Audio Note speaker kits: Anybody tried 'em?

[ultrakaz]

I was perusing the Audio Note website and saw a couple of speaker kits; one used copper voice coils and the other silver. I also remember reading a rave review of an Audio Note speaker recently, but dismissed it because of the unbelievable price of around 12k for what looked like a pedestrian 2-way.

The AN website states that the kit version is not going to be as good as the finished version (matching, tolerances, cabinet work as well as some unrevealed secrets). But we are talking about a significant price difference between kit and finished.

So, has anybody tried any AN speaker kits? Or in the alternative has anybody heard and compared an Audio Note speaker to an equivalent diy effort?

[planet10]

I have seen some of the kits... like all the rest of their kit you seem -- IMHO -- to pay a premium for the AN name.

dave

[pinkmouse]

I had a chance to listen to one of their two way kits a few years ago, and I have to say, the sound was very average. You can do far better.

[chrisb]

AudioNote is a great marketing success of perceived value over content, and there's no doubt that the brand name has as many detractors as devoted fans. After reading this post, guess if I'm still sitting on the fence on this one?

Having had opportunity to hear a fair range of their individual products as well as synergistic systems priced well above what I paid for my current home, all I can say is you could spend more on an all Linn system and get less music.

My biggest complaint would be that I don't have the requisite disposable income to afford to impress my friends and family with either. That's the great thing about DIY - I can build and listen for my own emotional enjoyment, not to flaunt my financial status or intellectual prowess.

Back to the subject of AudioNote speakers; I've built several pairs of the cabinets and had brief opportunity to compare them to factory versions. It's a bit unfair to describe the performance of either as 'pedestrian', particularly when compared to some other over-rated and constipated British brands in the same store and price range. However when you build the relatively simple boxes and see the actual working drivers and crossover components, it's rather difficult to see were the magic could be hidden in the factory built "real" speakers.

Or it could just be listener envy - no doubt years in the business has fine tuned the dealers listening acuities to hear "staggering" differences that are not obvious to these ears, even after it's explained what I'm missing. I guess ignorance truly is bliss.

Since the AN speaker kits are parts and plans only, why not save yourself some money and frustration and try something with much less of a financial investment, like perhaps a Fostex or Visaton fullrange. There are plenty of DIY plans available, with almost as much concensus as to their merit as any commercial product.

[tinitus]

My guess is that they might match drivers - it would have great influence on sound and soundstage - and the rest.....???

[marche]

I've owned a pair of AN-E DIY kits (the silver version). These are very "musical" speakers, and have given me a lot of pleasure over time.

The prices for the units are quite high. The woofer is a "simple" Seas woofer, the tweeter some Danish or Japanse thing (sources are not coherent here). The crossover components are a hoax regarding the traditional opinions we tend to give (bi-polair elcos, variable resistors), but we tried to exchange them, and always ended back at the original.

I've built the silver versions. We did order 5 pairs with quite some friends, so we could match ourselves. We didn't find large deviations amongst the units, so I think the whole matching story is a bit overdone.

One of the enclosure "secrets" is to use plywood for the front and back instead of chipboard. Furthermore I ended with putting some more dampening in the cabinet than the recommended amount, especially around the vent, which was a bit too enthousiastic. I've also applied a black-gate bipolair elco in series with the tweeter. Although an MKP would seem to be a better guess, our listening observations showed a clear preference towards the black gate.

Though the sound of the speaker is very nice, it also has severe limitations. It is very nice with classic chamber music, jazz combos, brass, and so. It shows its pitfalls with large scale classical music, pop music with a lot of base drum drive, and especially choir music or other busy music. In that case, the large operating range of the paper woofer start to bundle and to show intermodulation products, and the music sounds stressed due to some "pressure".

Nevertheless depsite the high prices for the DIY components, it will be hard to find another product that can deliver the same overall sound quality level at that price. If your favourite music is into small-scale performances, the AN-Es will give you a lot of joy!. If you have a low efficiciency tube amplifier, it might be a good guess as well. But it is certainly not an all-arounder.

Marc
http://www.hifivoice.com/

[ultrakaz]

Thanks for the responses.

Marc,

What do you attribute to the Audio Note "sound"?

According to the website the AN is a refined version of the Snell E type speaker, which was made years ago. Distinguishable by its matched components. Could this be the difference, since the design is not unique?

Thanks.

[marche]

What do you attribute to the Audio Note "sound"?

There are different issues that contribute to the sound, among which:
- A paper-cone woofer, used up to 2kHz.
- A non-stiff, hardly braded cabinet.
- Baffle step compensation stops from 150Hz downwards (6dB less off-axis energy in the low frequencies). This gives the speaker relatively "more efficiency" at 1kHz, but the speaker needs to be positioned close to a wall to compensate for this effect.

There is a review of the commercial speaker on the Stereophile website:
Audio Note E review

Their measurements show some clear cabinet resonances:


You can also see the frequency response is not really flat:

According to the website the AN is a refined version of the Snell E type speaker, which was made years ago. Distinguishable by its matched components. Could this be the difference, since the design is not unique?

Audio Note sold Snell speakers for a while, and at a certain moment in time business changed, and Snell forbid AN to make these speakers anymore. At that stage, Peter Qvotrup went to some speaker unit builders, asking if they could make units like this. The name had to be changed in the US (model-1/2/3 instead of E/J/K), et voila, the rest speaks for itself.

The commercial and DIY versions differ in:
- Speaker unit selection (they keep the highest efficiency ones for themselves).
- Less extreme stereo-pair matching (if within limits, not so important).
- Kind of wood (listen to 3 acoustic guitars from the same type, they all sound different).
- Final calibration of the crossover filter.

I.e., there is more attention, more labour, and hence more costs to the commercial version.

You can make a very fine speaker out of the DIY version, so if you like the sound of the speaker, you won't be disappointed.

Finally, I've measured the raw units in a DIY cabinet. It's a roughly 1m measurement of both the woofer and tweeter at the same place. The measurement is performed in an echoic room, quite good dampened, but contains some reflections. My measurement setup also is limited to say 15kHz.

Marc

[adason]

Originally Posted by ultrakaz

I was perusing the Audio Note website and saw a couple of speaker kits; one used copper voice coils and the other silver. I also remember reading a rave review of an Audio Note speaker recently, but dismissed it because of the unbelievable price of around 12k for what looked like a pedestrian 2-way.

The AN website states that the kit version is not going to be as good as the finished version (matching, tolerances, cabinet work as well as some unrevealed secrets). But we are talking about a significant price difference between kit and finished.

So, has anybody tried any AN speaker kits? Or in the alternative has anybody heard and compared an Audio Note speaker to an equivalent diy effort?

So ultrakaz, have you decided to built the AN kit? How do you like it? Post pics!

[jerome69]

4 years later Is he still alive ?