ANK Audiokits Have Arrived! Follow the Build Here

I can't tell you how excited I am. These speakers have been under construction for months- the last month applying a coat of finish- waiting 24-48 hours, then steel wool and the next coat. Last night I installed the crossovers, and they should be done tonight or tomorrow.

 

I have a question for woodworkers. There are a few spots where the surface is slightly dull when viewed with the light at a certain angle. It looks and feels like the carnuba wax is not sticking there. I tried everything to fix it, including resanding and applying several more coats of poly. Any thoughts of what the problem is and how I might fix it? It's not a major deal as it is not noticeable unless you really look for it, but it bugs me.

 

I got the crossover and wadding installed and am ready to install the woofer and tweeter.




The first speaker is finished!!!!!



Both finished!!!!



In the system and playing:




I have been listening all afternoon and experimenting with placement. Initial impressions are favorable, but I want to give more break-in time before posting a detailed review. The bass was pretty weak at first, but has improved over the last few hours.

 

Congrats. They look fantastic.

 

They look great. You may end up reworking your room to suit the speakers. Having listened to some AN E speakers yesterday I learned that they do excell when put properly into corners. Also (oddly) they work well crossed over well in front of the listener. That last bit shocked me...

 

enjoy! you deserve it!

 

Thanks for that. I plan to experiment a lot with placement on the weekend. But I have noticed they sound better with much more toe-in than my previous speakers.

 

Great work man!

 

I wasn't working with AN drivers by any means but my DIY's, when brand new, were kinda awful. In fact, I was wondering if I had made the right decision I put about 200-300 hours on them and they were absolutely nothing like that first listen. Prodigious lowend and they just disappeared into the room finally. Took a lot of placement fiddling but I attribute most of the change just to break in, playing the system constantly at moderate volume for weeks.

 

They look really nice...must be happy to finally get them done. 400 hours of break in time - you may notice they go through two distinct break ins as well. You can toe them in such that you see the sides of the cabinet in full. Indeed, in a narrow room you can actually face the speakers at each other (facing each other). But with break in, you may also find that you will want to re position them. With my J's they were terrible in the corner at first so I had them free standing facing straight ahead - then after break in I tried the corner again with tweeters firing a meter in front of my head (basically straight out from the corner) and they've been there ever since) but I swore initially that the corner was not going to work. Still the Hong Kong dealer doesn't put them in corners and they sell more than any other dealer I think so it's not exactly a necessity to put them in corners obviously. The dealer here put on Noisia "Split the Atom" on the Js and blew me out the door in the bass on 7 watts. BOOOOOM shake the room. When they do that - the woofer has broken in

 

Don't they lose some efficiency if not placed in the corners though?

 

I have a very strange shape to my living room and there are no corners where the speakers can go. I listened for over five hours and there was a noticeable improvement it seemed like each hour (Or was I just getting more used to the change in presentation?). Or maybe it is the results of playing with the placement- thanks for the tips, guys.

Richard, I read elsewhere (it may have been Warren) that also said in some rooms pointing the speakers at each other worked well. I have them situated now with quite a bit of tow-in that sounds really good. I think I will give them more break in time and then spend an entire day experimenting with placement. I haven't yet filled the stands with lead shot and sand, as I wanted to save my back while I moved them around. I will do that when I have decided on the placement- the stands are 50 pounds as-is!

 

I think they do, but they play plenty loud for me not being in the corners. They are rated as being 5dB more efficient than my previous speakers, and I think they are slightly louder than those, but not by a lot. They are filling the room at a good volume with the volume at 50%.

 

I've seen these set up with sound reflecting panels creating false corners.

 

I started out putting kitty litter and styrofoam chips inside the stands for my AN-Es, as per my dealer's suggestion. Still too much boominess at first, but then I realized that I am on a suspended wooden floor and the dealer is on concrete floors with brick walls. Huge difference.

Now after a couple of hundred hours, I am using lead shot inside the stands and things are calming down and are becoming much more even in their response. I am leaving my speakers a few feet out into the room for the next two hundred hours, then I am going to put them back in the corners. Funny thing is that the first 20 hours were spent with them right in the corner and as they loosened up the upper bass and lower mods became more prominent. That is easing up now.

I have also decided that I am generally more of a nearfield listener, which is the opposite of how Audio Note tells you to setup the AN-Es. They want a farfield listening position with the speakers crossed well in front of the listener, just like my Opera Callas stand mount speakers that I had for about fifteen years. They used a relatively similar tweeter, so perhaps it is part of the smoothing out of the frequency response for those types of tweeters. Both types of listening positions are enjoyable, I just have a slight preference to the nearfield style as I end up feeling more involved in the performance. So that is how I am setup now and the imaging and sound staging is ridiculously good for such a wide front baffle.

 

I am going to be hosting a gathering of audio nuts like me this Saturday if anyone wants to check out the new system. I will be grilling on the BBQ and providing beer wine and cocktails if anyone is interested. We've had these gatherings in the past and they are really fun.

 

Wow, Ray, that sounds fabulous. I wish that I was a little closer. I would be there for sure! Have a great time!

 

Wow - great thread - I know how you must feel- I've built my mono block amps - I had my speakers out for 6 months undergoing a major veneer project - plus I have VPI and McIntosh - cheers brother!

 

Hope you had a good time at the gathering! It must be great fun to get some audio nuts together to share music and some good food & beverages : )

 

We had a very good time. If you ever get to NYC let me know.

 

Lovely amps ! I almost bit the bullet on these a few months ago, but I am sorely tempted by the 4.1 Dac ! Looks like a nice build. Enjoy.

 

Mark,
You should definitely build at least one kit. It was a blast and I learned so much from the project and they sound great. I now feel completely capable of doing my own repairs on audio equipment.

 

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I know what you mean. I learnt about speaker crossovers by building my own ( albeit based on a design ). I have a Dac of similar design to the AN - it really changed my views on digital completely !

 

It's ketching...



The actual kit and stands have not yet arrived from AN UK, but Brian from ANK Kits in Canada was kind enough to ship the cabinets separately to give me time to finish them. I have decided to just finish the birch plywood directly, mostly because I don't have the skills to veneer them. I applied 10 coats of Formby's Tung Oil Finish low gloss wiping varnish, buffing each coat with #0000 steel wool. I also sanded the 4th and 8th coat with P800 grit sanding sponge to get it butt smooth. It actually does not look half bad if you can get over the endgrain frame around the baffle, which I certainly can. I blame this thread entirely for getting me into it .

 

Personally, I don't think they'd look "right" without that endgrain border on them. They look great!