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Audio Note speakers

I suspect you’re not really waiting for ASR members to affirm the “greatness” of Audio Note speakers ;-)

I auditioned, audio notes speakers, and their usual configuration set up near room corners. I thought they sounded quite nice.
I also heard a small pair of sound really terrific had an audio show.

The last time I listened to audio note speakers, was that an audio store a while back. it was one of their cheaper models, they look similar to the above models. In this case they were pulled out into the room more. They sounded absolutely horrid. Thin and bright as hell. I cut my listening time short with those things.
so how did the speakers sound compare with jaws ?
 
A sound engineer is not necesairly one with an egineering education. Many come from the musical side of the music bussiness, certainly today. I worked for years freelance as engineer, in the live circuit (mainly dj soudsystems and big festivals), radio (broadcast and live concerts on air) and as recording and mixing engineer (mostly hired by the artist themselves) with no formal eduction in engineering or sound at all. I'm a school dropout who learned most of the stuff i do myself. I'm a former bass and cello player (can't play anymore because of broken hand), producer (largely electronic music) and dj, and came from that side into sound engineering. Here in Belgium formal training as sound engineer was almost no existing untill the start of the 21st century, you learned it on the job, starting at the bottom.

Now i work in ICT (due to back problems) and also there i have no formal training, only diy knowledge.
Your answer was a response to whether a music producer automatically becomes a good speaker manufacturer. Or did I misinterpret that?
You yourself have been active in various roles within the music scene. You have also built DIY speakers. Thus there are similarities between you and Damien Quintard.

I dare say that based on what you write about here on ASR and thus signaled your level of knowledge and DIY experience that you could build a pair of two-way speakers with 8 bass drivers that measure and thus sound better then Audio Note's speakers. :) I say this with no intention of flattering you but it is what I believe. But Waxx you don't have to because that DIYs speaker already exist,which I referenced in #777. :) ;)

This you know about Waxx, I just mention it to others:
A short repetition of what was previously mentioned in the thread for those who missed it; or you build nothing but instead get a couple of used Snell III speakers.
The Snell model from which the (unnecessarily) expensive Audio Note got its design.
Just make sure that they are in good condition. Refoam done on the bass drivers surrounds recently for example?

Obvious similarities in design philosophy. Baffle design regarding width for example between:
Snell Type E / III:
5792811-7659-5__45467.1511219582.jpg

...and
Audio Note:
Screenshot_20240306_051821_Chrome.jpg


(for those of you in Sweden/the Nordics, there is also the QRS 500 speaker as an option)
 
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There are many famous models like that, with a small tweeter and a 8 or 10" woofer, and many historical are better than what audio note (or also Devore audio) tries to sell for way to much money. It's a very simple design and then i prefer the originals (the Snell and Dynaco A25 and A35 speakers).

And i design and build speakers because i like it, it's a hobby. But i do use the science i know (I certainly don't know it all), not some snake oil stories to get where i want. Audio note clearly don't do that, they rely on snake oil.
 
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And you don't need those drivers to make a similar speaker. They are not that special, it's basicly a well damped paper cone woofer and a tweeter that goes relative low without waveguide. The trick is the cabinet and the simple crossover (that is possible because of driver choice). The original woofer of the dynaco A25 is still made in a modern form (very close to the original) by it's historical OEM manufacturor Seas, it's called the A26RE4. And even that driver is not needed, some made good sounding variation of it with cheap GRS and Monacor paper cones also. For tweeter there are also modern options to replace the original Seas H087 that fit good like the SB26ADC or the Seas T35C002, or even the Morel CAT378 that devore uses (with the A26RE4 woofer btw). On diyaudio you find whole treads about this kind of speakers and how to make the original designs better (with measurements).

The difficult part is the cabinet, where Dynaco and Snell used resistive loaded or aperiodic vented cabinets to get low bass. Something both Audio Note and Devore don't do, probally because they don't understand how that works...
 
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Plus for those who are interested in some good DIY design but don't have the time, knowledge, tools, opportunity or whatever it depends on to build, they can always support the local carpentry shop and ask them to build the speaker boxes.:) Compared to Audio Note , what it will cost, they have a lot of money to spend at the carpentry shop considering that Audio Note, #1 :
They have so many models and they're not exactly cheap (can cost over $100K)

Dynaco A-25 , if speaker stands are needed same as with the carpentry shop , but go to the local welding shop and ask them to make a pair of stands.:)
(if you don't want them made of wood)
 
The original woofer of the dynaco A25 is still made in a modern form (very close to the original) by it's historical OEM manufacturor Seas, it's called the A26RE4. And even that driver is not needed, some made good sounding variation of it with cheap GRS and Monacor paper cones also.
I got curious and checked. You are right. It seems popular with Dynaco A25 related projects. DIY copies, new bass drivers and so on because GRS created this one::)
Screenshot_2024-11-30_092734.jpg


 
I had the opportunity to hear AN speakers for the first time about a month ago. They were set up in the room corners with matching electronics. The best I can describe their sound is like a not horrible generic speaker from the 80s you buy blind second hand and are happy it's not a dud. Not offensive, rather dark, nothing special. What was interesting to me - they were like the opposite of a typical audiophile speaker. The sound was so unspectacular that it forced me to listen to the music rather than the gear. I could say they were transparent in this way, not by frequency response or anything like that, but by the way they were just in the background of the events. I could definitely live with them if given for free or bought second hand for 500€
 
Expensive mediocrity sounds about right.
Keith
 
A sound engineer is not necesairly one with an egineering education. Many come from the musical side of the music bussiness, certainly today. I worked for years freelance as engineer, in the live circuit (mainly dj soudsystems and big festivals), radio (broadcast and live concerts on air) and as recording and mixing engineer (mostly hired by the artist themselves) with no formal eduction in engineering or sound at all. I'm a school dropout who learned most of the stuff i do myself. I'm a former bass and cello player (can't play anymore because of broken hand), producer (largely electronic music) and dj, and came from that side into sound engineering. Here in Belgium formal training as sound engineer was almost no existing untill the start of the 21st century, you learned it on the job, starting at the bottom.

Now i work in ICT (due to back problems) and also there i have no formal training, only diy knowledge.

The problem is that in audio there are endless sliding scales of "qualifications." I debated what "Professional" means with John Atkinson on another forum when people refer to equipment reviewers, such as myself, as "professional reviewers." In the US, a professional is anyone who gets paid to do their job. In Canada, a professional belongs to a "profession" such as teaching, medicine, law, etc. A teacher belongs to a professional body and a teacher can lose their job if they act unprofessionally. They will go in front of a board and can lose their license. Thus, in the USA you can be hired because your buddy is the editor of The Absolute Sound not because you belong to a profession.

Being a reviewer or recording engineer has no "professional body" or series of standards - anyone can be a reviewer and anyone can be a recording engineer. You will ultimately be judged by your readership and the musicians who employ you to record or master their material. If you are good you will get more clients. If you're not you won't.

And the better you are, the bigger the acts that you will get. When Brad Pitt reopened Miravel Studios he could pretty much hire anyone in the world - he hired Damian Quintard.

I digress. The car reviewer, the speaker or amplifier reviewer, the camera reviewer, and the coffee machine reviewer do not need to be an "engineer" since the reviewer isn't designing these things. Their job is to evaluate how good the product is relative to other similarly priced items - they evaluate the end-user experience. Does the coffee taste good - yes or no - if not it's a bad machine no matter what technical prowess or complexity of design exists in the machine. A mechanic or engineer may be able to write 12 white papers on how great the engine and transmission are but you don't need to be an engineer to determine if the thing is gutless in 3rd gear or if the seats are as comfortable as a brick. For audio, the ears are the only arbiter of quality - this tonmeisters, musicians, classical composers, mastering engineers, and generally people with perfect pitch and/or perfect relative pitch, etc. Again it doesn't matter one iota whether a speaker is using a silk dome tweeter or a ribbon or AMT or a BE. It matters to design and marketing perhaps just as pointless features in a car matter so that they have "something to sell" as a "feature." The end result - does speaker A make this piano sound more like a piano than B? If yes then all the technobabble in the world isn't going to make speaker B sound better than A.

A recording engineer like Damian Quintard or Steve Hoffman does not need to know how the mixing board is designed and whether the caps are Dueland or Mundorf. He does not need to know how to design and build a mixing board from the ground up. His job is to use different mixing boards and choose the best.

Most people tend to cast a wide net for reviews - which is why Rotten Tomatoes exists. That site takes 100s of reviews to get an overall score - 90% of critics like a movie then it's "probably" going to be a good movie. Of course, you could always be in the 10% group who doesn't like it but such is the world of statistics.

Thus one can look at the following parameters when it comes to speakers for audiophiles (the people who care more about home sound quality)

1) Sales to audiophiles (does it sell to people who care most about audio reproduction of music)

2) Length of time the speaker has sold (longevity)- many speakers sell for a while - then have big sales and get replaced. If the speaker was good in 2000 it should still be good in 2025.

3) Is it well-reviewed by experienced reviewers around the world in a multitude of magazines (also factoring in number 2)

4) Does the speaker have crossover appeal in that a wide section of people with varying listening preferences and backgrounds like the speakers? Musicians, composers, audiophiles, reviewers, REs, Mastering Engineers. A cross-section of people willing to pay premium dollars for such a speaker having heard the competition? It's one thing to come out with a flashy new product and sell it for a few years and discontinue it. I think it's another matter to sell for over 30 years and after all that time you can't keep up with demand.
 
The problem is that in audio there are endless sliding scales of "qualifications." I debated what "Professional" means with John Atkinson on another forum when people refer to equipment reviewers, such as myself, as "professional reviewers." In the US, a professional is anyone who gets paid to do their job. In Canada, a professional belongs to a "profession" such as teaching, medicine, law, etc. A teacher belongs to a professional body and a teacher can lose their job if they act unprofessionally. They will go in front of a board and can lose their license. Thus, in the USA you can be hired because your buddy is the editor of The Absolute Sound not because you belong to a profession.

Being a reviewer or recording engineer has no "professional body" or series of standards - anyone can be a reviewer and anyone can be a recording engineer. You will ultimately be judged by your readership and the musicians who employ you to record or master their material. If you are good you will get more clients. If you're not you won't.

And the better you are, the bigger the acts that you will get. When Brad Pitt reopened Miravel Studios he could pretty much hire anyone in the world - he hired Damian Quintard.

I digress. The car reviewer, the speaker or amplifier reviewer, the camera reviewer, and the coffee machine reviewer do not need to be an "engineer" since the reviewer isn't designing these things. Their job is to evaluate how good the product is relative to other similarly priced items - they evaluate the end-user experience. Does the coffee taste good - yes or no - if not it's a bad machine no matter what technical prowess or complexity of design exists in the machine. A mechanic or engineer may be able to write 12 white papers on how great the engine and transmission are but you don't need to be an engineer to determine if the thing is gutless in 3rd gear or if the seats are as comfortable as a brick. For audio, the ears are the only arbiter of quality - this tonmeisters, musicians, classical composers, mastering engineers, and generally people with perfect pitch and/or perfect relative pitch, etc. Again it doesn't matter one iota whether a speaker is using a silk dome tweeter or a ribbon or AMT or a BE. It matters to design and marketing perhaps just as pointless features in a car matter so that they have "something to sell" as a "feature." The end result - does speaker A make this piano sound more like a piano than B? If yes then all the technobabble in the world isn't going to make speaker B sound better than A.

A recording engineer like Damian Quintard or Steve Hoffman does not need to know how the mixing board is designed and whether the caps are Dueland or Mundorf. He does not need to know how to design and build a mixing board from the ground up. His job is to use different mixing boards and choose the best.

Most people tend to cast a wide net for reviews - which is why Rotten Tomatoes exists. That site takes 100s of reviews to get an overall score - 90% of critics like a movie then it's "probably" going to be a good movie. Of course, you could always be in the 10% group who doesn't like it but such is the world of statistics.

Thus one can look at the following parameters when it comes to speakers for audiophiles (the people who care more about home sound quality)

1) Sales to audiophiles (does it sell to people who care most about audio reproduction of music)

2) Length of time the speaker has sold (longevity)- many speakers sell for a while - then have big sales and get replaced. If the speaker was good in 2000 it should still be good in 2025.

3) Is it well-reviewed by experienced reviewers around the world in a multitude of magazines (also factoring in number 2)

4) Does the speaker have crossover appeal in that a wide section of people with varying listening preferences and backgrounds like the speakers? Musicians, composers, audiophiles, reviewers, REs, Mastering Engineers. A cross-section of people willing to pay premium dollars for such a speaker having heard the competition? It's one thing to come out with a flashy new product and sell it for a few years and discontinue it. I think it's another matter to sell for over 30 years and after all that time you can't keep up with demand.
These are all just appeals to authority and that doesn't work.

Nor does judging the speaker against the 'sound of real instruments.'

Which piano? In what room? Recorded how? Close to? Far away? What has been added in production? Some artificial reverb? Other effects? Now where's the benchmark to a 'real piano?'

Most reviewers have no clue how recordings are actually made, and no idea how the equipment works. Many use silly price cables, magic power cables, magic boxes of gravel, high priced isolation feet, racks costing thousands, all of which they think improve the sound when they in fact do nothing.

They think audio electronics are musical instruments, and review them as such. DACs have their own tone and timbre, so do amplifiers, even CD transports have 'a sound'.

And these are the experts and professionals* who we are supposed to be paying attention to when we buy a speaker? Really just a big joke..

(*Okay there are a handful of exceptions. Literally).
 
These are all just appeals to authority and that doesn't work.

Nor does judging the speaker against the 'sound of real instruments.'

Which piano? In what room? Recorded how? Close to? Far away? What has been added in production? Some artificial reverb? Other effects? Now where's the benchmark to a 'real piano?'

Most reviewers have no clue how recordings are actually made, and no idea how the equipment works. Many use silly price cables, magic power cables, magic boxes of gravel, high priced isolation feet, racks costing thousands, all of which they think improve the sound when they in fact do nothing.

They think audio electronics are musical instruments, and review them as such. DACs have their own tone and timbre, so do amplifiers, even CD transports have 'a sound'.

And these are the experts and professionals* who we are supposed to be paying attention to when we buy a speaker? Really just a big joke..

(*Okay there are a handful of exceptions. Literally).
Yes the recording is in itself an artifice . Microphones are not ears . So the recording engineer needs to make judgment calls on microphone placements ( there usually several mixed together at a piano for example ) and if necessary apply EQ to make the recording resemble what the acoustic event was. This evaluation is done with speakers or headphones :) hence the circle of confusion regarding speakers , the actual sound of the recording is not possible to know .

hence don't use weirdly designed speakers , modern studios use speakers designed to current science standards .
You have some hope of getting similar results of you too use moderns speakers designed with current science none of them are exactly equal as speakers never can be this . But they aspire to similar goals .

Using a weird outlier as AN ? You're practically guaranteed to get something not heard by anyone making the recording , you loose .
 
hence don't use weirdly designed speakers , modern studios use speakers designed to current science standards .
...
Using a weird outlier as AN ? You're practically guaranteed to get something not heard by anyone making the recording , you loose .
A search on active near-field monitor shows that Thomann has 408 of these. Guess which manufacturer they have the most models of:

Yamaha.The meaning of life, the universe and everything: 42 different speakers.:)

Anyway, to my point. Supply and demand.Certainly many HiFi enthusiasts buy active speakers, but if the professional studio world had not wanted this type of active monitors, Thomann would not have sold them. If the professional studio world wanted passive floor-standing two-way speakers with 8 bass drivers in them, there would also have been companies that focused on selling such to the professional studio world. That is not the case.
(there are probably exceptions, but I mean generally, the large bulk of speakers that the professional studio world uses are not...)

Screenshot_2024-12-02_112405.jpg
 
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So the recording engineer needs to make judgment calls on microphone placements ( there usually several mixed together at a piano for example ) and if necessary apply EQ to make the recording resemble what the acoustic event was.
Even assuming that's his goal, which it isn't always, especially with popular music (pop, rock) where the overall 'feel' of the mix is what's important, not making the piano sound like a 'real piano.'
 
Even assuming that's his goal, which it isn't always, especially with popular music (pop, rock) where the overall 'feel' of the mix is what's important, not making the piano sound like a 'real piano.'
And a lot of music is never played live, but sequenced with synths or samplers, and not only now, it's going on since at least the early 70's in some genres and became mainstream in the 80's with hiphop, the new wave and synthpop (among others).

This song, from 1998, is litterally a scrath dj (Mix Master Mike) making a beat with a few records to sample from the turntable, and 3 mc's (The Beastie Boys). It's one of the more known examples of music that is only voice and samples, but many were made like this, also outside hiphop.

 
Cannot get much simpler than a sealed two way speaker with big baffle. Now making that much coin from it is................ Bose like. Impressive.
 
And a lot of music is never played live, but sequenced with synths or samplers, and not only now, it's going on since at least the early 70's in some genres and became mainstream in the 80's with hiphop, the new wave and synthpop (among others).

This song, from 1998, is litterally a scrath dj (Mix Master Mike) making a beat with a few records to sample from the turntable, and 3 mc's (The Beastie Boys). It's one of the more known examples of music that is only voice and samples, but many were made like this, also outside hiphop.
'Sabotage' - great tune and possibly one of the best videos ever:


Is listening to how 'realistic' the snare drum is the best way to evaluate how good a speaker is at playing this sort of music? I think not.
 
'Sabotage' - great tune and possibly one of the best videos ever:


Is listening to how 'realistic' the snare drum is the best way to evaluate how good a speaker is at playing this sort of music? I think not.
Yes it’s the best video ever :) to all my coworkers dismay I have intergalactic as ringtone…
 
Cannot get much simpler than a sealed two way speaker with big baffle. Now making that much coin from it is................ Bose like. Impressive.
Irony, I suspect. :)

In any case. They were already able to create sensible two-way speakers with 8 inch bass drivers about fifty years ago. But okay, "They" was KEF, so that might explain the matter. :)

I don't remember if we brought these KEF up in the thread before when comparing to Audio Note? On the used market, probably around a thirty (forty?) pair of these for the price of a pair of Audio Notes.

Screenshot_2024-12-02_180046.jpgScreenshot_2024-12-02_180704.jpg
Fifty year old speakers probably need a check and service. Possibly change to new capacitors in the crossover, investigate how the t27 tweeter is doing, check that the drivers measure the same and so on.A project for our Waxx.:);)
 
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@Mnyb - Your point is well taken.

When we have a subjective response to music sound quality, coffee, seat comfort in a car, a singer, an artist, a novelist, or a poet - the only appeal that actually matters is the appeal we make to ourselves.

The appeal to "authority" exists when we attempt to show others that our view is not in isolation. The idea is to gain support through numbers, and an "authority figure" is an attempt to say that coffee X must be pretty good because these three Michelin Star Chef/coffee-tasting experts tell us coffee X you that it's better than the $2 a kilogram MJB you buy at Walmart. But if you like the MJB - no amount of expert blather will convince you to buy Coffee X.

You can gather all the experts you like to tell me Brussels Sprouts are the healthiest vegetable - but I wretch when I smell those Invasion of the Body-Snatcher pods.

So the appeals to authority won't work if you have decided you don't like the sound of a speaker or a singer's voice, the ride comfort of a Porsche etc. IE; words can never trump first-hand experience. I read one article that said Bob Dylan was one of the ten best singers in history for example - umm okay - Song writing I'll give him but as a singer?
 
hence don't use weirdly designed speakers , modern studios use speakers designed to current science standards .
You have some hope of getting similar results of you too use moderns speakers designed with current science none of them are exactly equal as speakers never can be this . But they aspire to similar goals .

I’ve written before that is a reasonable approach. There’s no absolutes or perfection available, so any number of approaches can be justified, certainly including the one you just argued for.

That said… I am of the view that you don’t necessarily lose much in straying from mixing room, monitor neutrality.

Using a weird outlier as AN ? You're practically guaranteed to get something not heard by anyone making the recording , you loose .

Could be, but to what degree And to what consequence?

When I was speaker shopping several years ago, I auditioned a large number of loudspeakers (including Revel, Magico, Kii Audio) and what I heard through the Audio Note speakers I auditioned didn’t seem far off what I was used to hearing and tracks and what I heard on many other speakers. The sound seemed generally fairly balanced.

(that’s my impression from one pair that I auditioned that were properly set up. Another cheaper pair of AN speakers pulled out in to a small room sounded atrocious)
 
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