Introduction - Audio Note AN-E Owner's Manual

Introduction

Congratulations on your purchase of a pair of Audio Note™ AN-E loudspeakers! We
hope and expect that they will give you many years of musical enjoyment and
trouble-free listening. And, whether you know it or not, you've just struck a blow
in the service of Music.
Far too much of the high-end audio marketplace is occupied by low-efficiency
loudspeaker systems – several less-than-ideally-matched drivers and a very
complex, (read: life-sucking), crossover – all housed in a cabinet doing its best
impression of reinforced concrete or petrified wood. Of necessity, they are paired
with high-powered, nearly always solid-state amplifiers in an attempt to jump-start
their (and your) hearts. 10 times the power applied to a speaker which is 10dB less
efficient will produce the requisite sound pressure level, but what about coherency,
full natural micro-, as well as macro-, dynamics, inner detail? What about LIFE?
What about the musicians' delivery of their and the composer's EMOTION? Sorry,
they're just not part of the "High Performance Audio" design brief. And Music suffers
for it.
The design of the AN-E Loudspeaker, by contrast, calls for a cabinet made from
materials that complement the workings of the chosen drive units. Instead of trying
to kill the resonances in the cabinet, we tailor the cabinet to place the resonances in
frequency bands where they aid and enhance the operation of the drive units,
culminating in a loudspeaker system that makes the most of the preceding
amplifier's output.
The drive units employed in the AN-E have been developed with our very active
participation and are manufactured to our specifications.
The crossover is simple – essentially first order – hardwired and incorporates careful
location of components, both in relation to each other, and also in relation to the
woofer's magnet, which influences the behaviour of the crossover a great deal. The
crossover uses air-cored chokes and select bipolar and polypropylene capacitors.
(In the Signature models, copper foil, and in the Sogon, silver foil.) The AN-E
internal cabling consists of varying numbers of either 99.99% pure copper or
99.99% pure silver wire, depending on the exact model. (See specifications.)
This combination of design approach, parts quality and manufacturing process yields
an extremely even load characteristic as well as a very flat power/frequency
response that remains within tightly controlled limits throughout its working
bandwidth.
Each complete loudspeaker is individually adjusted under dynamic operating
conditions, using proprietary software, in order to compensate for the slight
variations that always exist in drive units and assures precise uniformity of sonic
performance. This individual adjustment, and matching to a reference, of each
crossover network to each pair of drive units allows an unparalleled degree of
sample-to-sample consistency not only within pairs of loudspeakers, but also from
one pair to another. Each of you're an-E loudspeaker's performance is within
0.4dB of its mate and our reference response curve. To the best of our
knowledge, no other loudspeaker manufacturer achieves such close matching and
tests 100% of its production.
The result? Maximum efficiency and dynamic behaviour. And Life. And Emotion.
Retained and delivered with goose bumps. Your Music will thank you.
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