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Model: | Level 3 system |
Category: | Other |
Suggested Retail Price: | My wife might read this |
Description: | A complete AN system - front end to speakers |
Manufacturer URL: | Audio Note |
Review by KevinF (A) on September 13, 2004 at 11:17:51 IP Address: 81.136.26.74 | Add Your Review for the Level 3 system |
TURN ON AND DROP OUT - OR HOW I ESCAPED FROM THE LAND OF GEEKHow much did your audio system cost? No. Not how much did the components currently sitting in your living room cost. How much has it cost you to get to the system you have today?
And just look at those shelves there. Not those. Those. The ones with the records and CDs on. How much did that software collection cost? Did it cost as much as the system you play it on? Or could you buy it all for a fraction of what those speakers, amplifiers, cables, and smoke and mirrors tweakery cost?
And what does that tell you about yourself? Does it make you a music fan or an audio geek? Are you comfortable with the answer?
About six months ago I did a quick mental calculation on the cost of my own system and I didn't like the answer. The bottom line was that after messing around with audio for some 20 years, I've blown enough to buy a small house. And my software?
I was a geek.
How had it come to this? I love music. I am an avid listener to quality radio. I go to as many live music events as time and budget permit. I even sing to myself in the car. And yet, the conclusion was inescapable: I was officially a gold-plated audio geek.
My mother must take the credit for sparking my interest in music. In the early 60s she took my brother and me to the Saturday morning childrens' concerts at Fairfield Halls in south London where Sir Colin Davis (then plain Mr Davis) talked us through and then conducted for us a broad range of easily digested classical sweetmeats.
These live events left me wanting to listen to music in the home, but I gained little satisfaction from the second-hand audiogram that my schoolboy paper-round funded. It simply did not re-create the excitement and joy that I felt listening to the orchestras at Fairfield Halls. In a way, not that much changed over time. I ditched the paper-round, went to work for real, and in good times enjoyed a somewhat larger disposable income that enabled me to spend considerable sums of money on audio gear.
I know I am not alone in audio geekdom. The problem for us all is that there are very few good audio systems. We buy. We listen. We perform mental somersaults to justify the expense. And still we know, deep inside, that it doesn't really sound right. And so we part-exchange. We upgrade. The children go to school in bare feet. And STILL it doesn't sound right. Audio equipment manufacturers and magazines understand this and exploit it. Their manipulation is one of the reasons that there are so many of us in the Land of Geek.
I am pretty slow on the uptake so it wasn't until about four years ago that I began to get flashes of insight into the way this commercial game works. What triggered a process that eventually became a visionary landslide was my dissatisfaction with CD sound. I then owned a mostly Meridian system and wanted to hear for myself the effect of upsampling. An audio magazine raved. Upsampling was the 'magic bullet'. And so I borrowed a Musical Fidelity (Yup. That magazine) A3CD player.
The reviewer heard more air and spatial information. More musicality. It was the 'magic bullet' for CD.
What I heard was contrived and mechanical and I declined, for the first time in a long while, to buy. It set me thinking back to all the other upgrades I'd made on the back of audio magazine reviews and to what I'd heard once the new components had been installed in my home. If I was being honest with myself (and for the first time I was being honest), the Musical Fidelity experience was not unique.
And so here's my take on the Audio Game.
The majority of audio equipment manufacturers have a business model that relies on fuelling consumer discontent by creating built-in obsolescence. One year's new model is replaced by another featuring more bells and whistles or 'improved sound'. It is possible that somewhere out there beyond The Land of Geek there are magazine publishers and audio equipment manufacturers not locked in a back-scratching alliance that perpetuates this cycle. It's also possible that out there too are audio retailers who absolutely refuse to let their customers needlessly spin the upgrade treadmill. But if there are, I don't know of them.
Actually, that's not entirely true. There is one manufacturer that I do now trust to do the honourable, musically right thing, and it's Audio Note.
That's going to come as a shock to some who may regard Audio Note as a left of field maverick in the audio industry, so allow me to explain why Audio Note gets my vote.
Search on this site and you'll find reviews by me of the company's digital front-end technology. I was moved to post them – a first for me – after being stunned by a different commercial approach, a different technological philosophy, and a different sound. I started by trying and buying a DAC 3.1 Signature, then added a CDT II transport. Their introduction into my system marked the first time in many years that I felt I'd genuinely taken a giant stride towards achieving a more musical system.
I used the Audio Note front end with an otherwise entirely fairly conventional system of Bryston pre- and power amplifiers, PMC speakers and Kimber mains cables, interconnects and speaker wires. From time to time I'd hear siren sounds urging me to try an entire Audio Note System, but always rejected the call on the grounds that Audio Note makes low-power single-ended triode amplification, unfashionable speakers and plain-Jane looking cables. I was utterly suckered by the audio industry mantra that I needed solid state horsepower and lots of it, speakers like the monolith in Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey, and interconnects that could tow a ship. The two ideologies were worlds apart.
But I woke up one day and thought: "Ah, what the heck. It'll be fun. I'll have a go. Find it doesn't satisfy. Send it back. That'll be the end."
What turned up was a pair of AN-E/LX loudspeakers, some low-end silver interconnect and speaker cable, an M3 pre-amplifier and a pair of P4 PSE monoblocks. All were well used and in various states of cosmetic dishevelment, taken out of the boot of a car and dumped in my living room with the injunction: 'Just play with it. See what you think'.
Here's a thing: doesn't the language of audio reviews, to use the vernacular, suck?
If the writer is a well-meaning amateur, they'll use the same language that professional reviewers and audio manufacturers themselves use to describe reproduced sound. I've done it myself. Words like synergy (sorry about that. I'll go and wash my mouth out right now), slam, room-lock, pace…you get the idea. These words and others are the currency of our mutual audio interest and yet they are now utterly valueless because they have been prostituted for commercial gain. They are the bait with which we are lured into spinning the upgrade treadmill. It's ironic and, I think, very telling, that the word euphony is used pejoratively by audio reviewers (mainly by Americans, but often by people who really should know better). They use it to sneeringly imply colouration, but what the word actually means is pleasantness of sound. And we certainly can't have any of that, can we?
'Does it sound musical?
'No, but it delivers holographic imaging, ruler flat measurements and real bottom-end grip'.
"Hell yeah. Where do I sign."
Which brings me back to my living room and my first exposure to a complete AN system. I listened for the evening and then went to find my wife. This was going to be one of those rather difficult conversations of the sort that only the married reader will understand.
How do you say, in a way that doesn't result in immediate hysterics, that three rather battered boxes with valves in, some shoe-lace interconnects and an unfashionable pair of speakers has completely, soundly and totally bested the £20K high-tech audio system you've lovingly built up over decades?
It was tough.
Audio Note will give you chapter and verse on why a complete AN system behaves the way it does, but the plain fact was that the loan set up made music. All the hoary myths about SET amplification (mid-range to die for, no bass, coloured) proved untrue. The system easily generated realistic pressure levels in our 21X12 ft. room. It gave an insight into the richness of timing, rate of dynamic ebb and flow, volume, and the harmonic information on every recording that was startling. Not startling in a granular, detailed, etched way, but in a wholesome and organic way – I'll use the word holistic, if I may.
I realised then what it is about solid state audio that makes me uneasy and dissatisfied. It's analogous to the feeling I get working under fluorescent strip lights with their 50Hz switching cycle. It's light right enough, but it makes me feel uneasy and eventually fatigued.
I think that in a similar way, probably the majority of mainstream audio gear fails more or less to transfer to the listener the essential subtle information that makes the artifice of reproduced music acceptable to the brain. Perhaps because of the non-linearity of solid-state amplification, the liberal use of negative feedback, and the non-time and phase coherent nature of most speakers, the information is lost or scrambled. Without it, performances may well have those attributes so beloved of audio reviewers and salesmen like slam and transparency, but as musical events they are reduced to the value of background tunes in lifts or supermarket music. It's rather like comparing the richness of a Rembrandt to a join-the-dots picture in a puzzle magazine. They're both pictures. But that's where the similarity ends.
All the demo equipment except the P4 monoblocks eventually went back, and I have subsequently bought and traded to an entirely Audio Note system of my own. It doesn't matter to me what the components and wires are and I shan't tell you. The ensemble just plays music in a way that I find uniquely emotionally satisfying.
There was, of course, significant pain involved in selling off my solid-state gear. Not because in doing so I was admitting that I had been so wrong for so many years, but because in general, used values are so very poor. But that, as they say, is what happens when you opt to pay the stupid tax. In a strange way, 'though, I regard it as money in the bank. You see I am now free of the upgrade treadmill. Free of The Land of Geek. Bye-bye audio dealers. Bye-bye magazine subscriptions. From now on my money is buying music.
Product Weakness: | You will lose heavily on selling your existing equipment. |
Product Strengths: | Real musical enjoyment. |
Associated Equipment for this Review: | |
Amplifier: | Audio Note |
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): | Audio Note |
Sources (CDP/Turntable): | Audio Note |
Speakers: | Audio Note |
Cables/Interconnects: | Audio Note |
Music Used (Genre/Selections): | Classical in all forms, jazz, (some) contemporary. |
Room Size (LxWxH): | 21 x 12 x |
Time Period/Length of Audition: | 3 months |
Type of Audition/Review: | Product Owner |
Follow Ups:
I don't think my speakers are voiced with/for the sound of their cabinets though ;-)! [See below].Got 'back into tubes', because heard what they could do with my much loved (and low power / valve suitable) spkrs, which really helped. Efficiency is more important than sensitivity, though both help, anything > 90db/w is good enough IMO & E..
NB they are just a bit LOF, and some women HATE them. BUT not so weird if you can take on board the Epos minimal xover philosophy, epitomised by the ES14 then the 11, 12, 22, and 25, no low-pass. And then add the rep'n of the Gallo 'sphere stacks and you're getting close. Good sounding 'voiced' xover, film caps and air coils, but all this in the late 1970's! ? Yep!
Valve amps YES. NB not PSE, just rebuilt classic PP EL84 stereo amps, two of, biamping semi-actively, CCS'd splitter/driver.
Tube pre avec BIG modern PSU, tube (?) 'tuna' big modern PSU. Separate AC mains circuits/ filtered sockets.
I have always agreed with the AN philosophy (and I get the results). Loosely phrased - a better system really does let you get more of 'the music from more of your records. Even if the way they were recorded becomes more obvious, as the system improves.
OTOH I have found that many audio conventions are true.
Room treatment, 'set-up', clean/ight connections, matter far more than cables, tube rolling or expensive caps and resistors. As does having the bias right on the tubes.
A radio without a serious directional FM antenna/ high gain low noise AM antenna IS just 'half a loaf'.
BTA selected caps, and R's and good PSU's DO make a difference, just that very very good ones, like Tefs, Holcos and Vishays, are more valuable in RIAA stages and feedback networks than elsewhere.
And I got there on me own steam, son. Didn't do all the work but I certainly did all the learning, re-design, set-up / research, and PM'd the rest!
WarmestTimbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger'Still not saluting.'
Read about and view system at:
Nicely thought out and well written review. I came upon Audio Note in a somewhat different way. About ten years ago my Luxman receiver decided one day that it was the 4th of July without consulting the calendar. It was then that I decided to get a good hi fi system. I listened to a few highly recommended amplifiers and speakers and came away completely underwhelmed with their performance. I was expecting a revelatory experience and was just disappointed. This couldn't be what so called high end audio was all about. It was like looking at a rose petal under a microscope but never seeing the flower.Then I went to a dealer carrying Audio Note. Armed with a bag full of CD's and a mental checklist of sonic qualifiers that I had read about in a magazine, I sat down and listened to an Audio Note M1 pre amp and P2 SE amplifier. A couple of hours later and two blocks down the street I stopped. I realized that I had forgotten my audio checklist because I had been completely lost in the music. That did it for me. I bought the Audio Note gear. Later came a pair of used AN/J speakers and some cables and then a CD 2. The icing on the cake came recently with a pair of AN-Vx and AN-V interconnects. The whole Audio Note synergy thing really does seem to work for me. I understand that the Audio Note way of reproducing music may not be for everyone, but I'm glad I found it.
Audio Note stuff changed my whole thinking about audio as well. Like you, the DAC did it for me--the DAC.One.1x Signature in my case. Then the cdt-one transport. Then all audio Note cables. I've stopped. Why? My system sounds awesome and I'm buying MUSIC again.It's hard to characterize the Audio Note gear with words...you are right there. My wife and I heard a level 3 system not too long ago. I'll let her speak: she said, " it sounds like music ".
We're saving up.
Congrats,
Jack
_________________________________________________
"It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself."
--J.S. Bach
Several of you seem to have had good experiences with AN dealers. Mind sharing who they are?
DejaVu Audio in McLean, VA.
_________________________________________________
"It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself."
--J.S. Bach
Mine is Soundhounds in Vancouver - They have loads of gear so you can put the AN's up against some pretty significant competitors.The AN Site is pretty wimpy but there is a dealer locator on the main page at the very bottom(you can't really see it though).
Here is the listing i found http://www.audionote.co.uk/distributor/dist_nam.htm
And soundhounds - great guys gotta plug them. Make fantastic Capuccino's too.
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n.t.
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Well I of course agree. Man you write well. I'll have to hold off my review for a while so I don't sound gruff. :-)Yes I had regrets too about the money wasted - but as my dealer said you pay your dues in the industry and it makes you appreciate Audio Note more. The dealer is not like any other dealer I have encountered either - no hard selling there or telling you what you should like. Few words and they let the stuff play. Then when you and you will - say it's the best stuff in the store and wonder how the little speakers do those things and what about the 9 watss and you look at them like a deer in the headlights they kind of laugh knowingly.
I am dissolusioned at the entire industry lately because when I first heard the AN amp I thought it was SS because there are no tubes showing and I had never heard of Audio Note(or had heard the name but that was all). SO there i was listening and saying wow that sound awesome listening to Delerium's Silence(a Trance disc featureing Sarah McLachlan) wow what great bass dynamics and smooth but incredible treble extension.
The dealer says yes this amp (The Meishu) is 8 watts and is a SET amp. I thought it ludicorus - but SET - everyone says SET has no bass no treble, they lack drive they are very noisy like you can always hear hissing when the music is on?
So here's the thing - if the INDUSTRY and engineers and reviewers and measures etc are SOOOOOO very wrong about SET - then gee willickers maybe they are wrong about the other things Audio Note claims. Like it is impossible to get all that bass from the AN E's one 8 inch woofer. Oh well those others are SOOOOOOOO very wrong about that as well.
So maybe they are wrong about Black Gates, Silver wiring and DAC's too. Hmmm - I trust the guy who proves it in the showroom and at home more than some corporate white paper.
I found the WAVAC amp more reliable, a little more trasparent and qicker in the bass than the Audio Note, though I want to hasten to say that Peter provided the best customer care I have ever recieved and that's pretty impressive when I live in California and he's in England.
Wavac is a SET too though right?
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So my point therefore still stands about SET - what pot smoking cocaine addict started the notion myth that SETs are inferior. There are folks on another board who say that SET is too simplisitic to reproduce good stereo sound.
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..
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I agree with your basic thrust that an awful lot of "audiophiles" spend way too much time, energy and money chasing the ever-elusive "perfect sound." And by the standards of this board, my system (link below) is fairly modest; nominal value about $6K, actual cost about $2.5K. I haven't made a significant upgrade since late 2000, except for buying a decent equipment rack. Over nearly four decades, I've spent roughly equal amounts of gear and recordings, with more money going for the music in the early years, and more for equipment lately.Still, I have to wonder whether your newfound devotion to Audio Note may eventually fade. Most people who've just made a dramatic conversion (in religion, politics, or whatever) tend to proselytize for a while! I've never heard any Audio Note gear -- indeed, I've barely heard OF it! -- so I can't comment intelligently on it. But it's nice to read a well-written, coherent post that really makes some good points.
Thanks for taking the time!
"Music is the brandy of the damned." -- George Bernard Shaw
My Main System
"Music is the brandy of the damned." -- George Bernard Shaw
NT
Doesn't that pretty much cover just about any positive review by an owner?
Ivan -Thanks. I wondered last night how to pour cooling balm on Lancelot's brow. In the end I decided not to bother.
With kind regards
You decided not to bother because you know that in fact all we can do, short of flashing around our graphs, is describe what we hear as carefully and with as much enthusiasm (or disappointment) as the experience seems to merit. I for one can't bear to read the sort of thing that passes for objectivity in audio reporting. An itimized check list of how a component meets or fails to meet certain separable sonic goals, which no human could possibly paste together into a coherent sense of what anything sounds like. Listening to music is not a dispassionate experience. When it becomes that, something's likely wrong with ones system, not right.It's easy for me to say this about an Audio Note review, but I've said it about others as well. Tell us what you hear and what it does to you. Write well enough so that we can hear through your prose to the nature of the listening experience. If enough folks do that about a particular product, a consensus about it will grow, trust me.
And I do believe that some stuff IS better than some other stuff. Some stuff is a LOT better. And it makes me very happy when someone is bold enough to say so.
Bob -You have me at a disadvantage, it being 9.15 pm here in Hungerford, England, and nearing cocoa time, but I want to respond to your post.
I am chastened that my approach to writing an audio review didn't work for you. Maybe I was trying to be too clever. What I attempted to do was pass on some of my emotional reaction to a complete AN system in a way that sought to avoid some of what I think stinks about mainstream audio reviews. As I observed, I think the language we generally use as our descriptive currency is worthless.
I thought my enthusiasm for the music produced by the Audio Note system was plain. You may be right. Perhaps I delude myself.
I guess I can't write any longer or you can't read! I liked your piece a lot. I was supporting your review against the guy who was disparaging it for being subjective and just your point of view. Re-read me and tell me I'm not crazy...
Okay, well maybe 'Hi Bob!'.
Big J.
Well, a little of 'that' is the meal ticket in here, right? Long time no chat Justin. The last time we exchanged notes it was about Sonus Fabers and something else...Audio Physics? Something very un-Sonus like, as I remember that interested us both. You'll have to remind me. A lot of river has flowed under both of our dams since then. And I've been in your country since then too...in Hove and then over in Suffolk at the Aldeburgh Festival. I don't like your pebbled beaches, but the rest of it is very appealing. Saving my pennies for a return visit. My principal observation is that there are fewer ugly houses in England than in the US. I liked the cars too, including a lot that never get over here. Too small and tasteful to get through US customs!
This is my local beach now. Alnmouth Bay in Northumberland. Still has WW2 concrete defences (giant concrete cubes) semi-submerged in sand at the high tide mark, but is very beautiful nontheless. A step up from Brighton, but we don't have the same level of local audiophile resources and businesses unfortunately (save Pear Audio, who import Dynavector and Sumiko I think).
I'm still in SET land, and far away from SF and AP. I've heard and enjoyed several AN combos and am nearly always impressed with the level of music conveyed by them. Since we may have a garage soon (long story) I have yet to try gluing myself to various bits of wood and metal in an effort to create my own stuff, but I AN gear remains a constant and steady commercial life belt on the shoreline of my DIY fantasies.
BTW: if you ever get up to Northumberland, you must come and visit the soon-to-be-completed Sage concert hall on the banks of the river Tyne. Its more finished than this photo suggests and there is a fine art gallery (The Baltic) next to it.
Big J.
Nice beach!
Could there be any better objective or measure of it than satisfaction that it meets your needs?
This is true for most of audio because there is no clear-cut definition on what constitutes a "better" system. Some people think that relentless detail is better. Some people think that smooth warm sound is better.After a certain point, at least with electronics, it becomes less about performance and more about personal preference. That's why it is important to take reviews at what they are - a person's opinion.
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Silverlines, Kharmas, Gershmans, Quad 57s, Klipsch and Tannoys.
Which Tannoys did you compare the Es to? What was the difference? Thanks.
The Deminsion 10 and 12s. I really like the super tweeter and have been looking into the murata tweeters to go with the Es. I heard this and it was pretty signifigant, but I would love to do some real listening to this setup.
I really like the 10s. Too much bass for my taste with the 12s and I like bass. The Audio Notes are more open and even more trasparent. They are both very tunefull but I give the edge to the Audio Notes and when placed in the corners as Peter reccomends you get a scale and a loading of the room you just don't get from the Tannoys standing out from the walls. The Es do this even better than the two Rel Stadium subs. I like the Tannoys alot though and found them one of the the few speakers that are just plain fun to listen to.
I also bought home an all audio note system to audition. I had the M3 Balanced DAC an M5 preamp, a Conqueror Stereo Amplifier, a pair of
AN E/SEs, some of the really expensive wire. It was wonderful. The most open transparent sound I have ever heard. I purchased the preamp, the amp and the speakers. I know this is heresy in the audio note world but I preferred my fully Kern modded Sony 777es to the dac and I preferred my audience wire. I have now found a amp I much prefer the WAVAC MD 300B and I like it better without a preamp so it became a bargain, especially at 3K. I also think anyone who owns the E speakers should give Peter's theory a try and put them as close into the corners as possible, the way they energize a room and the scale of the sound is just so like going to hear live music. If you can't get use to the soundstage at first place some speaker stands about three or four feet in front and about three feet from the rear wall and you'll be saying my how deep and wide the sound stage is (what a joke). I'd rather enjoy the SETs and the great speakers playing real music in my home. That is unless I can go to Yoshis and hear jazz tonight.
Hi,I am waiting for my AN speaker kit 03 to arrive from Canada. I was told that the kit 03 is similar to AN E. Therefore, I am very interested to know more about placement issues. By the way you describe the placement for your AN E, seems that the speakers would be at the corners of the listening room. The soundstage is therefore in front of the speakers. How is the imaging, good at pin pointing instruments & voices or otherwise? Any issues with bass boom or standing waves ? Thanks.
Get the Dedato version of the 2001: A space Odyssey. With AN OTO you get a far greater sense of front to back staging and glorious low level bass dynamics - then listen to some of the comparison - same room same gear - it's game over.The AN Speakers will not imprint a soundstage on everything. When a recording has it you'll hear it and when it doesn't you won't. Soundstage width will somewhat depend on the ancillary gear - the speakers are as wide apart as they will get and will provide wall to wall soundstage. I'm not overly a fan of the small differences between what folks are interpreting this to mean. I determine it to mean how well instruments are separated from one another. They have no problem doing this.
Read my review of the speaker and some of Peter's comments. The speakers are voiced by Peter to be in the corners. I don't understand how it works but I get a wonderful soundstage. It seems to extend from a couple of feet in front of the speakers to several feet behind the speakers, then verticaly they extend way up, maybe 2/3s of the way up to the ceiling. The scale of instruments is really life like. I go to live Jazz and classical as well as a lot of Jazz female singers about once a week or more and these image more like live music than anything I have heard.
I like the signal processing that Carver's Sonic Holography provides also. Does it make it music? A more accurate reproduction? Fact is that real and satifying reproduction is available without the 2nd order harmonics. I would have to say it is also hard to find.
And underestimated.Many times I have contemplated what you have done, especially considering the amount I've spent in audio (mis-)adventure. Having a system that really moves you to listen more and buy more music at the expense of tweaking or upgrading is an audiophilic destination many of us shoot past in our efforts to reach the ultimate 'something', just to see what it sounds like.
And I still don't know how the AN-E speaker can sound as good as it does, even compared with some esoteric high-efficiency designs of today and yesteryear, given its modest provenance. Perhaps there really *is* something in all the careful matching and balancing that is supposedly involved in their manufacture.
If I were you I'd start saving for level 4 and 5 though. You're bound to want even more of the same eventually!
Big J.
The AN E was playing at my dealer - there is a short wall that separates it from view. A couple came in to see the live guitarist - they popped their head round the corner and were in total disbelief that it was a speaker playing - and through VINYL no less.Yes there will be speakers that do pyrotechnics better - I have heard many of them and some will play louder too. But I have not heard a speaker that has a better overall "balance" across all genres of music without fatigue but yet with incredible extension.
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Big J.
Hi Big J.Having had a similar experience to that of KevinF, and believing that I well understand what he is feeling, I wonder if your advice to him is not off the mark. I suspect that Kevin's long term satisfaction would be better served by making use of his resources to build up a satisfying music collection. He might also consider (if he does not already do so) building up a library of books on music and musicians, as well as music lessons to learn the rudiments of playing an instrument and musical theory, if he does already posess these faculties.
Music and knowledge are good for the soul. Churning gear is a fool's pursuit- (hence the need for an asylum).
It was not a serious injunction. Having also chosen, late in my audio game, to spend the lion's share of my income on music rather than hifi, I know of what he speaks.
Big J.
I've had similar experiences but mainly with an AN DAC. It is by far the most natural, most enjoyable digital I've ever heard and really opened my eyes. I've also enjoyed a P2SE amp. I'll soon be demo'ing some AN speaker wire.I can understand the challenge of bringing up the topic of system changes with a spouse who considers the entire hobby materialistic. You must take into account the time of day, what's happened that day, what's going on now, what's a good time or event, the weather, the alignment of the planets, what debts are pending, etc, etc... I'm glad you were successful at it. But it does sound like your wife may have understood the importance of this discovery for you and that it was a sort of closure to the whole thing.
Budrew -I am not sure how well the piecemeal (no insult intended) approach really works. As you'll have noted, my comments refer only to a total AN system. How individual AN items interact with an existing multi-vendor set-up depends on so many factors. You may be lucky with cables, 'though.
As for breaking it to the spouse, I like the word closure. I like the imagery. Have you tried this yourself or are you seeking to use me as a guinea pig?
Best.
Yes, things do get gratifyingly better when you move to a full-boat AN system, but I got there by degrees and still find that, for example, an AN front end and electronics works terrifically with some other speakers.I think the dacs are essential. They can improve any system. Actually, it probably makes most sense to move from the front end down the chain, since I found that the quality of AN speakers didn't really emerge until they were in an all-AN system...and in the corners. And MY corners are 18 feet apart! You toe them in past the listening position about 15 degrees and bingo, or voila, as my eight-year old says.
If you are used to somewhat warm, woody sound - say Reynauds, the AN speakers may initially strike you as a bit, well unReynaudlike, which they are. They are not in that game. But once you adjust to the difference, you'll find that the choice between these two approaches is a tough one. Both work very well. But you'll never mistake one for the other. Like different concert halls.
Your questions stimulated me to add up the actual cost of my system--complete with the cost of the mistakes. The mistakes are those things I wish I hadn't bought, that I had to go out and replace to get the desired performance. It should be noted that I do not "upgrade." i.e. I don't buy a piece of gear in order to improve the sound of my system. When I buy new stuff, it's to get a capability I don't have.Current system cost: $1080
Cost of mistakes: $420
460 CDs: ~$3200
1200 homemade cassettes: ~$1200Total: $5900
Yes, this is a lot of money and a lot of time, but it's not unreasonable for a music lover with a mild case of audiophilia.
Any milder and we would take your pulse...
-Bill
Norm -Your ratio of software to audio gear makes me even more bitterly ashamed of my own sad track record.
Fortunately I have not visited any AN dealer. I travel lot and in two decades the demo systems that beat my own systems can be held by one hand and all of them need a very big room that I can only dream of. Every time when I go home, I feel great.
but it's not how many albums you own that matters at all. Maybe you are incredibly picky. I like Sarah McLachlan a whole lot so I buy every album she has. And i like a lot of female voalists. But when it comes to guy singers I am very picky about who I will buy. I do not go out and by 4 cds a week just so I can fill up my wall.Fact is I don't like most music just like I don't like most equipment. But for the music I do like I want it to be played as well as I can possibly get it to sound.
I have had up to 400 cds and sold about 130 of them away. And really, I tend to play the same favorites to this day that I played in 1986. In the rock pop world i buiy almost nothing anymore - and am now focussing in on Jazz and classical music.
And why am I listening to jazz and classical music now more so than I did then? A large part of that is because Audio Note actually makes those recordings sound listenable.
But because it's SET is written off as euphonic second order harmonic distortion. Oh well.
I find that the cure to upgradetitis (feeling the need to upgrade for no reason) is to go to the music store and buy a couple new CD's. Works for me every time.
however, i cant help but think 1) this is, ironically, further mental gymnastics to justify change, 2) you remove the burden of audio nervosa to unveil music in its proper glory (ie, indepedent of our *in-existant* expectations), 3) we do need words to reach a proper/effective and in-depth descritpions of what we hear from our systems and, yes, they are used as bait...but, to the attentive reader, shows the fraud.
These words alone can alter a listening experience, whether they represent "empty" calories is a fascinating question and better left untold for some :-) 4) We are not geeks, we just can't separate *our sounds* from the music since one can't exist without the other (not trivial...), 5) even if we are geeks :-), i think I have long ago accepted that, yes, i like gear and fiddling with it :-) and it does not preclude enjoying the music and listening to (for?) the sound.
I recently read a less than complimentary review of an all Audio Note system at the Stereo Times website by a guy who seemed to decide the sound couldn't be up to much as the equipment wasn't placed upon a specialist rack, only had standard power-cords and didn't utilise a power-conditioner.
There has been over the years a certain bias against Audio Note by the US audio establishment (well done Stereophile for the recent balanced M2 review by the way), and the author's whole manner did smack of this IMO.He went on to criticise the imaging, soundstage and other hi-fi aspects that have nothing at all to do with the music, then again I must admit that on the couple of occasions I've heard an all Audio Note system I never did take much notice of those aspects as I was enjoying the music too much.
There's definately a distinction between 'audiophile' and 'music enthusiast' but therein lies another Asylum thread.
Best Regards,
Chris redmond.
Amen!
If Audio Note is right - and IMO they are - then that means the rest of the industry(well most of it) is wrong. Audio Note doesn't pay for ad space in Stereophile - and this fellow since hearing Audio Note does not NEED to buy Stereophile anymore because he has heard a system that makes (Much - not all) those class A componants from Stereohile sound like the equivelant of smelling a cow patch.The reason we rely on magazines to tell us what is good is because they can differentiate between 12 companies all making the same kind of sounding banal systems. With Audio Note it is just so far superior to the rest of the stuff my store carries that ANYONE golden ear or NOT can tell.
And their level approach which seems so out into left field actually does make a huge difference. You go up a level and it makes a hugely noticeable improvement...even if you at first didn't know there was anything that COULD be improved in the first place. A Bryston 3B and a 4b sound the same - a B&W 705 versus the 703 - adds more bass - but nothing about the treble or midband improved and may have actually gotten muddier. Not so with AN Speakers. I went from the K to J to get more Bass - little did I know I would get an improvement not only in bass but every other aspect of the sound. And The E/Spe I have to say takes my J up to another level as well - but I don;t have the pockets.
The more people who listen to AN the less people will need to read Stereophile or any magazine - because I have heard Stereophile's recommended stuff and I have heard AN's stuff. My conclusion is that I am a way better audiophile than those reviewers - though they have slicker writing styles than myself. I certainly recommend the musical system over the keeping up with the Joneses style systems that you need to upgrade every 2 years because that is when the company needs a new review, which Stereophile is happy to review.Like I say listen to the AN E with Oto SE and AN CD player(say 3.1) with AN matching cables. System is something like $10kUS. So you should expect a lot granted.
Now compare that to the Class A rated speakers amps and cd players from Stereophile like Any Krell and with top of the line or up there Mark Levinson cd player and preamp with Wilson speakers. I did. This system is well over $60k and is utterly embarrassed by the AN entry level system.
Sorry I felt like a rant. But Passion - where the hell has that gone - how many companies have made me passionate over the last 15 years of listening to systems at stupidly high costs from Legacy, Cabasse, YBA, Musical Fidelity, Classe, Coplan, Martin Logan, B&W, and on and on? Audio Note.
I grant you that some feel equally passionate about Magnepan and Quad etc - so the point is not the WHO does this for you - but the make damn sure that there is a Companies products that DOES do this for you. For instance the Krell ML and Wilson for soemone else might be it.
NT
NT
What kind of room and speaker placement do you find that these speakers require?
I find them all reasonably position friendly. The J and E like corners because Peter designs them for a corner placement to get deeper but more anchored bass. The AX Two apparantly can be free standing and is very room friendly.Have not heard the floorstanders. The E at my Dealer is used in a second room close to walls and in the corner and in the main room they have them a few feet into the room and nowhere near a corner(Peter would be upset) but both sounded terrific in both rooms.
The positioning is taste sensitve because some people love them in the corner others like them out a bit - I suppose it would depend how far the corners are away from each other and how far back you sit(it's more to get the soundstage right).
Chris -Thanks. The cheque's in the post.
I think there is not so much of a distinction in reality. Most of us here at AA are music enthusiasts first, audiophiles second. The latter is simply a (for the most part highly unsatisfactory) means to achieve the former.
Best.
"Most of us here at AA are music enthusiasts first, audiophiles second."I disagree and would suggest that any trip to a hi-fi Show will demonstrate that equipment and systems are designed for audiophiles rather than music enthusiasts.
Systems aren't demo'ed with music, they're demo-ed with audiophile recordings of Mr Bland and his Amazingly Bland Orchestra or the like, and when the demo-er is handed a visitor's CD to play it's usually even worse.
Before buying my first AN DAC I purposely auditioned it at the Bristol Show with music I actually listened to the most, that being a compressed Santana CD, a DAT-derived live Eva Cassidy CD and....er.....something else(???).
As expected with a high-resolution system, the Santana CD sounded compressed, the Eva Cassidy CD sounded less than pristine and the other CD sounded.....like it did, but all were enjoyable to me with the strengths being brought to the fore rather than the weaknesses.
Of course, ALL audiophiles will state that they are music-enthusiasts but there's music and there's MUSIC no?
Aye Chris, when you put it like that I have to agree. I guess I just tend to see things from my own perspective.I'd managed to forget about the audiophile shows and the sweating masses with their audiophile disks. If it's OK with everyone, I'd like to quickly put them behind me once more.
And of course you are right. There's music and there's MUSIC.
Here's to that thought. I'm off to bed with a book and a hot cocoa.
Undefined, sloppy bass is really the biggest limitting factor to adopting an all-tube set-up for me...or is that a big myth?How does the bass sound compared to your former Bryston package?
TIA
Enzo -The suggestion that SET-power can't do tight, deep bass is a myth. From my review: ...All the hoary myths about SET amplification (mid-range to die for, no bass, coloured) proved untrue...
Compared to my former Bryston/PMC set-up, the Audio Note system goes deeper, just as tightly, but a lot more tunefully. That's my comparative opinion based on an entirely AN system. Whether a mix and match vendor approach using SET amps would do it too, I can't say.
I understand it's all pricey gear.
I may be slipping over the dealer/non-dealer line here, but to answer your question plainly, you can assemble an extremely satisfying, all AN system, including cables, for under $10K, though you'll have to scramble to find an AN transport, since, at least for the time being AN has stopped making them. I understand, however, that there may be a surprise waiting for us at the Milan show.
Come on now! I've laid my soul bare. Admitted to audio geekdom. Now you want me to give a hostage to fortune and tell the world (and my wife) how much it cost?I love life too much!!!
KevinF.
Hi Kevin - I have a AN 3.1x sig and a CDT2 transport as you mentioned that you had or still have, you didn't say whether you upgraded.
My question is whether you have ever compared the 3.1x sig against the balanced and the differences between the two.
mescabo
sugesstion,
next move up:
sony dvd-sacd player-sherwood S5000II integrated amp--
consonance opera audio eric 1 speakers
Actually-- the ol' Sherwood aint bad. Got one meself.It's no AN, but it's definitely underrated.
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