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RE: Peter Van Wellinsward (sp?) of Stereophile owns the AN E...

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In Reply to: RE: Peter Van Wellinsward (sp?) of Stereophile owns the AN E... posted by RGA on August 07, 2007 at 20:33:05

RGA
If I'd not get what AN is about I wouldn't be hanging out on this boring forum.I think blind following and gruppies are doing disservice to the firm
antagonizing potential buyers.Lets see what the scripture says;there is Peter -the ears , Andy-designer and the factory of 50 yet they produce the best speakers, the best amps, preamps, transformers, cables,passive parts (caps resitors ) also the best turntables , cd-players and dacs. Quite an achievement I mean I'm about to pray to P.Q too;)When do they find the time to precisely match countless speakers to a few different parameters and to the cabinet?? I did not read single honest comparison between the kit and equivalent factory speaker besides rumors spread by the dealers and following web speculations. P.Q himself remarked that matching of the kit speakers is exactly the same as production speakers -it makes a good economic sense by the standards of line assembly. I have to say that I like those speakers a lot and always recommend them to everybody on the quest. All the people in the audio business are deprived and especially reviewers. I had sort of respect for Dudley and the Listener but he's just an opportunist like the others . The names you mentioned ,mean nothing.Also your dealer and his staff could sell as well sausage and beef and their opinion and tastes would be as relevant as they are now. I don't think Kondo's "post scriptum" would create any stir and I could never understand why there were any antagonisms between the camps to begin with. The competition (if any) was on so esoteric (i.e expensive ) level that I doubt that most of the hoodlums involved in those futile accusations had only a brief chance to listen to the equipment not even mentioning direct valid comparison.My guess is that most of the antagonist have a problem with AN UK business model not a gear itself but I personally like P.Q's "magic dust".Regards, L

Follow Ups:

Matching Speakers & Building Everything - Peter Qvortrup 08:11:38 08/10/07 (2)
Dear Limono,

Let me say that I agree with you that blindly following anything is not a good concept, one should always keep one's critical faculties in tact and in place.

As far as making "the best of everything" is concerned, I think it is important to note that this project, if you will, has sofar taken over 30 years of my life and coming up to 20 of Andy Grove's, so nothing has been achieved over night, but is the result of a great deal of hard work and dedication, whether the end results are worthwhile in an absolute only really time will tell, but so far so good, I suppose.

The processes that make the speakers are industrialised, using proprietary computer programs, which have also developed over many years.

As far as the manufacture and sound of the speaker kits versus the finished speakers is concerned here is what I say on the web site, I quote,

"Will my kit be an exact equivalent of the finished AN-E/LX?

No, it will be close provided the cabinet is made with fine tolerances and from the right grade of Baltic birch plywood, BUT it is important to appreciate that a finished AN-E is always likely to be better that any equivalent kit version, no matter which one, as the drivers we use in the kits have a slightly wider "spread" in performance than the ones used in the finished products, basically the kits get the drivers which cannot be matched within the very tight criteria used in our finished products.

Also we do not spend anywhere near the amount of time setting up the Kit speaker's driver - crossover matching, we allow a tolerance on the finished products of 0.2dB plus or minus, in the kits this is increased to 0.6dB plus or minus, mind you this is still several dB better than anything done by other manufacturers, but it is audible in the overall performance of the speakers, if you do a direct comparison on very good equipment

This and the fact that it is necessary to rematch the driver - crossovers to the actual cabinets when assembled to maintain the tightest possible match, this is not possible for any hobbyist building a kit and means that a kit can never get close to the consistency of a finished product.

Again this does not necessarily mean that a Kit 03 would not be as good as or even better than a standard AN-E/SPe provided you can make a cabinet that is on par with our, which I doubt you can, as the production methods used have takes years to develop and there is much we do not disclose, but is it possible to get quite close if close tolerances are achieved."

Quote ends.

So, as you can see there are material differences between the finished products and the kits, and they do matter sonically, which is fairly easy to demonstrate if they are side by side, so in that sense you get what you pay for.

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup
- RE: Matching Speakers & Building Everything - limono 12:25:26 08/10/07 (1)
  Dear Peter
  Seems like I misinterpreted one of your posts:
  
  "Just a correction, the speaker driver - crossover in the speaker kits 002 and 003 are matched to exactly the same parametsr as used in the AN-E/LX finished model, the drivers are not rejects ro some such.
  
  Just thought I would mention that.
  
  Sincerely,
  Peter Qvortrup "
  
  I hope you do not take my posts as an offense of any sort.While I'm into different things now ,having an all AN Setup is my retirement /retreat plan (if I live long enough;)
  Cheers, L
  - RE: Matching Speakers & Building Everything - DRCope 14:16:47 08/12/07 (0)
    It may be as simple as confusing parameter with tolerance. All the drivers and speaker systems, Kits to Sogon, are evaluated for faithfulness to a master curve. That's a parameter.
    
    The most "faithful" of drivers make it possible to create a full speaker system that is within 0.2dB of the ideal. Other very good, but not quite as extraordinarily faithful, drivers can "only" be matched as part of full systems to the kit 0.6dB, no closer. 0.2 - 0.6dB is a range of *tolerance* measured along the same *parameter*.
    
    Both are pretty doggone tightly spec'd; none are anything like rejects.
    
    Keep your ears and your mind open.
A further matter for consideration... - RGA 04:19:37 08/08/07 (0)
"...and the factory of 50 yet they produce the best speakers, the best amps, preamps, transformers, cables,passive parts (caps resitors ) also the best turntables , cd-players and dacs. Quite an achievement I mean I'm about to pray to P.Q too..."

First I think you're making the wrong assumption. A stereo system is ONE creation. Getting source material to the ears. The fact that many OTHER companies only make CD players is not exactly helpful - you have no idea what their "belief is" about sound quality.

If I have an all AN system and I put in a different amp could it be better? Yes. If I put an AN piece in some other system could it be worse? - yes. In both cases it depends upon who is listening to it.

But basic logic dictates that mixing different technologies, with varying levels of know how, by makers with different beliefs about how a stereo system should behave is far less likely to be "good" than a system that is designed from beginning to end.

As for the names that mean nothing - then why does JA's name carry weight? He is incredibly inconsistent - first he supports the science then goes against it. He states that measurements don't correlate with sound but he will condemn products that don't measure well (even though they don't negatively correlate with the audition). This begs the question - if no one can hear the problem then it does not exist - and so whatever the measurement indicates is not indicate any sort of practical truth.

I bring up Colloms because he is so obviously more of an expert in the field than JA is and the improper measurements that JA put to paper is one obvious truth to the matter.
RE: Peter Van Wellinsward (sp?) of Stereophile owns the AN E... - RGA 22:59:21 08/07/07 (0)
Okay but lets add and subtract a buit from the scripture.

Firstly there is a saying that a jack of all trades will be a master of none. This is leveled against AN. But AN did not build everything from the ground up. My impression is that that AN has created SET amplifiers and DACs. That's it. The rest was bought, Initial R&D etc. So you buy out the masters of the others. You buy Voyd, Systemdeck, Philips transports, Snell Loudspeakers, Rega Tone arms, Goldring Carts. Make adjustments stick your name badge on it and there you go.

PQ has stated that the matching process is not as close as production models...it says it on their UK kit site. I have personally heard a KIT E versus a production E and for me it's a significant difference in favour of the production model - so I can only gather that sopmeone at AN has the time to match or the kit builder messed up. But the builder in this case was a professional.

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