Audio Note AN/E SEC Silver Signature Loudspeaker with external crossovers in Listening Room 3 with Lamm ML1.1 amplifiers, Andio Note CDT-3 (CDT-Three) transport and DAC 4.1x Balanced.
Nope, no preamplifier in this system at the moment. Long story… but the Lamm L2 preamplifier, that was here, is now on the Kharma Mini Exquisites in the another room (thanks Joe!), and the Audio Note M8 will be here instead any minute….riiiight Neli?
Audio Note AN/E SEC Silver Signature Loudspeaker closeup view
It is hard to describe this speaker. We have had a number of amplifiers and source components driving it – so we are starting to get a sense of it….
It is not like the other speakers here – it does not have a laundry list of things it does ‘best’ – want the ultimate in resolution? Look to Marten Design and Kharma. Want a super flat feequency response? Look to Marten Design. Want beguiling transparency? Look to the Triolons. Want seemlessness between drivers. Well the single driver SoundLabs can’t be beat.
Even with respect to musicality – the Kharmas will have to take that gold medal…
But what these are is the most Enjoyable speaker we have ever heard.
What does that mean?
It means that the system anchored with these speakers is the one where we have to kind of urge people to get up off the couch and go hear the next system not because it is ohmygod astonishing – but because it connects us to us. This is the reason we got into this hobby in the first place. Something inside us just likes to listen to music.
This system is the one where it is just so easy to listen to music for hours and hours.
The other systems are considered ‘better’ by most audiophile-approved and -endorsed measuring sticks – but they are all also challenging in some way. Overwhelming perhaps. Or startlingly detailed. Or something that draws ones attention, one’s intellectual attention, to aspects of the music that have nothing to do with music.
Audio Note AN/E Loudspeaker and external crossover
Do you remember when, perhaps in your teen years (for those of you not in your teen years now) when you did not examine the music – you listened to it?
Well, even after all these long cynical years as a picky audiophile – you can listen and enjoy music that way again. Not that these speakers are cheaper than most other speakers, coming in at $40K.
But they are an end-of-the-search kind of speaker. The ‘you are done exploring what is possible in music reproduction, now is the time to start listening to music’ kind of end of the road, the ‘let’s get on with our life’ kind of beginning of the rest of your life. Or maybe it is just time to ‘get a life’?
Nahhhhhhh… hey these are just speakers – it will take more than that to get most of us ‘a life’…. 🙂
Rear of speaker, with integral Audio Note Sogon speaker cable… yummmmmy.
The speakers are very reflective, here you can see our light-switch cover, an artistic and autotomically correct dancing man, reflected in the speaker. Oops, well, I guess this isn’t a family blog anymore… [Hey! You can stop peering so closely now…I have more things to say below 🙂 ]
Audio Note SEC external crossover – Front view
What this says, for those who can’t read the picture, is:
“AN-E Special Edition Cobalt
Hand Calibrated Copper Foil Capacitor Crossover
Solid Silver Inductors
SilverWired Voice Coils
ALNiCo Woofer Magnet
SOGON Speaker Cable”
Audio Note SEC external crossover – Top view
Audio Note SEC external crossover – Rear view
Final view of the AN/E speaker…
These are what I call my desert island speakers (actually, include the rest of the audio note electronics with it too, please). (oh, and an HRS MXR rack. This is a very nice 5-star desert island :-)).
[OK you spellers out there, I originally spelled this ‘dessert’ island – but now that I changed it, I am not so sure that dessert island isn’t a better description after all….Nahhhhh. Desserts are usually sweet but of little redeaming value otherwise. The point really is that this speaker, these systems are what one ends up at after one is done fracking around with all these fun audio toys and just wants to listen to music]
And on this desert island, I would hope that it would have normal walls – as our current listening rooms do not have any corners, nor do any of the rooms in this house (except the closets) [which is a good thing… and a bad thing…. The Audio Note loudspeakers like corners to be nearby].
And we haven’t even been able to take the full measure of these speakers yet! [See next post].
But if you are finally through with exploring the strange new worlds of the audio reproduction universe (encountering strange new systems – most likely configured in a unique way, in a unique room – boldy going where no one has gone before… only to find “its dead Jim”), then you REALLY should check this stuff out.
