Strictly for fans of Audio Note UK (all things Audio Note UK)

That is a shame that those people went out of business. They had really good stores. Any record stores in Shenzhen?

 

It's possible they moved but of course - I have no clue as to where they have moved.

Apparently a big vinyl plant burned down or something so getting a repress will be a loooong time coming. i ordered pricey Analog Productions 45 LP and they e-mailed me saying it was out of stock and would be in next month - I am hopeful because while the LP is going for $115 Canadian (eesh) the US outfit that charges $75 US adds $30US to ship. So it's sort of a deal.

I picked up a few Used ones yesterday but they have arguably been the worst quality LP's I've bought. The owners here must have been using their cat to extract music from the grooves.

I bough Eva Cassidy's box set that sounded mediocre on the TT2 and is utterly sublime now - and the 45 singles they threw in are flat out unbelievably well recorded.

I went to a few audio dealers - and I almost laughed out loud - they were playing some Chinese music. Amplification was Viola audio and Diesis speakers - sounded nice - he then puts on Diana Krall - see a white guy put on Diana Krall - You just can't get away from her! I give in - I have decided that I will like her - if she becomes single I will try and marry her - I GIVE UP. Here name shall now be Diana "Ms Audiophile" Krall.

 

Go pick up a copy of Krall's "Girl in the other room", seriously, a great album with an incredibly poignant storyline and so unlike the studio driven releases outwardly decried by the masses. Also, try to pick up some Puscifer vinyl while you are at it, I particularly recommend " V is for ******".
v is for ****** is the unmentionable female anatomy part , must be the kiddies hour in hidden word land.

 

Girl in the Other Room is the one LP I own from her. I bought it for the track Departure Bay - since I lived on Departure Bay and know the Dairy Queen she is talking about. In fact I saw here in Nanaimo (where she is from) shopping at our best Second hand CD/Vinyl shop - She was coming out of the store with her dad and people yelled out to her she waved said hi and went on her merry way. She lives about 25 minutes out of town. Pamela Anderson moved in about 25 minutes in the other direction. Sublime to the ridiculous.

Diana buys vinyl for what it's worth She signed a poster for the store owner. I missed my chance by 2 minutes.

I was not particularly impressed with the LP version of "Girl in the Other Room" though in terms of sound quality. I find it to be sibilant. I have the 33 - perhaps the 45 if there is one is superior.


I don't hate Krall or anything - it's just that there are other singers out there with well recorded material - in Canada alone there are jazz singers Sophie Milman and Chantal Chamberland off the top of my head - Neither of whom I have heard played at an audio show - except by me that is. Chantal has a new album coming out soon and on vinyl but it seems to be a cover album of pop songs - although Diana Krall did something similar with Wallflower. I actually don't mind these "jazz" alterations.

Example of Chamberlans's covering Cher's Believe (Interestingly Chamberland is a "auduiophile darling" in Hong Kong and is played at the audio shops here. It's funny how artists do well in certain other countries and not necessarily in their own.

I noticed in fact that Chamberland's new album is produced in Hong Kong. In the Philippines The Outfield (a rock band I like) had a massive hit that was only a massive hit there. A British Band that was reasonably popular in the US and Canada but did absolute zilch in Britain. I suppose I prefer my sultry singers to be more like Beth Hart with Joe Bonamassa (Close to my Fire) than the jazz standards.

Anyway Chantal seems to be doing her own Wallflower album.

 

Up and running with the new AN-K/LX. Early impressions are great in my small 10x11ft listening room. They're positioned about 2.5" from the inside corner of the speaker to the solid wall behind with toe-in about 2 ft behind my head. I think I already prefer their fast, tight bass presentation to the Ref3a de Capo they replaced. Nice full sound, bass isn't boomy, clear midrange. Initial impression of resolution is really good with well defined center image but not as much depth. The SORO SE has no problem pushing these guys and easily can get loud but not compressed sounding. Sounds really nice, very happy so far. I'll continue to work on positioning but it's hard not to sit back, relax and listen to some tunes!

 

Joe congratulations! Looks like a cool space and a cracking system I say sit back and enjoy the tunes imaging is overrated anyway.

 

Nice looking system, Joe.

I'm starting to get my head round replacing my vintage-ish amps with something from the AN stable...it's interesting that you are using quite a muscular Soro SE in a listening space that is fractionally larger than mine (my wife donated me a corner of our dining room here in France and on a good day I can pretend it measures 2m by 3m). That space situation is unlikely to change any time soon, so I need quality watts rather than quantity watts. The obvious one-box partner for my AN-K SPe is an Oto or Soro, but I'm also attracted to @Richard Austen's contention that separates are the way to go, so I've been looking in to that. In fact Richard noted in an earlier post that a 2-watt Paladin driving some 89.5dB AN-Js had sounded glorious and a poster on another AN forum (think it got invaded by alien spammers) run by Dave Cope a few years back ran a 3.5 watt Vindicator with his 90dB AN-Ks. He said it was an option well worth considering if you were prepared to sacrifice some top and bottom-end dynamics on full-blown orchestral works and he loved the sound. This sounds counter-intuitive because whenever you read about AN's flea-powered amps, it's always in the context of their super-efficient, 98dB AN-Es, but I wondered if other users have any experiences of using low-powered amps with less efficient speakers such as the Ks?

 

Finally found the rest of the pieces for my office upgrade




I tried out several different streaming options, but nothing beat out a Sonos box with the AN 0.1X DAC.

My K/Spes moved back to the dining room where they are now being driven by a new Cobra. Still bedding in, but it sounds very nice. They did a good job with the onboard DAC.

 

Looks great, Bob However, the Sonos box is the bottleneck in that beautiful system ...

 

Very Nice!

 

My first AN system consisted of a M2 line that had been slightly modded, a pair of Quest Silver mono's and a pair of Audio Physic Virgo III's rated at 90dB. I think the K's are around 90dB as well.

The Virgo III's were 3-way floor standing speakers: Drivers: 1" ring-radiator tweeter, 4.5" aluminum-cone midrange, two 6.5" Nomex-cone woofers, two 6.5" Nomex inverted-cone passive radiators.

Wish I had kept this system cause it was let's just say awesome.

Not sure if the Virgo's vs AN K's is a good comparison but in terms of sensitivity and amplifier wattage - it's close.

 

An update on my search to find an amplifier for my Tannoys.

I ve been lucky to have been loaned Luxman and Naim integrateds over the weekend. I thought these might be easier solutions than two box AN and or SS dilemma.
So with my old Rega and the Oto, I had four options to listen to.
They all had their pros and cons but despite the Otos shortcomings, none of them could compete with its midrange magic. Too my ears it was the most emotionally involving and musical sounding - especially on vocals.

So to quote The Godfather “ Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in”
There’s no escape and Audio Note in some form is staying.

Plan x is as follows. I ve found an older M3, recently serviced by AN and with some nice NOs valves. That leaves the Power to sort, upto £1500.
I think it unlikely I ll find a P2 SE in budget and there’s still the question of if it’s got enough power? Leading me back to SS.
Any suggestions please that may have synergy with the P3.
Also what, if anything do I need to consider, regarding matching impedance?

 

very nice system
Can I ask you how the Sonos dac 0.1 combo compares to your CDT plus dac 4?
Does it even come close? I owned a dac 1.1 Signature plus an Aurender and it didn’t come close to my CD 4.1 at all so I moved it out. But still have so much digital downloads and ripped music so I like to stream some how in the future. Don’t want to spend to much on it while I prefer to play vinyl and cd.

 

Well if you have a small listening area, listening in the near field and don't demand it really loud, there isn't a reason to think those lower watt amps wouldn't work. As you said, some people with first hand experience seem to like the outcome. If you ever move into a bigger space, 2 watts may not cut it... or maybe it will.

Currently, in my listening space and volume choices, I could get away with less watts and some day maybe I'll give it a shot. The SORO does give me the ability to have a wider selection of speakers to try out if I feel the need. The important aspect for me is getting a full, detailed sound without cranking the volume. I get more of this with a single ended amp then my push-pull amp which I value more at the moment. I'd love to hear the K's with some of the those amps. Good luck with the hunt.

 

As you would guess, not even close. I wanted a streaming option for background music. I borrowed several streamers including Naim and Gold Note, but I think it is the DACs that make the difference. The Sonos box (with a W4S reclocking board) feeding the 0.1X was easily better than any other box I tried. Plus it can be grouped with other Sonos products around the house.

The CDT-2 with the Dac 4 is a pretty magical combination.

 

Ah, that makes more sense then Yes, the DAC probably makes of the difference, but there's a reason that AN makes transports in various levels also. And why you can't get decent sound from any old computer used as a bit source.

 

@NapaBob Did the Sonos beat the Naim streamer with just its onboard DAC or with the DAC 4 and which Naim did you try?

I ask as I run my Naim through my 2.1 sig and it’s a pretty good source but nowhere near as good as my old CDT Two. Consequently the DAC in the Naim is redundant and the streamer half gets used mainly for playlist convenience and occasional Radio Paradise or downloaded albums I haven’t yet burned to CD.

I’m staying with CD as my preferred format but it would be great to find a streaming source / renderer that could match or better the CDT Two so I didn’t need to keep moving the DAC cable between the streamer & CD transport as much.

 

It was the NDX 2. It is a very nice box with many nice features, including a nice little screen that displays the album cover. And it is a Roon end point. I did a lot of listening comparing the Naim (with the RCA outputs to the Meishu) to the Sonos+0.1X, and the music was always cleaner and crisper with the Sonos+AN. I have not tried the Sonos into the DAC-4, partially for the reason you mention - I don't like swapping cables.

It would be an interesting conversation if the streaming front end was competitive with the AN CDTs. But it is just not. Or not yet.

 

I run my PC into my DAC 0.1x - the sound is actually better that I could expect. I have tried some interfaces in the past but they had some dropout issues and I find the old school and FREE Foobar2000 to be the least problematic. Old interface design but then hell - old DAC design. Matches well.

With the PC and hard drives - I can stream music or play music from those hard drives.

I see and hear $2,000+ streamers and I think - why? I have never been impressed with any of these at a dealer demo or audio show. Perhaps it is the DAC they're connected to - not of the NOS variety - but the streamers don't really seem to do anything a PC at 1/7th the price can do. PC might be noisier but I can't hear mine and mine is a cheap HP.

Granted I do not have supremely high expectation for it either - I accept that my vinyl rig is vastly superior and good CD replay is too but then they cost a massive amount more money. Computer Audio is superb for convenience and it's respectable - it's not run from the room screaming - it's just kind of "flat" and "unexciting" but it's good for music where it's difficult or impossible to get the CD or Vinyl. Perhaps my brain is allowing me to like computer audio more because it has prepared me to view it as convenience listening.

If I spent a bunch of time and effort I could make it sound better but then I would "expect" it to be better and then probably wind up disappointed that the effort didn't get me very far.

 

Maybe AN will release their streamer eventually. Haven’t heard anything about it since those few pics from the Russian forum.

 

When we see a prototype it usually means we won't see a production unit for at least 5 years. By then the industry will probably be on to something else.

 

The only new projects slated for release in the foreseeable future are the belt drive CD transport and the field coil speakers. No timeframes as such given the current situation.

 

Do you know if there will be affordable Belt Drives like the $2500 belt drive CEC or will it be the $25k+ variety?

 

I think they will most likely follow the models using the Pro 2 mechanism given the only images I've seen show the use of the pantzerholtz material and that is not rolled out for the budget conscious buyers. Peter is enthusiastic about the direction the new products will allow recordings to be reproduced so that bodes well.