music, will use the neutral speakers (according to current ideals the best measuring) the most.

Plus the classic thing that you can be seduced by a certain sound, maybe a little extra boost in the highest frequencies and think oh what a lot of detail and airiness, or an extra bass boost that you initially think is cool. The kind of sound that you get tired of after listening for a long time (or do you tire of it quickly?) . Too much of it, so to speak.

Edit:
There are actually (as I know you know about) amplifiers that color the sound. A tube amp that, perhaps, fits together with the speakers you have, so the speakers get an extra boost, as for example Erin mentions about this amp. Not my cup of tea but people can like what they like:

 

[Mart68]

I am certainly in the AN cult group so take what I have to say with a grain of salt - and indeed, this forum is not exactly safe for anyone with personal preferences. I currently own three pairs of AN speakers - the AN E/SPx AlNiCo, the AN K/SPe, and the AN AX Two V1. Previously I owned the AN J/Spe and AN K/Spe (2002 model) and AN E/Lx Hemp.

As a bit of a frame of reference - these are some of the speakers I have auditioned over the last 30+ years: Mostly I gravitate to their top-of-the-line offerings
Wilson Audio/Magico/KEF/B&W(yes the Nautilus)/QUAD/Magnepan/FOCAL/ATC/JBL/AvanteGarde/Acapella Audio Arts/PMC/Harbeth/DeVore (not the newest flagship)/Spendor/Wharfedale/Gryphon/Meridian/MBL/Trenner and Friedl/Tannoy/Genelec/Cicero/Rossofiorintino/Reference 3a/Martin Logan/Rogers/ProAc/Totem/Lorenzo/Gobel/Audio Physic/Wilson Benesch/M&K/Meyer Sound Laboratories/PSI/AVID HIFI/Rockport/Fyne/ELAC/Ruark/Gallo Reference/Von Gaylord/Acoustic Zen/Joseph Audio/Sound Kaos/Odeon/Sigma Acoustics/Kharma/Kondo speakers/Burmester speakers/PSB/Yamaha/Paradigm (Yes the Persona 9H), Audionec, Finale, Revel (Yes the Ultima Salon 2) etc.

Many fine speakers in that group - many I could listen to all day every day. The AN E isn't going to win a measurements shootout against some of these - I think every AN owner knows this. I mean let's be real here - they sell NOS CD players that measure the worst of any CD player design - that gets fed into a SET amplifier - which measures worse than SS amplifiers - that gets fed into middling measuring speakers.

We can all read the specs and if one can't Stereophile or ASR or Hi-Fi Choice or UHF or Soundstage have measurements that show the warts and people to explain the warts to people not able to read the graphs.

Every Audio Note owner doesn't come out of high school and buys a SET system - Most everyone starts with some sort of system from Best Buy - maybe a Yamaha receiver and Klipsch speakers (damn see I forgot Klipsch from my above list - heard buckets of these over the decades). Then if they have interest they go on forums and read the press - hey the recording studio bought B&W (George Lucas and Lucas film) as did Abbey Road Records - therefore they must be the most accurate and the most bestest because if the thing was recorded on a B&W you too should have the sam speaker so you get the "ideal sound." My logic seemed sound so I bought B&W and had Bryston (also used in buckets of recording studios. Look at the vanishingly low distortion of the amp - and the speakers were not perfect but then no speaker is perfect and all the magazines that did measurements gave them high ratings.

I think most audiophiles go down this path - it's a safe path I went down myself so I get it.

Moving FROM that setup to something that measures as ridiculously bad as AN with all their magic fairy dust hocus pocus voodoo silver black gate stuff is the question that makes people scratch their heads. But that is the reality - no one starts with AN (or stuff like AN ) - they often end up there.

What people don't allow for is "taste" - and what subjectivist audiophiles don't seem to acknowledge is that they are choosing taste over the best-measured performance - a subjectivist needs to be able to say the following "I auditioned a Benchmark preamp and power amp and DAC with Genelec speakers and this system measures VASTLY better than an AN system" - One must acknowledge facts - and that dear reader is a fact. But it's also perfectly fine to say - but for some strange reason every album I play from Eva Cassidy to Slipknot sounds so much better on the AN System - maybe it's the second harmonic distortion - maybe it's the TOOOOOBS - maybe it's the fatter bass or rounded treble - but I can enjoy listening to the AN system for 10 hours straight while I want to turn off the ATC/Benchmark system after 15 minutes. Am I buying the gear to impress posters on a forum or to enjoy music?

That is why Art Dudley of Stereophile bought those bad-measuring AN E /SPE speakers. Art Auditioned everything so in the end you make your choices based on how it sounds to you - that's why there are so many speaker makers out there. I am often surprised how many reviewers who have heard almost everything actually buy AN speakers in spite of their measured performance.

It's kind of funny because Audio Note actually can't keep up with their order book - back in 2002 they had 4 dealers in North America - they have over 20 In the US and Canada now and North America is only 5% of AN's business.

Even Stereophile, no doubt begrudgingly, chose the Audio Note Meishu 8-watt 300B SET amplifier as Amplifier of the Year - you can look up the measurements I suppose but all you needed to read was 300B and/or SET and you already know it's horrendously bad! Yet the people deciding based on listening picked it - yup even against the multitude of bomb-proof SS and class D amplifiers.

I know the measurements first guys will have to look it up - so here - the awful 300B measurements https://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-note-meishu-tonmeister-phono-integrated-amplifier

It's really tough for me because back in the day (2002) I was all set to buy Bryston Separates and I walked out of the dealer with a 10 wat SEP tube amp from a no-name brand (to me at the time) - I passed on ultra-low distortion 160 watts per channel - 20-year warranty - Big Name brand Bryston - for a plain box with no remote - didn't even have the tubes showing so it could at least look kind of interesting. So it goes. It won when the music played. And that's what the system is for - the music.

Your confusing a number of things here.

No-one is knocking your personal taste in music presentation and no-one is saying that you must buy the best measuring equipment or you are 'Doing it wrong.' (well some might but I'm not).

Understanding measurements and how audio replay works is still very useful even if you want to go down a different route. For example, why pay all that extra money to get the Audionote speaker with silver cable inside? We know that makes no difference to the sound waves exiting the speaker.

Knowledge lets us separate fact from fiction, we can then make more efficient and cost-effective choices. We can then get that Audionote presentation - if that's what we desire - for a lot less money than Audionote charge for it.

''Even Stereophile, no doubt begrudgingly, chose the Audio Note Meishu 8-watt 300B SET amplifier as Amplifier of the Year''

'Begrudgingly'? They routinely recommend products that offer very poor value for money, and have been doing that for decades. There's very few people writing for that magazine that have the first idea about audio. Like all Hi-Fi magazines, it's a thinly disguised advertising brochure, not an independent reference or authority.

 

[DanielT]

Your confusing a number of things here.

No-one is knocking your personal taste in music presentation and no-one is saying that you must buy the best measuring equipment or you are 'Doing it wrong.' (well some might but I'm not).

Understanding measurements and how audio replay works is still very useful even if you want to go down a different route. For example, why pay all that extra money to get the Audionote speaker with silver cable inside? We know that makes no difference to the sound waves exiting the speaker.

Knowledge lets us separate fact from fiction, we can then make more efficient and cost-effective choices. We can then get that Audionote presentation - if that's what we desire - for a lot less money than Audionote charge for it.

''Even Stereophile, no doubt begrudgingly, chose the Audio Note Meishu 8-watt 300B SET amplifier as Amplifier of the Year''

'Begrudgingly'? They routinely recommend products that offer very poor value for money, and have been doing that for decades. There's very few people writing for that magazine that have the first idea about audio. Like all Hi-Fi magazines, it's a thinly disguised advertising brochure, not an independent reference or authority.

Speaking of that. It would be interesting to see if you let 5-10 people listen to the same music. Each goes into the listening room by himself. There are some subwoofers that are turned down to 0. Everyone who listens can turn up the volume on the subwoofers to their personal taste in music (bass level). Wonder if it would differ much between them how they set up the subwoofers? Or rather, how much would it differ between them?

Perhaps such a test has already been carried out?

 

[Mart68]

Speaking of that. It would be interesting to see if you let 5-10 people listen to the same music. Each goes into the listening room by himself. There are some subwoofers that are turned down to 0. Everyone who listens can turn up the volume on the subwoofers to their personal taste in music (bass level). Wonder if it would differ much between them how they set up the subwoofers? Or rather, how much would it differ between them?

Perhaps such a test has already been carried out?

seem to recall Toole/Olive found that the 'man in the street' liked the bass frequencies at a higher amplitude than the trained listeners did.

 

[Bjorn]

Audio Note speakers are very midrange focused in their tuning, something that can be very intriguing with some music. I used to have a pair but ended up only listening to certain types of music. So I sold them within a year or so and with speakers that were more neutral tuned and that worked with broader music genre.

The midrange tuning is of course easy to copy with a DSP. The drivers, cabinet, etc are nothing special and are very old school with no or little development over the years.

Some of the worst sound I've heard at audio shows have been from Audio Note rooms. Especially those corner speakers in a small room with no acoustics treatment. Incredible harshness and listening fatigue for me. But I've also heard Audio Note sounding fascinating at shows with the midrange focus.

 

[Mart68]

Some 'interesting' claims are made in this article:

Audio Note Oto Phono SE Signature Integrated Amplifier - Page 2 of 4 - Positive Feedback

The Audio Note (UK) Oto Phono SE Signature Integrated Amplifier – An Affordable Masterpiece!

positive-feedback.com

''Peter Qvortrup's perspective on when the branches of the music reproduction chain in audio were at their peak points of development were 1950 - 1960 for the recording quality peak, the software quality peak occurred 1950 - 1960, the amplification quality peak occurred 1920 - 1930, and the loudspeaker quality peak occurred in late 1930s, and was led by cinema sound research & development.''

''Peter's loudspeakers are designed to work optimally in room corner positions, which basically takes room boundary acoustic issues out of the equation.''

''This is also why Peter's Audio Note (UK) systems perform so superbly in the generally "challenging" environment of hotel rooms at hifi shows, as they're designed to get the best out of the music while not being adversely affected by a room's boundaries, and the acoustic compromises they always have. The room is taken out of the equation.''

 

[Bjorn]

A well designed corner loaded horn speaker makes a lot of sense. But a corner loaded front firing speaker with wide dispersion leads to high gain early reflections which are very bad.

 

[Richard Austen]

Hello Richard.


I appreciate your response however I find it troublesome to find logic behind your reasoning.

The postulate that a so-called "subjectivist audiophile" is wrong when he/she denies certain measurements is logical. Sir, you have to acknowledge the basic fact that human experience of sound is subjective. I do not deny the value of measurements however I question the value of them in regards to ones experience of sound. Let's imagine you are listening to an audio system and you think it is great. At the end of the listening demonstration you are shown that the measurements doesn't really match up with things like Genelec. Would the measurements matter more to you than your personal experience? Would the latter make you a "subjectivist" audiophile? No sir. There are no such thing as a subjectivist audiophile, because the opposite does not exist.

It's interesting in terms of valve-based amplifiers. I have heard a few amplifiers that I really enjoy and they are all valve-based and mostly Japanese. I would have a hard time understanding why Kondo, Audio Note, Shindo does so bad in measurements but sound so godly. Please tell me.

I excuse my poor English; it is not my native language.

Well - I can't speak for all companies but Audio Note actually hires people with degrees in engineering and they use some of the best measuring and test equipment in the audio industry. So they measure and test and pair match their speakers to very tight tolerances. Most speaker makers and amp makers do this and they all make choices - many of them make choices that they feel sound better even if it runs contrary to what ASR or Stereophile might say is best. Richard Vandersteen (oops another one I forgot to mention) is an example. But makers make choices - some will choose Omni-directional - some feel planars or ESLs are the best approaches - narrow baffle vs wide baffle VS Open baffle (oops forgot Pure Audio Project) - Horns - Line Arrays (oops forgot Scaena), single Driver speakers (oops forgot Voxativ), Sub Satellite - all of these makers have their reasons and all of them try to put out some technical reason for doing it their way and all of them give up something to get something.

The terms objectivist and subjectivist are arguably used incorrectly in absolute terms. Manufacturers measure the equipment and they make choices as to what they think sounds best. Objectivist audiophiles - focus on measured performance trying to get the output to equal what the input was - straight wire with gain in amplifiers - speakers that measure flat on and off-axis with low distortion with the widest frequency response etc. And most will adhere to the DBT approach that if you do not tell A from B to the .05 level of statistical significance then there is no difference beyond detecting any better than chance. Although it is interesting that Audio Note gear wins these shootouts as do amplifiers like the Sugden A21 against better measuring amps. Stereophile did a blind test with a Radford tube amp for $100 VS $3,000 SS amps - and even the designers of the SS amplifier picked the Radford as sounding the best.

It's important to try and remove bias from these evaluations because price/name/looks and for that matter measurements can bias you TOO an amplifier or Speaker or AWAY from a speaker. On another forum - a fellow liked a speaker - was going to buy it but then read a measurement that the pair matching wasn't very good so he crossed it off his list. But he didn't hear it - he just read it. Huh? Ken Kessler is a reviewer who always did pair-matching measurements and made a big deal of it - but he still bought Quad Electrostatic that were off by +/-5.9dB (pretty damn terrible) - this is the guy that cares the most about this measurement always going on about it then buys speakers that are pretty horrendous at that very measurement - because - umm he liked them - ESLs have a certain "something-something" that he likes. You can't say he doesn't know what he is buying. I think anyone who hears a Quad or Soundlab (damn did I forget these too) - they have a type of sound you're not getting from some NRC-approved Floyd E Toole-approved Revel. I am sure the Revel is "more right" in terms of whatever the measurements tell you but what is also true is SoundLab has a sound that boxes don't equal - what is better is then to your taste. How do you want that favourite artist presented - do you want it balls accurate - Black Coffee - or do you want it with Cream - or do you want it with both Cream and Sugar. Or do you want Tea?

Is it objectively wrong to ruin the Coffee with Cream? Is it Objectively Wrong to have your Steak cooked above rare? Is it objectively wrong to put BBQ sauce on Pork Ribs? You buy the system that plays your favourite music the way that pleases you. If that to you is all Benchmark and Topping - great - if it is Shindo and Analog Domain 8000 watt SS amplifiers - great - if it is AN or Kondo or Accuphase or whatever - that's great.

No one needs to be "saved" - there is a saying "Never feel sorry for anyone who owns a boat" - that saying came about because if you could afford a boat and the upkeep the boat requires - you have no money issues. And that is true for the guy I saw handing over an envelope to the Audio Note dealer here in Hong Kong with $12,000 USD to buy two AN Cables. I talked to him - he buys the best cables from all the companies - in cash. Is he buying a placebo? Maybe - but he's the guy with the boat - he doesn't need to be saved. If all these audio savers spent their time trying to convince the flat earthers and climate change deniers who are dumb as rocks - then they might put their time to good use. Saving some millionaires from spending too much on Tooobs and cables seems like a waste.

 

[GM3]

To me, they've always been snake oil speakers. Even at a tenth of the price, I'm really not sure how good of a buy they would be, I certainly wouldn't purchase a pair even at 1/10th... Come on, 2 way, 1980s design, stick it in the corner speaker?! Wtf... I've always been extremely puzzled on how they sold for that much $$$... Probably the poster child for snake oil speakers.

So they measure and test and pair match their speakers to very tight tolerances.

What does that matter when they measure like poop and speakers costing much less than a 10th do a much better job as transducers?

IMHO, all about philosophy, as mentioned, you want to color your sound, do it via DSP, not speakers, amps, cables, etc. That's not the job of the speaker; your speaker isn't supposed to fix anything. Just accurately convert the signal to sound. Same for amp, cable, etc. 'Designer' speakers like these... Waste of $$.

Is it objectively wrong to ruin the Coffee with Cream?

It's wrong to charge $75 for a coffee because it's a designer coffee that contains cream made from special tits milk? Yes. See a fool and his money & absolute waste of money, like $1000 $6000usd hamburger with gold leafs. The notion that such products are worth the price is quite a bit BS, if you believe so, you should revisit your ... lack of common sense on ... on the topic. Really only 'good' for people who just have too much money and have ran out of things to spend it on... It's just excess; nonsensical.

No one needs to be "saved"

That's a tough philosophical question. See a fool and his money. Should the fool be saved from himself? What if he doesn't want to be saved, and instead wants to continue acting like a fool, and wants to continue to spread BS in peace and encourage other fools to also be scammed? His choice right? Is it wrong to want him to stop encouraging snake oil and bs?