Audio Note AN-E upgrade?

[Sclalars]

Does anyone know anything about crossover upgrade for Audio Note AN-E?
I`m asking for a friend of mine, who bought these in 1995.
I`m looking for specifications on the parts.

Thanks in advance!

Sclalars

 

[sreten]

http://www.hifichoice.co.uk/review_read.asp?ID=475

hi,

you could just replace / upgrade the resistors and capacitors.

Would be best to work out the c/o and post it here with
the types of components - and then get some advice here.

Paralleling capacitors may be the way to go - you
may be able to reuse the ones fitted somwhere else.

For an opinion on caps (see designs for different resistors):

http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html

/sreten.

 

[Sclalars]

Thank you sreten.

On Audio Note`s homepage there are several upgrade kits, but only for preamps and amps, not loudspeekers.

I`ve heard for some time ago, that they had an upgrade kit for AN-E, so I thought maybe someone on this forum had done an upgrade on their speakers and could give me some advise.

I`ll find out what`s in that speaker, and post it here.

Sorry for any bad English!

Thanks again!

Sclalars

 

[sreten]

I`ve heard for some time ago, that they had an upgrade kit for AN-E,

Hi,

if you read the review I posted, I suspect upgrade was dealer only,

/sreten.

 

[bambadoo]

Remember each AN speaker has been matched within 0.2 db.
This is one issue that make the "magic AN sound"
This means that if you make changes to the XO the balance between the speakers will be altered.
I would not recommend changing the XO components in an AN speaker, just the internal wiring.

The way that I understand it is that AN hand selects each component for the crossovers so that they match very tightly with the drivers in the speakers. I have been told that becauses of variances in drivers that you may find components of slightly different values from speaker to speaker. All of this component to speaker matching is apparently done under very controlled conditions to get the best match. I have also been told that because of this one should not try to upgrade the crossovers at all. Apparently doing so may result in degrading the sound rather than improving it because you may be upgrading a component to a higher quality device, but if it does not match well with the rest of the system (wire, drivers, cabinet and other crossover comonents)then you might very well go backwards rather than forward. Most of this info, I have read on other posts regarding upgrading AN crossovers. At least one of the posts was from Peter Qvortrup himself. Don't know if this helps answer your question, but I thought I would mention it before you spend a lot of money on caps and wire.

AND this is a Quote from Peter Q in Audio Note

The only part of these speakers you can change is the internal cabling, if you change any of the caps, chokes or resistors you will corrupt the original acoustic set up, which is 90% of the speaker's sound.

All our speakers are individually adjusted and matched to +/- 0.2dB full bandwidth, plus set at the crossover point to ensure that the woofer/tweeter mutual time constant is close enough to make them "act as one".

Years have been spent developing a matching system which creates a pair and to reference matching unlike anything else available.

Don't disturb this.

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup

http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/audionotekits/messages/2418.html

And since you live in Norway according to your profile you can take a quick look in this thread:

AN-J internal stuff

Best Regards

 

[planet10]

Can you get a pic of the existing XO. AN XOs range from real cheap parts up to outrageously expensive parts...

dave

 

[Scottmoose]

I've been pondering Audio Note UK for some time now. Their components generally do range from the very cheap to the outrageously expensive, as Dave comments above. Their amps and speakers can sound great, I'd be the last to deny it, and I very much enjoy listening to AN stuff when I have chance. However, this component-quality hobby-horse by many manufacturers is going too far, especially given the astronomical prices involved. Fancy components have the weight of myth, magic, voodoo and other associated twaddle to support. If AN, and any of the other manufacturers of monstrously priced components have some objective, measured evidence, or evidence from properly controlled ABX tests, that they are 'better', could someone let me know?

Regarding being able to change internal wire but not the components, let's say, for example, I swapped it out for 30AWG magnet wire. That would make a heck of a lot more of a difference than changing a resistor for another resistor of identical value at 20 times the price. So I'm not sure I follow the reasoning, unless it's simply that the components are tightly matched. Fair enough. But I can do that myself easily enough.

Best
Scott

 

[Sclalars]

Thank you guys, I`ll probably keep my hans off these speakers.

I told my buddy to contact a company here in Oslo called Eltek and ask them if they could make a new XO and pair the components to +/- 0.2, using the same values as before, but with better components. ( Like the M-cap silver)

http://www.mamut.com/dynabel (wait 8 seconds)

Then he can change the whole XO without touching the original.

If it`s sounds better, fine, if worst, change back and swollow the dissapointment.


Sclalars