Home High Efficiency Speaker Asylum

Need speakers that can rock with just one watt? You found da place.

RE: Making the move to high efficiency seems impossible...

Audio Note specs are for corner positions - they won't meet spec out of corners - that having been said they're tuned port frequency is 28-29 hz and you will get that flat in room not in corners - which is still exceptional. They're very large standmounts.

But you also have to take 3db sensitivity away from them -

That having been said - listen to them out of corners - it doesn't really matter for pure sound quality even when not positioned correctly they're the best under $10,000 loudspeaker I've heard in 25 years. It's not just about numbers and spec sheets.

Plenty of speakers will claim 30-40hz the trick is what does it sound like doing it.

Mind you I like other speakers but they typically cost a lot more - The AN E/SPE HE is probably the perfect high end loudspeaker and they one I want. It has enough resolution to support the ultra expensive front ends - has enough bass that you won't be looking to add subwoofers - cohesion from the two drivers is as good as any two way gets (and a problem for horns) efficiency is high enough that 8 watts will be more than loud enough for virtually all music. They're position friendly as well. In fact I would look at the AN J - It has the same exact drivers just in a smaller cabinet.

These cabinets were designed by L.L. Beranek and have essentially been with us since the 1940s so they've stood the test of time.

Don't discount the new Heritage Klipsch remakes - sweetspots and all that blather is well and good but sometimes we let the audiophile crap get in the way of stuff that sounds good. The Klipsch and Altecs I've heard have a lot of dynamic scale that the AN speakers don't match.

Horns have that certain something that the silk domed AN speakers don't possess. I prefer the ANs for the other things they bring to the table - a stability across larger genres of music - less bite and more microdynamic nuance and more subtlety but they don't have the macrodynamic wollop. The AN's are easy to listen to off axis - I can't say that horns have really been as bad as they get a reputation for in this regard though.

Based on the music you listen to I would probably lean toward Klipsch - The AN's are primarily designed for classical and Jazz - they have an elegant kind of sound and are somewhat more diplomatic in comparison to the horns. I think the AN's are the best all-rounders I've heard but for your music and if you don't stray from it - I would probably lean to something like the Klipsch or in the Gallo 3.5 camp. This speaker is also somewhat deceptive as reports I've been reading indicate that it does very well with lowish powered amps. The 3.5 has incredible start stop motion and can hit very very hard with this kind of music. And they look cool to boot.

The thing is like I said - lots of good speakers I have heard plenty of horns own a horn - my first speakers were horns - I've heard the big expensive horns - I stand by the AN speaker comment being the best under $10k. There is more to this than just loud and macrodynamic impact and High sensitivity.

At CES 2010 AN was one of the only rooms playing stuff like the Daft Punk, The Evil Nine, Nightwish, Slipknot. Peter enjoys embarrassing other rooms with his smallish 2 way and his 8 inch driver and his 20 watt amplifier that have much deeper bass, much tighter sound, and can belt it at you while the room down the hall with 1000 watt amps sound puny and other big speakers with 2 12 inch woofers sound feeble in comparison. It's the balance between level/bass/WAF/domestically sane size of speakers/price/sound quality, treble extension etc etc.

I maintain that you still need a loudspeaker that has nuance subtlety and "beauty" and to me the Horns typically bully the music and the ears somewhat. YMMV. And this is where they beat stuff like AvanteGarde and Klipsch and Altec IMO.





Edits: 03/23/12 03/23/12

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