Music�s Finest
Conductor
Updated, May 1, 2004
Note: Audio Note now sells all of its small parts (capacitors, etc.) through Parts Connexion.
This may take two minutes or so...
Effective May 1, 2004
Phonographic Cartridges
Common to
all our phono cartridges� is the quality
of the diamond, stylus and magnet assemblies, the replacement
stylii are interchangeable between the
IQ1, IQ3 and IQ3, a simple and worthwhile upgrade.
Our moving coil cartridges are
both extremely low output, very low compliance and very heavy. They
normally require a step up transformer with a minimum of 28dB gain and
a high rigidity, medium mass tone arm to perform at their best. Active
step up devices are not recommended.
Due to the quality of the
quality, even hardness and polish of our diamond styli, life can be
expected to be on the order of 2,000 to 3,000 hours against the normal
life expectancy of 500 � 1,000 hours for a normal diamond stylus.
It should be noted that all Io
repairs should be sent directly to Audio Note� UK Ltd. All Io
cartridges can be repaired regardless of age, the repair includes a
new cantilever with diamond, new suspension, tie wire and
re-magnetisation of ALNICO magnets, warranty is as for a new
cartridge.
Updated
Audio Note� Analogue
Products
Moving
Coil Step Up Transformers.
�
All low
versions should be used with Audio Note� MC cartridges to get best
bandwidth and dynamic conversion to retain the recorded harmonic
envelope on any piece of software best possible.
�
The new AN-S3
(meaning NOT the AN-S3L-AG which is being slowly phased out) and AN-S4
there are now 6 versions of each, 1 Ohm, 4 Ohm, 9 Ohm, 16 Ohm, 36 Ohm
and 64 Ohm, the 1 Ohm is for all the Audio Note� Io cartridges and the
rest are for other low output moving coils, such as
Dynavector, Denon,
Clearaudio, Koetsu,
Lyra, Goldbug,
van den Hul, Allerts,
Ortofon, Goldring
and Micro Benz.
�
It is important
to appreciate the utmost importance of getting the impedance matching
between the cartridge coil and the primary of the transformer as close
as possible, we used to sell a transformer, the AN-S7, which had 6
switchable impedances, which was a great
help when determining which impedance suited a cartridge best,
however, the trade-off in sound quality from the
multible taps on the transformers and the switches were simply
too great.
�
All Audio Note�
MC transformers are housed in solid copper chassis�s for best sound.
Despite this they are quite sensitive to positioning, and hum will
occur when they are too close to power cords, supplies or electric
motors and their associated wiring (from a separate turntable power
supply to the turntable itself for example), so careful positioning is
mandatory.
Updated
Audio Note� Analogue Products
Tone Arms.
All Audio Note� AN-1s tone arms
are available with 6 wires for use with the Audio Note� Io Ltd. moving
coil cartridge the two additional wires are for the DC feed to the
electromagnets from the power supply.
The Audio Note� ARM One/TWO and
Three are now Audio Note� rewired versions of the REGA RB250.
These three arms are very suitable for the Audio
Note� IQ1, IQ2, IQ3 and IoI cartridges.
The heavier Io cartridges are not suited for these three arms.
The ARM One, Two and Three are
designed for the Audio Note� AN-TT One and AN-TT Two turntables, but
will work very well on the AN-TT Three varieties as well as on most
other turntables.
The AN-1s arms are designed
specifically for the AN-TT Three turntables, but will work very well
on most other manufacturer�s turntables as well, if Audio Note� is
provided with the necessary drawings, we can provide arm boards for
most other brands.
Music�s
Finest Conductor
Audio Note� Analogue Products
Turntables
* All Audio Note� turntables
will accommodate the ARM One, ARM Two and ARM Three without problems.
Arm boards are available for these arms for all AN-TT turntables,
please note that these arm boards also fit some later
Systemdek IIx
turntables, however, most older IIx�s have
the drop shaped armboard and we CANNOT
supply these.
* Early TT Ones and most
Systemdek IIx�s
have glass platters, the new TT One acrylic platter is NOT compatible
with the old glass platters, the spindle hole is different,
so it is not possible to fit a modern
acrylic platter to an old deck with a glass ditto.
* We also cannot supply spares
for any of the electronic IIxe
Systemdek tables, as we have no circuit
diagrams or parts lists.
* We recommend the AN-1s arms
for all the three motor decks, the AN-1s tone arm design was conceived
as the ultimate interface between the cartridge and the turntable sub
chassis in order to transfer as much energy away from the cartridge
and into the sub chassis with as little reflection as possible.
* Two arm boards are available
for all TT three turntables, together with screws made from the same
aircraft grade of Aluminium as the AN-1s arm and the TT Three
turntable sub chassis
*
IIt goes without saying that the wear of the belt in the three
motor drive system is greatly increased, and we recommend changing the
belts every 6 � 12 month depending on use.
Updated
Music�s
Finest Conductor
Audio Note� Sockets & Connectors
All Audio Note� plugs and
sockets are heavily silver plated (over 60 micron),
have PTFE or Teflon insulation
and
are non-magnetic and the speaker terminals, RCA sockets and plugs are
available in left and right marked pairs.
Audio Note� Cables
Interconnects
�
All Audio Note
interconnects are priced in stereo meter without termination.
�
Termination cost
is shown in the column below each cable indicating the standard
connector included, terminations with XLR, LEMO, Fischer,
BNC or any other plug are available to special order, please
specify.
�
All Audio Note�
interconnects are designed for maximum signal transfer and minimum
loss over the audio band, we regard these the
most important factors.
�
All Audio Note�
interconnects are equally at home in both the analogue and the digital
domain, and excellent results can be expected in both areas.
�
All Audio Note�
interconnects are highly flexible (except the SOGON) and suitable for
long runs.
Audio Note� Internal Tone Arm Wire
Music�s
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Audio Note� Cables
Loudspeaker Cables
All Audio Note�
loudspeaker cables have + (plus) and � (minus) printed on the
jacket.Termination cost
is shown in the column below
each
cable, specifying the standard connectors included, when ordering
please specify exact termination requirements.
For example: banana to spades,
spades to spades or banana to banana.
Any configuration or length of
single, mono, stereo wired, bi-wired or tri-wired cables are
available, but must be
clearly specified when ordering.
All Audio Note� loudspeaker
cables are highly flexible and suitable for long runs due to their
extremely low loss.
Updated
Music�s
Finest Conductor
Audio Note� Digital
Products
Digital to Analogue
Converters
All our
DACs are compatible with the 24/96 DVD-A format, and are highly
suited as a 2 channel DAC to be used with a DVD transport, despite the
fact that the AD1865N chip only has 18Bit resolution, you will find
that our 1xoversampling� converters sound superior to all other
converters even when using pure 24Bit recorded material, despite the
fact that they truncate (a mild form of information loss) above 18Bit.
Output impedance of our
DACs vary and for correct match it is
important to get the input impedance of the pre-amplifier right, as a
general rule a higher impedance is ALWAYS better (less electric
inertia for the signal to overcome), for your information the
DACs with the 6111WA has an output
impedance of about 3000 Ohms and require at least 30kOhm input
impedance to give their best, the 6DJ8 output stages are far more load
tolerant with an output impedance of 800 Ohms requiring about 10kOhm
input impedance.
The Balanced
DACs have a 10
Ohm output impedance and will drive anything and the DAC5 models are
even lower at about 4 Ohms.
We have a much publicised new
�magic� I/V interface transformer incorporated in all the
DACs from the DAC3.1x Balanced upwards
now, these transformers greatly improve the quality of Redbook
protocol CD reproduction, to a point where it not only challenges the
high resolution formats, but exceeds their sound quality markedly,
such as DVD-A and SACD, make your customers aware of this, the new
formats have very few titles available and most people have a lot of
normal CDs anyway, so that investment still needs the best possible
reproduction, which is why they should buy one of our converters!
All Audio Note� d/a
converters have RCA digital inputs, which can be specified to
BNC instead at the time of ordering.
It is recommended to use Audio
Note� copper or silver interconnects as digital links between the CD
transport and converter. Because despite much technical debate to the
contrary about using constant impedance 75 Ohm or 110 Ohms (AES-EBU)
connections in the digital domain listening tests clearly confirm that
the digital signal is more sensitive to cable loss than to impedance
or capacitance.
Any combination of XLR,
Lemo, Fischer or RCA inputs or outputs can
be ordered on the balanced versions and the DAC5 converters.
Updated
Music�s
Finest Conductor
Audio Note� Integrated Amplifiers
Integrated Amplifiers
The
integrated amplifier line-up is changing in 2004, the MEISHU
Phono versions will be deleted and only
the line versions will continue,
we
shall also be introducing a line level only EL34 push pull integrated
amplifier with 35 watt class A
by September 2004.
All Audio Note�
phono integrated amplifiers are designed
for moving magnet or high output moving cartridges only;
low
output
moving coils need an MC step-up transformer to achieve the necessary
gain.
We recommend the Audio Note�
AN-S1, AN-S2, AN-S3 or AN-S4 MC transformers for the above amplifiers.
Updated
Music�s Finest Conductor
Audio Note Pre-Amplifiers
Level One and Level Two
Pre-Amplifiers
In line with
the proposed changes in the integrated amplifier line-up to line only
integrated amplifiers (except the OTO and the SORO which will remain
available as phono versions as
welll as line versions, the pre-amplifier
line-up is changing to take this into consideration,
so
the phono versions of the M1 and M2
standard chassis pre-amplifiers are being replaced with RIAA units
with no line stage or controls.
Because of the lack of signal
correction (negative feedback) all the Audio Note� line pre-amplifier
without transformer coupling have a high output impedance, care should
therefore be taken when matching our pre-amplifier with power
amplifiers of other brands, especially transistor amplifier, the above
AN pre-amplifiers require a minimum of 50Kohms input impedance to
retain bass level and overall performance.
The transformer coupled
pre-amplifier shown above have an much
lower output impedance, the M2 Balanced versions less than 100 Ohm
which allows them to drive pretty much any power amplifier.
All
the
phono equalizer stages in our
pre-amplifiers are moving magnet only and whilst there is enough gain
to amplify the signal from most moving coil cartridges the matching
impedance of the input is too high. It is recommended that you use a
step up matching transformer to achieve the best possible conversion
relationship between dynamics and bandwidth.
Updated
Music�s
Finest Conductor
Audio Note�
Pre-Amplifiers
Level Three to Five
Pre-Amplifiers
Updated
Music�s Finest Conductor
The M3
preamplifier family consists of 4 line, 2
RIAA only and 3 full facility MM phono
units. All have the
following features in common:
7 inputs with tape loop and four
outputs, 2 outputs (1 x XLR 1 x LEMO) with 600 Ohm balanced line and
two single-ended (but still transformer coupled) RCA outputs with
ultra low output impedance of around 4 Ohms No feedback,
5687WB series anode follower
line stage with custom made copper wired Audio Note� hand wound output
transformer with a variety of cores to suit quality level achieved.
The M3Line,
M5Line, M3RIAA, M5RIAA, M6Line and M8Line will have the new simplified
M10 style power supply, the M6Phono and M8Phono one box units will
stay as are whilst a new RIAA correction is designed resembling the
M10Phono correction
The M6Phono
and M8Phono have dual mono power supplies with double choke smoothing
and one 6X5WGT valve rectifier per channel.
CV4068 is used.
The M10
Phono stage will be available sometime in second half of 2004
it will be as revolutionary as the line stage and have even more power
supplies.
Updated
Music�s
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Audio Note� Power Amplifiers
Level One to Level Five Power
Amplifiers
NOS
means New Old
Stock and refer to valves no longer in production. Some are over 50
years old and very hard to source, not to mention expensive,
Audio Note� hold very
substantial stocks of all the new old stock valves used in the Level
Five amplification, and we expect to be able to offer replacements
for
the foreseeable future. It is, however, recommended that customers
invest in a spare set of valves soon after purchase.
All Level Four and Level Five
products are subject to (sometimes considerable) delivery time and
minimum deposit with order.
All Audio Note� power amplifiers
have heavily silver plated RCA input and speaker terminals with 4 &
8Ohm output impedance.
Music�s
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Audio Note� Loudspeakers
The Audio Note�
All finishes are high quality
vinyl.. Being horn loaded the AZ speakers�
benefit greatly from being placed near a rear wall or in a
corner, this enhances bass performance
considerably, adding a further 3 � 6 dB of bass below natural cut-off.
Cloth grills are available for all the AZ speakers
at $30/ pair.
The Audio Note� AX
Heavy loudspeaker stands should
be used. We offer stands for the AX Two at the same price as the AN-K
stands.
AX Loudspeakers Spare
Drivers
AZ Loudspeakers Spare
Drivers
Updated
Music�s
Finest Conductor
Audio Note� Loudspeakers
More Generally About the
AN
There has
been some major improvements implemented to the AN-E speakers, see
that section for further information.
The veneer
choices are shown in the tables below. All the veneers are finished in
a clear matt lacquer except for the Black Ash.
We have a
veneer sample book available, so you
can show potential customers what the veneers look like. They are
available at $150 each.
It is
further important to note that none of the new cabinets for any of the
speakers come with front grills, as the holes necessary for the
fitting completely spoil the appearance.
The Audio Note� AN-K
Book Shelf Loudspeakers
The Audio Note AN-K comes
without a grill and heavily silver plated Audio Note� speaker
terminals.
The AN-K is designed for near
wall/corner positioning and for room between 10 square meters to 20
square meters.
There are currently no Level
Five AN-K loudspeakers, as the minimum quantity of drivers we have to
buy to get silver voice coil versions is 1,000
pcs each, which is far too great an investment to make.
Dimensions, 18.5�H
x
10.75W x ,7.5�D
Weight per speaker 17.5 lbs.
Music�s
Finest Conductor
The Audio Note�
All Prices are per Pair
Music�s
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Audio Note� Loudspeakers
The Audio Note� AN-J Loudspeakers
All Prices are per Pair
The AN-J loudspeaker comes with
heavily silver plated Audio Note� speaker terminals.
The Audio Note� AN-J
loudspeakers are designed for near wall or corner placement. This
enhances bass behaviour
(to
an average of 28Hz to 22kHz both at minus 6dB, the widest frequency
range of any speaker this size and efficiency). It makes the AN-J less
domestically obtrusive (reduced problems getting wife to accept size)
and produces a generally better room performance than normal placement
away from room boundaries.
Like the AN-K, the AN-J is
designed to have the tweeter at ear level and should be used on a
heavy stable speaker stand,
the
stands we offer are designed to be filled with a mixture of lead and
sand about half by volume of each, fine lead shot from a gun shop
and
fine sand from a shop that sells accessories for aquariums. The
speakers should be stuck to the top plate of the stands with
blutac,
a
small pea size blob is best.
The AN-J is designed for room
sizes from 12 square meters to 40 square meters.
Dimensions, height 580 mm, width
330 mm, depth 235 mm.
Weight per speaker 18 kgs.
Level Three to Level Five
AN-J Speakers
Priced per Pair
***The AN-J/SEC Silver comes
standard in clear piano lacquer.
All Prices are per Pair
The AN-E has heavily silver
plated Audio Note� speaker terminals.
Grille clothes are not catered
for in the design and are neither included nor available.
The Audio Note� AN-E
loudspeakers are designed for near side/rear wall or corner placement.
This enhances bass behaviour and performance (to an average of 17Hz to
22kHz both at minus 6dB, the widest
frequency range of any speaker this size and efficiency). Near
wall/corner makes the AN-E domestically far less obtrusive (reduced
problems getting wife to accept size) than most other quality
loudspeakers and in addition produces
a
generally better room performance than normal placement away from room
boundaries.
The AN-E is designed for room
sizes from 18 square meters to 60 square meters.
Dimensions without stand, height 790 mm, width 360 mm, depth 270 mm.
Weight per speaker 23 kgs.
Updated
Music�s
Finest Conductor
Level Three to Five AN-E
Speakers
Updated
Music�s
Finest Conductor
The Top Level Five AN-E Speakers
Both the
AN-E/SEC Silver, the AN-E/SEC Signature and the AN-E SOGON come
standard with clear piano lacquer,
or
with a piano lacquer in a colour of the customer�s choice, available
colours are, Black Piano, White piano, British Racing Green,
Maroon or burgundy, midnight
blue, or matched to customer�s colour sample.
The AN-E/SPx
SE and AN-E/SE Silver both come with the high efficiency HE woofer
rendering them 98dB efficient,
they
come standard in matt lacquer finish, the surcharge for piano lacquer
can be seen in the previous price column.
All the Audio Note� AN-E models
above have an external crossover, the AN-E/SOGON
model has a box
which will be
offered in the same finish as the main speaker unless ordered with a
different finish,
the
stands are separate, but are included in the above price.
Updated
Updated July 1, 2003 Please note, as valve availability varies greatly and as a result we reserve the right to change the makes and types specified here as used in any of our amplifier and replace it with the best equivalent or substitute, I stress that we will never use an unsuitable or inferior type.
Digital to Analogue Converters
Please note, the 6111WA has no substitutes that are pin compatible.
Some general comments,
There are many replacements and equivalents to the 6DJ8WA, 6922, ECC88, E88CC, E188CC, 7308, CV4108, CV4109, CV4110, CV4111, CV2492, CV2493, CV5358, made by several different manufacturers, Siemens, Telefunken, Philips Holland, Philips/ECG USA, EI Yugoslavia, Sovtek, Amperex, RCA, GE, Sylvania (now Philips/ECG) and many others.
The main aspect to look out for when buying a 6DJ8/ECC88 type valve for the above DACs is microphony, many of the above types are highly microphonic, so specify this when you order.
Audio Note UK hold vast stocks of 6DJ8�s and E88CC similar to the type used in the DAC1.1x to 3.1x and the DAC4.1x�s, so that we are able to service replacement requirements for our customers for many years into the future, this commitment is a substantial investment and most NOS types used in our product will be available for many years to come to ensure that the DAC your customer buys today will sound the same in 5 or 10 years time.
Integrated CD-Players
Integrated Amplifiers
Level Zero to Two Pre-Amplifiers
Level Three to Five Pre-Amplifiers
Level Zero to Level Three Power Amplifiers
Please note, all Audio Note� 300B amplifiers can be ordered with the new production WE300B�s instead of the standard issue 300B (mostly Chinese), just add � 160.00 per valve to the export price of the 300B amplifier in question. Example, Quests Silver, add � 320.00 to the export price.
It would appear that Western Electric is no longer in business, they have been moving the factory now for 6 months, so I think we can forget them in future, so I have now specified the TJ Mesh Plate as the most suitable 300B for the Level 5 products, Baransu and KEGON.
Level Four & Level Five Power Amplifiers
Updated July 1, 2003
Individual Valve Prices
Please note, that for the NOS (New Old Stock) types the prices indicated are meant as a guide ONLY the reality of the market for all the NOS types is that as supplies get scarcer the prices invariably go up, so if you want ANY of the NOS types or the recommended equivalents ALWAYS get a price from me before you quote a price to the customer, I refuse to be made responsible for my inability to keep the estimated NOS valve fully up to date all the time, so check prices yourself. A good place to look for NOS valves and their pricing in general is www.eBay.com, use the search function.
Valve types in the list below refer to standard types used in the Audio Note� as per above breakdown per model, types marked with a star** are new old stock (NOS) types.
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