Audio Note UK Ongaku Kensei 211 valve Single Ended Triode balanced amplifier now up & running!

Nice. Music first.

Rafe's video might send the measurement folks off a ledge! Also, are those RoomTunes corner tunes in the pic toward the bottom!?

I'm more curious what Steve's set up just sound like!

 

I like the rooms shown in that story as they look like nice comfortable rooms to hang out and listen to music in vs. super-treated audio dungeons.

 

Another reason Audio Note doesn’t put out a price list is that they sell worldwide, and the prices vary from country to country due to different duties, tariffs, taxes etc. imposed by their customs. Peter has said that customs officials from some countries will search the web worldwide to find the highest listed price for an item, and calculate import fees based on that.

 

There’s a good reason for that, AN speakers as per Snell which they are based upon, are designed to integrate into rooms and use the corners for reinforcement. This is in contrast to the prevailing multi driver design which invariably produces too much bass and HF energy for most domestic rooms, and require them to be many feet into the room away from walls etc, and then room treatment on top to deal with peaks etc.

 

I understand, but I feel bad about wasting the dealers time. I just think for the budget, it would be nice to know prices ahead of time.

 

The entry level gear from Audio Note is called the Zero series which implies that it is the absolute zero you can go whilst getting a high performing musically rewarding system.

Prices are somewhat close. AX One and AX Two speakers are around $650 and $950. The latter I own and prefer it to my $1500 LS-50 from KEF.

The 0.1X DAC is $1337.

The iZero integrated amplifier is $2200

The AZ two floorstanding speaker is $1600 and the AZ Three is $2200. These speakers are 95dB sensitive and reach beliw 40hz. The AN K/Lx standmount is $2400 and it is here where you get the 20+ finishing choices in full no void Russian Birch.

Their entry leve CD zero CD player is $2200.

And their cables start at around $20 a meter.

And I believe you can get a full turntable TT1, arm 1, IQ 1 cartridge for under $2500 which won best turntable 2 years in a row in one of the UK magazines. Expensive but not outlandish and probably the entry point of getting a truly good turntable.

So while they don't offer cheap cheap stuff there is a point where they probably don't want to go feeling the sound will be far too compromised to stand behind.

 

Thanks to Richard Austen for his helpful introduction. I have been curious about Audio Note for a while. Unfortunately, my nearest dealer (Audio Note Lounge) is at least 90 minutes away.

 

Closest to me appears to be nearly 600 miles away from me (Portland, Oregon), in Sacramento California. I'd hoped at least there'd be one in the Seattle area, since I am currently going there each week for work. I'd be interested in talking to a dealer and listening to the entry-level products.

 

My local Audio Note dealer has a lot of customers that come in looking to audition Harbeth speakers. Many end up hearing the Audio Note speakers and end up walking out with Audio Note speakers instead. I am sure it works both ways, but, those who fall for Audio Note speakers tend to fall hard for them. If I were looking for commercially available speakers, they would certainly be on my serious consideration list.

I have a somewhat custom made system that I intend to upgrade using Audio Note wires. My dealer makes custom systems and one of the current speakers that is about to be delivered to a customer has Audio Note Sogon running from the binding posts to the crossover, Sogon from the crossover to the woofer and SPx from the crossover to the midrange horn and tweeter. The dealer/builder actually preferred the SPx wire to the midrange and tweeter over using Sogon exclusively. I might experiment with the same wiring.

 

That's interesting Larry. What speakers are these? Are they perhaps the set with a field coil woofer, WE 713a in 32A horn, and a Jensen tweeter? It was a number of months ago that I heard that setup but as I recall it used AM silver wire internally.

 

The "AM" was a typo. I meant AN of course for Audio Note UK.

 

The speaker I heard has an 18" G.I.P. field coil woofer, G.I.P fieldcoil 555 midrange and the extraordinarily expensive G.I.P. 9501 tweeter that is based on the WE 597 (another fieldcoil driver). The midrange horn is somewhat like a 22A horn. Unusual for a Vu design, the woofer is in an enclosed box.

 

Sorry, just saw your question....
I was out of town when it got put in and my wife called me to say that it was going to require listening to all the records and tapes allllllllll over again.

It was one of those differences that was not at all subtle, so I would say they were not “minor within the context of a component system”.

 

Those RCA world map boxes are the coolest! The tubes inside are OK too.

 

Ok, I will bite.... where did you manage to come up with three pairs of Elrogs AND all the RCA tubes?

 

Hard to believe that those RCA Radiotrons were ever $30!

 

Steve you must hear the new 4242E's if you haven't already. Better than any other 211's that I've heard by a mile! £800 a pair in the UK. A real bargain in my opinion.

 

@Steve- Did you ever get the Philips rectifiers?