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In Reply to: RE: Audio Note E and NAIM posted by fstein on July 19, 2008 at 13:55:33
Well if you replace the drivers and replace the cabinets from particle board to Russian birch ply as well as replacing the wires and caps and you change the ports and remove the rear firing Snell tweeter then poof you have an Audio Note speaker.
Other than the cabinet dimensions I don't think there's anything about them that's the same. Though i should imagine the original Snells would be good because AN still chose them for a reason.
Follow Ups:
True for the recent production. BUT....
Historically, the birch is a recent addition: there are a lot of MDF AN-Es still out there.
The early Audio note-Es were snell Es. Same everything. After Voeks came on board, Qvortup bought every remaining driver, screw, etc that snell would sell him, and I presume he used them!
That's what I have read too. Though it was a chipboard MDF wrap. The E/D was particle board. So if the Snell's sounded like the E/D it's still an excellent speaker. The old Snells can be had cheap - do some re-foaming and there you go.
A very good loudspeaker-especially for it's time. It's basic major weakness was the lack of any real soundstaging capabilities , mostly a lack of any real depth.
BUT, and I know your views of most modern loudspeakers, the Snell was inferior in every way to my now PSB Stratus Silver i's. The Audio Notes surely must be much superior to the older E .
Dear Lancelot,
The E/III was designed by Kevin Voecks and is therefore not representative of the Peter Snell sound, so it is perhaps not too surprising it has not stood the test of time, anyone who has hard a pair of working or properly reconditioned Snell E/II's should be able to tell you that they do not suffer "sonic aging" the way most speaker designs do.
Kevin V narrowed the cabinet, changed the phase on the tweeter and modified other aspects of the crossover to flatten the response, something that dramatically changed the voice of the Type E.
It was when I first heard the E/III that I decided to work out how to make my own versions of the old Peter Snell models, that was in 1986 I think and it took close to 5 years to complete.
Persistence pays off!
Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup
NT
The AN E was designed off of one older Snell type E. The Audio Note's have no problem with soundstaging - perhaps the opposite judging by the varied results they produce. Varied results are telling you what's on the recording not homogenizing things. I personally think the E or J would have no problem against the PSB Silver or Gold i in any sonic aspect. The E and J need serious toe in more than most loudspeakers. Best staging is in corners where the staging is virtually panoramic. Unlike virtually all slim lines design speakers that I have heard where there are virtually always "holes" in the stage and very noticeable "box location" cues the AN's (in corners) don't exhibit any of that. Since the original Snell's were not designed for corners then you may be very well right that their staging ability was a weakness.
My old AN-J's were chipboard/MDF or particle board wrap. This was early '90's and no birch version yet. They were basically Snell's with AN wiring and "Audio Note" badge on the grille. I've talked with Peter Q. a long time ago, and he even advised that if you get the old Snell's, don't even touch the crossover (cap swap and stuff)even if it's populated with cheap parts, just replace the wiring with AN cable. Peter Snell treated the crossover like an artist painting on a blank canvas, the canvas being the speakers with the drivers and cabinet. Whatever works... with no rules but simplicity, I guess. Before I sold mine, I did try changing the wire to silver, with appreciable improvement (with tubes).
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