Audio Note UK AN-E LX/Signature System

Please excuse the thread highjack, but it seems more efficient than starting a new thread. I have AN kit E speakers with SPe silver internal wires AlNiCo magnets and hemp speakers. All my 300B components have silver wires in the audio circuit. I have a speaker wire run if 1.5 meters. Would the SPe speaker wires be good enough, or should I really save for the SPx? Thanks.

 

The AN equipment you have is so far beyond "good enough", that only you can decide how far you want to keep going, in choosing the speaker wire that will add even more "magic" to what you must be hearing. SPe will be right in-there, as far as transferring all the wonderful nuances from your amp to your speakers. But SPx will sound noticeably better. Spe is better than "good enough" for your system; you will love it. And, you would love the sound of SPx, just a little bit more. It is really about the cost, and your willingness to commit yourself to continuous improvement in hearing the nuances: a little more liveliness, and a little more detail clarity.

 

The good thing about AN gear is that you can basically get off at any station along the upgrade path and be content, i.e. just enjoy the system and the music. At least if you achieve good room integration, which is again easier with AN speakers than with most other speakers.

Sure, if you hear a better AN system, you may get the upgrade itch (advice: Don’t listen to AlNiCo speakers!). But even then, you will soon again focus on the music that your own system is making, which will help forget about upgrading.

 

As always, “it depends....”... A lot depends on where you see your system going down the road. For example, if think there’s a reasonable possibility that you will upgrade the system (maybe more than just speakers) then emphatically save for the SPx. If you view your current system as an end-state, then the SPE would be good and save/spend the other money on something else.

You may also consider whether you are going to biwire. Then the calculus has to include bi-wired SPE vs. single wire SPX...

BTW, I have had SPE (albeit single-wired) in my system for a short period to see what it sounded like (I got it for my super tweeters) before I put the SPX in. The SPX was a definite improvement, but my speakers have Sogon wire from external crossover so it is a different set of variables. I couldn’t afford the 4.5 meters of biwired Sogon that it would have taken... Even I have to draw the line SOMEPLACE :-0

 

Does anyone have a view on this? I'm about to make that decision and any thoughts would be helpful.

 

I have decided to go with single wire due to cost considerations. Now that my speaker choice is changed to ANE SPx/Alnico it becomes very expensive to do SPx wiring in biwire mode.

 

I wonder if it would be okay to run SPX on the HF and SPe on the bass? I mean it's the same silver just one has more strands than the other.

Someone should try it out and see what happens.

 

I would vote for SPx single-wired. I know AN is a big believer in bi-wiring but that doesn’t mean all listeners will react the same way. I tried bi-wiring many times over the last 20 years with a number of different speakers and cables, and each time I preferred the sound of a single speaker wire and quality jumpers between the speaker binding posts. Now none of the speakers were AN but one of them (Spendor SP100) was also supposed to sound best, according to the manufacturer, with bi-wiring or even tri-wiring. Nevertheless, I always preferred the sound with a single cable. Bi-wiring or tri-wiring made the sound more spectacular in some ways but less coherent. Coherency is very important to me so I preferred the single cabling where my multi-way speakers sounded more like a single driver.

A year ago I was lucky enough to buy a demo set of 1.5m SPx bi-wire cables. The SPx is absolutely the best sounding speaker cable I have ever tried. For my tastes its tonal balance is just right—-not lean, not bright—and it is also just right in terms of detail, dynamics and imaging. It also allowed me to try, once again, bi-wiring to see if a dedicated bi-wire cable would sound better. Nope, I still preferred a single SPx cable over bi-wiring. I also tried a “shotgun” arrangement where the two SPx cables were run in parallel as a double-SPx single cable. Nope, that didn’t sound as good as just a single SPx cable, at least to my ears. Eventually I separated the bi-wired pair of cables so I now have a single run of SPx speaker cable and the extra set of SPx is now the internal speaker wiring for my tweeter.

The purpose behind my post is to say you might not find bi-wiring to be an improvement or at least enough of an improvement to justify stepping down to a lesser grade cable. I have never heard the SPe so I don’t know how much of a step down it would be, but I suspect with the lesser number of silver strands the bass would not be as weighty or dynamic as the SPx. For me that would be an unacceptable trade-off. I would much prefer having a higher quality cable in the first place. I have tried AN Lexus speaker cable and the SPx is vastly better to my ears.

So my recommendation would be to get a single run of SPx. By the way, I have resolved never to audition Sogon speaker cable in my system. I am pretty sure it would be a big improvement over my SPx but since I can’t afford it I prefer not to find out. I would rather live in blissful ignorance.

 

Please read this post with respect that I retail Audio Note equipment in a land far, far away and view it as only a comparison between SPe and SPx , but yesterday a 100mtr roll of SPx landed on my door step and today I made up my first pair of biwire SPx speaker cables. I have used SPx as internal mains cable before and in that situation, I preferred SPx by a considerable margin. The difference in listening briefly tonight on a system I know extremely well, CD4.1, Sootto mains and interconnects, Oto Se Signature , Sootto mains again and AN-E SPe HE speakers was akin to listening to the same musician play but with 30 years more experience in the touch, the weight, the confidence, the intent. I can't describe it any different as it just become matters of frequency and levels of loudness. I also have Sogon to compare with but that will come after many hours of running. Cheers.

 

Finn, did you have SPe in the system before trying the SPx?

Have you compared any of the AN silver cables in single-wired vs bi-wired mode?

 

Exactly the same setup and straight from 3.5 mtr biwire SPe to 3.5 mtr SPx biwire. I haven't done any comparisons with single wire to biwire. If I was a customer and trying to decide whether to single wire SPx or biwire SPe, then I would choose single SPx.

 

Thanks finn