No need to apologize. To spare you further pain and suffering (As well as many others) I will give you the answer to the question you asked. Are you ready? If you don't buy AUDIO NOTE Speakers you aren't an Audiophile. You must immediately seek out a Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist because there is something wrong with your hearing if you don't agree they are the best speakers in the world. You should also seek out a Buddah Doll that resembles Peter Q and bow and pray to it every night before you go to bed. Then and only then will you be worthy of my vast superior knowledge. Do you have what it takes Grasshopper??
You have got to move on the Mac, we are getting older every day, it's a PRIDE OF OWNERSHIP THING, Go for it! I will blindly follow your lead!
I just don't get it, does the AN really need that much silver? Audio Note: AN-E/ Sogon $165,000.00 Wilson: Alexx $109,000.00 You save $56,000.00 to buy someone lunch, or a real nice car!
Which seems plausible and the fact remains- match your speakers and Class A amplifiers with care. I heard the Lux 590AXII with Harbeth M30.2 and the sound was just too soft- and this coming from a smooth tube integrated so the point of reference was already on the softer side of the fence. Possibly a good match with KEF Reference speakers (guessing) .
go listen to one and then the other. you will get it, trust me. and the SOGON retails for ~ $240K in the US and the SOOTO ~ $302K.
I really wish I could hear them, maybe at an audio show sometime. If they offer more than a set of Wilson Alexx loudspeakers, they have really accomplished something great. Sorry, I was a bit off on the pricing, my gosh, there are so many variations!
I wasn’t throwing Richard under the bus, just found the question funny. I like our resident Audio Note superfan’s taste and would happily let him assemble a stereo rig for me. I’m jealous of all the great gear he gets to hear. I’m bottom feeding with my Snells. Looming forward to upgrading them to Audio Notes when my kids are old enough to not be dust cap/tweeter curious.
James Having heard the Snells mentioned in your profile many many years ago I would not consider you a bottom feeder. Vintage maybe but no bottom feeding. Cheers
Peter Qvortrup seems to be the PT Barnum of 21st century audiophilia (that is, if PT Barnum had stolen everything from his former boss and then badmouthed him after he died).
thanks Clay. I only mean from a purchase price perspective. My Snells are great and like Peter Q, my interest would be in improving that design. They’re fantastic at scale and texture, but certainly could improve in the areas of top end air, detail and the lowest octave or two of bass. Errors of omission, which is why they’ve seen many other loudspeakers out the door. I’d love to try an Audio Note E or J in my room. Also thinking hard about some Harbeths, but I’ll be selling my house and moving next year so no moves until then. But yes, I agree. The Snells are fantastic. I’ve had many speakers in the 3k and under price range and the Snells are the ones that stick around. In fact, I bet a used pair of Snells and a Rega Brio would be a hard to top setup for around a grand.
If keeping with B&W I would generally advise the use of a Solid State amplifier that is capable at 2 ohms. When reading spec sheets of amplifiers they usually provide the 8 ohm watt number and a 4 ohm number. So in the case of the Luxman 590 it says 30 watts at 8 ohms and 60 watts at 4 ohms. But B&W speakers often dip into the 2 ohm range and thus it is preferable to look for brands (like Accuphase) that list the power rating at 2 ohms - it doesn't really matter so much how much power they state but if they state it they are confident that it will drive the speaker. That is step one before you even bother to listen to the quality.\ Why? Because amplifiers that are not 2 ohm stable driving a 2 ohm speaker have a tendency to get hot and shut off. At my old dealer in downtown Vancouver two amps wound up shutting off trying to drive their difficult speakers. Now note that a lot of amps that don't list 2ohms CAN drive 2 ohms for short periods of time - so you could run a Bryston amplifier on B&W speakers for example and I don't believe Bryston lists a 2 ohm load. I had a quick look at the 803 retail price which based on what I see lists at $17,000. Add a Luxman or equivalent type amp for around $8,000 and this is quickly becoming a high priced system in that $25,000 range. I would simply audition as many systems in that price range from a variety of design types. There are several camps of designs from narrow baffle/low efficiency/high watt systems like a B&W/Luxman kind of set-up. Most stereo systems on the market fall into this camp as they all tend to have a clear eye on home theater. General recommendations to try that for less money (some cases much less money) that I would take over a 803/SS amp would be in certain camps (in no preference order) Camp 1) Planar/ESL/Panel/Open Baffle speakers Examples would be 1) KingSound Prince speaker with a VAC tube amplifier amplifier. Strengths clarity, open sound, holographic, close to the ideal point source - weakness bass dynamics and impact 2) PureAudio Project speakers mentioned earlier with a Single Ended Triode amplifier form any respectable maker - Whammerdyne is usually partnered with them however and their prices are quite reasonable. Four 15 inch woofers per side - withe a choice of tweeters. Strengths - Fuller range sound - most of the advantages of panels but with better deeper more impactful bass. High sensitivity. Disadvantage - big woofers mostly provide high sensitivity not so much bass impact so the bass while good is not as powerful as you would expect from a system with a total of eight 15 inch woofers. This bass impact is about on par with the 803. But the sound is bigger and more open and suffers virtually no box noise - similar to the strengths and weaknesses of a panel. Camp 2) Professional Monitor speakers with high power amplifiers. Similar to B&W in that they are used in studios. ATC, Harbeth, Genelec, and PMC. ATC is IMO better balanced than B&W - they have more impact and IMO better treble. They sound tonally more accurate. The disadvantage is they are also difficult to drive and IMO far uglier to look at. That would also apply to PMC. ATC I have heard with surprising success with lower powered tube amps from Line Magnetic. It's hard to find published measurements for ATC but I suspect they are fairly easy loads even though they are low sensitive. Camp 3) Wide baffle modestly high to high efficiency speakers - Audio Note, Devore, Trenner and Friedl RA ($$$), Tannoy, etc. These speakers tend to sound more natural and less "hi-fi" with plenty of impact and can be driven from 3-10 watts. (depends on which Tannoy however). So any competent tube amplifier should get any of these to sing and IMO will sound better at half the money than a B&W/SS combo. Note that Trenner and Freidl's RA speaker is listed at $25,000 on it's own - they have a similar cheaper model but have not heard it. Advantages - more natural sound - disadvantages not as good at hi-fi pyrotechnics like "imaging" and the bass is a little more polite than the "gush gush" kind of bass of a B&W. Camp 4) Horns - Volti Rival with various SET amplifiers. The horns will have more impact for rock and roll with more perceived energy in the upper registers and a kind of dynamic ease and impact. Cheap horn speakers sound generally atrocious but the best ones IMO generally posses best overall sound for dynamic realism for harder hitting music - they sound alive and have a big jump factor. They are not however typically good at hi-fi things like imaging, soundstaging, smooth response or cohesion. Still, as trade-off go I will always take visceral impact and a jump factor over most speakers that do hi-fi stuff well but lack life. All the speakers in Camp 3 are a middle ground between the strengths of camp 1 and camp 4. They are what I call the balance group. They do each camp at about an 80-90% level but they don't match what CAMP 1 and CAMP 4 do at their best. Camp 5 - most of everything else - Narrow baffle middling sensitivity mainstream designs of a similar stripe - B&W, PSB, KEF, Paradigm, ELAC, Totem, Revel, modern JBL, Sonus Faber, Dynaudio - basically any speaker that tends to use a few 6 inch woofers and some sort of metal tweeter on top that is more or less in the 86-90dB range. Most to me just don't compete or interest my ear nearly as much speakers in Camps 1-4). Cost no object - Camp 4. Big enough room, and budget. Camp 3 where I reside is chosen primarily due to space issues - there is only so much I can do in a Hong Kong Flat. Camp 1 is next - This would be a tie with camp 3 if we're talking Open Baffle Pure Audio Project and possibly Spatial audio - have not heard their top model. With ESL and Planar I would put them a notch down. Camp 2 I prefer this camp to camp for harder hitting music but the exacting quality and monitor like presentation of them tends to make them a more focused listening experience as opposed to relaxing one. Camp 5 The speakers that I would wind up selling to get something from the other camps.
I think the point is that Snell was a genius - when other companies buy the rights to them and essentially just upgrade them and they manage to sell them for a whopping FORTY Years and can manage to command prices into the 5 and 6 figure range - and win speaker of the year 30+ years later in market where classical music is king (Asia) then it says something about the original designer. And for all the Snell owners - when buying vintage the biggest downside is parts availability. I have a 1991 set of Wharfedale Vanguards - good luck ever being able to find a replacement for anything if they die. But with Snell - you can go and get the part from Audio Note's website - pretty cheap too considering - so if you blow a driver or need the right foam surround etc - you can still get it. And maybe it doesn't sound quite as good but so what it is a fraction of the price for the "meat" of the sound.
I have to say it’s been 3-4 years since I’ve had a “real” amplifier in my system: I had a Line Magnetic 518 with my Snell J’s and that was the best sound I’ve ever had at home, but it is easy to forget how good the original Snells can sound with good tube amps. My Yamaha is a fantastic all arounder solid state integrated, but it doesn’t light up the Snells like a fat class A SET amp. I’d be interested at seeing how far someone has taken the Snells without the speaker being the bottleneck.
all of the above! did you see the movie parasite by any chance. the affluent korean gentleman had quite a system that we had a brief look at. looked like a line magnetic tube amp and some rather large he speakers.
he was a fantastic speaker designer, no doubt about that. it reminds me of Tierry Budge, the original Talon Speaker (and then Escalante Speaker) designer. at the time, the original Talon's he designed and made were the first speaker i heard that didn't make me want to run out of a room after five minutes of listening... a truly musical speaker. they had this astonishing balance with stunning bass (even the smallest design) and they were fun to listen to. but like many final components that are worth listening to, measured horribly. to me, that was when i stopped believing measured performance = excellent sound (at least with many components) and just started really listening.
I bet DeVore is speaking of Boston Acoustics. I would love to hear the a100 and a200 in nice restored form....
I was considering the “downsizing” route. I was running a tube preamp and tube push pull monoblocks. The opportunity came up to buy a slightly used Luxman 590AXII for a real good price so I took the plunge. My speakers have a very detailed mid range and top end and are 4 ohm and 91dB. So with the Luxman I get 60 watts class A and 156 watts in total - versus the 75 watts I had with the tubes. 5 weeks in and I am very impressed. The amp is not too laid back for my tastes with my speakers. It is more open and detailed than the tube monoblocks. I have a medium sized room and the amp is more than powerful enough with 91 dB speakers. I can’t stay in the room with the vu meters peaking at -5 dB. I assume that is still under the 60 watt class A limit. The bass may not be as taut as with larger SS amps with mega power supplies, but it is much better then the tube monoblocks I am coming from. The amp may not be for everyone and would not suit all speakers -but so far I am happy. I am sure there are better integrated and separates out there, but buying this second hand it is very good and great value for money.
That sure is pretty! All my amps look like the monolith from 2001 laying on its side... Alas, Luxman, McIntosh, and other great looking higher end integrateds are not in my price range, even used.
Yamaha look pretty good. There should be some good prices on run out stock with their new models - or people selling their old ones to upgrade
