To those readers who suspect I’m being seduced by any Audio Note house ‘sound’ and that there’s perhaps some warmth being added by the AN-Es, I’d suggest they’re not actually a million miles away from the F30s which are regarded as being as accurate/neutral in their presentation as one could reasonably hope for in a similar price bracket, and that the 100wpc E.A.R. Make no mistake, the Revel F30s I’ve been using for the last two or three years are excellent speakers which have won plaudits from various audio organisations and publications the world over, which were coincidentally designed by Peter Snell’s successor, Kevin Voecks, who had moved on to Revel but without making direct objective comparisons (something I can’t really do due to different placement and cabling anyway), I’ve got to say I now prefer the AN-Es for the simple reason that I end up listening to more music while they’re installed in my system, and that is THE ultimate aim of any piece of audio equipment… surely? To make music more enjoyable – or rather as enjoyable as you‘d imagine the live performance would be? On first listen, the AN-Es don’t tend to grab you by your genitalia and put you into some multi-orgasmic state of bliss but just as your most highly regarded, long standing friends tend to be those who didn’t try too hard to impress on first introduction by either showing off or by otherwise drawing attention to themselves, so too do the AN-Es quietly work their way into your affections by doing the job they were designed to do in an understated but highly efficient (no pun intended) manner – that job being to convey the intimacy of music to the listener while remaining a bit part player, not some narcissistic diva who wears a low slung dress to display her ample buxom. I had read somewhere that he’d recently developed an interest in heavy metal so perhaps he was getting into that particular ’scene’, although the mental picture of Peter playing air-guitar – stomping around a room while avoiding the exposed 300Bs atop a multi-thousand pound ONGAKU – was far too surreal to contemplate while sober. I’d arranged to pick the AN-Es up at the Northern Hi-Fi Show that is becoming increasingly popular in Manchester, England and in order to familiarize myself with how they sounded in an all AN system, I waited until there was just an hour or so of exhibiting left before squeezing through the rather crowded doorway and finally parking my backside in the Audio Note room, my entry unnoticed by one Peter Qvortrup whose hair seemed to be considerably longer than I’d noticed on our last meeting some years ago. Now to my first experiences with the review pair of AN-Es, although I had heard a pair some years ago when auditioning an AN DAC which I ended up buying. The basic design cabinet dimensions and driver configurations remain the same but as with the AN range of amplification and DACs, it’s largely the belief that anything copper can do, the highest purity silver can do much better, and the subsequent result is increased performance and, inevitably, costs, as crossover components and internal wiring are upgraded.Įxternally the AN-E SPE/HEs that I’m reviewing are available in over twenty different wood finishes, and there’s also the option of solid colours, including white and black piano lacquer finish is extra, and Mario of AN was quite enthusiastic when describing how he once saw a pair of AN-Es in racing green with gold tweeter surrounds. Hardly surprising when the Audio Note philosophy seems to be one of relentlessly pursuing the best sound regardless of the prevailing wind, which is invariably blowing a gale in the opposite direction no doubt Peter’s hair (more later) is firmly held in place by a suitable hat when he and Andy Grove are getting their heads together designing the next AN product. So, when those original Snell models were discontinued in favor of more ‘modern’ designs by designer Kevin Voecks, featuring less efficient drivers, narrower/deeper cabinets, floor standing, etc, Peter revived and upgraded Peter Snell’s two-way stand mounts under his own banner once he and Kondo established their own, separate enterprises. In a (quite large) nutshell, the late Peter Snell designed and built speakers which Peter Qvortrup of Audio Note obviously regarded as being ahead of the pack. For the benefit of the uninitiated, I’ll give a quick run through in the next couple of paragraphs. The Audio Note range of speakers have a history which is both extensive and well documented.
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