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Living Voice Auditorium, DeVore, Audio Note AN-E

Morning,
the moving to the new flat is getting closer and I'm still curios if the LV will work in that 14sqm room.
If not I have to look for alternatives and there is still Audio Note in my mind.

I have watched many videos on YT about AN. I know YT videos don't give a 100% reliable impression how something sounds but in every video with AN I heard a slightly cupped handed sound and also slightly cloudy and thick lower midrange. Also Stereophile has mentioned it in the review.

So I'm asking people who have listened to some Audio Note speakers if that is the case. I'm very, very sensitive with this kind of sound and if every AN speaker has these kind of sound, I don't have to look any further or buy a pair blind.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash AN, every speaker has advantages and disadvantages, it is only that it is very important to me that a speaker hasn't that kind of sound.

Thank you for your honest (in case of an AN speaker owner) response and help.

Why don't you just go and listen to the speakers you mention here? Or at least when you can...
 
Morning,
the moving to the new flat is getting closer and I'm still curios if the LV will work in that 14sqm room.
If not I have to look for alternatives and there is still Audio Note in my mind.

I have watched many videos on YT about AN. I know YT videos don't give a 100% reliable impression how something sounds but in every video with AN I heard a slightly cupped handed sound and also slightly cloudy and thick lower midrange. Also Stereophile has mentioned it in the review.

So I'm asking people who have listened to some Audio Note speakers if that is the case. I'm very, very sensitive with this kind of sound and if every AN speaker has these kind of sound, I don't have to look any further or buy a pair blind.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash AN, every speaker has advantages and disadvantages, it is only that it is very important to me that a speaker hasn't that kind of sound.

Thank you for your honest (in case of an AN speaker owner) response and help.

There's really no substitute to listening yourself.
I wouldn't buy the AN-Es (which as previously mention I didn't enjoy), but I wouldn't buy the LVs or the O/96s either (not listened to them but wouldn't anyway).

If you are looking for "clarity" perhaps consider trying a pair of Quads...
 
There's really no substitute to listening yourself.
Sure and I know that but I buy used stuff 90% of the time and I find it totally asocial to go to a dealer, listen to his stuff and steal his time and buy used if I liked the stuff.

I'm absolutely not interested in debating other stuff or speakers.

I would really appreciate if people consider my wish.:)
 
Sure and I know that but I buy used stuff 90% of the time and I find it totally asocial to go to a dealer, listen to his stuff and steal his time and buy used if I liked the stuff.

I'm absolutely not interested in debating other stuff or speakers.

I would really appreciate if people consider my wish.:)

I understand you perfectly, I buy mostly used gear too.
I just feel that asking for recommendations from a large community with a wide variety of tastes may be unhelpul in the end. You'll get many favourable opinions by owners and a few by people don't like any of these speakers, it may prove difficult to determine which comments will address your needs.
 
I understand what you mean and I can only speak for myself, if someone asks me about my stuff I would honestly tell them what they can expect from my point of view and what not. Nothing is perfect and every component has strength and weaknesses. I'm objectively enough to say what the stuff I know can do and what not. But maybe that isn't the norm. I can't stand fanboy like unobjective claims.
 
... every video with AN I heard a slightly cupped handed sound and also slightly cloudy and thick lower midrange. Also Stereophile has mentioned it in the review.

With the (older) AN-Es I own, and Es and Js heard and demoed - I don't recognise the cupping and cloudy references you mention (if understood), but find they do bring more weight and timbre to the sound than a lot of other designs. Including lower mids. A sort of ballast. Nicely so on balance, to me, if the room suits.

Not ones to recommend if after a fast, squeeky-clean kind of sound though.
 
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We finally moved into our new flat and I finished mounting my absorbers and setup my hifi system. Unfortunately the LV is too much for the 14sqm ( 4,49m x 3,15m). I'm so sad because I really fell in love with the LV. I'm totally frustrated because I don't know a real alternative which is that efficient too and still has such a great tonality. I'm thinking of going back to Odeon but the Rigoletto 2020 is far more expansive new compared to the used R3R.
 
I had a similar problem with speakers in a smallish narrow room - mine is 3 m x 4 with glass doors at the thin end and the door in at the other thin end.

I tried some Proac 148s on a home dem which sounded beautiful and natural with acoustic guitars and voices or saxophones, pianos but boomed when there was any bass. I tried them with a few different amps ( valves and Naim) but the room just couldn't handle the bass or the size and scale of the sound.

I eventually took a punt on some used Devore Super 8s. I bought them from TomTomAudio so did get a chance to have a listen first. They are perhaps a bit bass shy for a 2 way floorstander but I'm now playing them through a Leben 300 and can use the 3db bass boost to tweak the sound if needed but I'm never going to get furniture rattling sub bass from them. They do, however, have a beautifully natural and revealing presentation of instruments and voices and while the bass isn't huge it is very expressive and detailed and they seem a good match for the amp. Like other Devores, they are pretty rare though - very few come up second hand and there are only occasional pairs on e bay nearly all from outside the UK.

I should add that these days I do tend to play jazz, electronica or classical and my Husker Du or Sonic Youth records get played as much as they did a few years ago and rarely. When I do play rock stuff they capture the interplay between the instruments in ways I've not heard before but maybe lack a bit of clout.
 
You can of course simply acoustically measure with REW discover the frequency of the standing waves which are causing the ‘boom’, reduce those peaks and eradicate the overhang.
Keith
 
@Keith: Please don't start a measuring and room tuning debate, im not interested in that.
I know how to treat a room. I have measured the room and placed the speakers and listening place at the best position (1/5 rule). This gave the me the most balanced frequency response. The walls are covered with 18 pieces of 100mm thick acoustic foam plates 0,5m x 1,0m.




You can't fix deep bass room problems passive except for plate swingers and Helmholtz resonators but they aren't that easy to configure or to build right if you are no professional. The way to fix it would be with a DSP or something like a Bag end (anti-) subwoofer but I can stand DSP, EQs and stuff like that, I have tried many of them in the past. I'm also not interested in a discussion why I don't like them. I have to use smaller speaker with one smaller drivers like the DeVore Gibbon 3 XXL or maybe DeVore Gibbon 88. The Odeon Rigoletto 2020 would also be interesting because the bass is much drier because of the backloaded horn bass system in stead of bass reflex.

On the list are also Audio Note AN-E (I guess they are to big too) the AN-K and if that all doesn't work a Harbeth M30.1 or Compact 7 ESR 3 40th. A.E. alternative a Spendor Classic 2/3 bzw. 2/3R2. But I don't want to talk about BBC style speakers here because it is off topic and I would appreciate if other members wouldn't do that to, so back to topic please:

Living Voice Auditorium, DeVore, Audio Note AN-E
 
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If you won’t/can’t fix the problem then you are stuck with loudspeakers whose extension won’t excite the room’s axial modes, which is perverse when EQ is completely transparent.
Keith
 
On the list are also Audio Note AN-E (I guess they are to big too) the AN-K and if that all doesn't work a Harbeth M30.1 or Compact 7 ESR 3 40th. A.E. alternative a Spendor Classic 2/3 bzw. 2/3R2. But I don't want to talk about BBC style speakers here because it is off topic and I would appreciate if other members wouldn't do that to, so back to topic please:

Living Voice Auditorium, DeVore, Audio Note AN-E

I've got a similar (very slightly larger) room and have been through a similar range of speakers that you mention in the first paragraph, so let me know if you do want to expand the discussion beyond the three mentioned in bold.
 
I'm not sure if Chris who posted as @thebiglebowski is still posting here but he's had many of the speakers you're thinking about. If he's no longer on pfm some of his old posts may be worth a read. At one point he was selling some Devore 88s and he had used a few AN speakers. I always found his perspective helpful.
 
@kjb:I missed him too and his account seems to be deleted. I liked his stuff and posts very much, and I have written him some PMs or quoted him in my posts in the past but he never replied, I guess he couldn't stand me.:(
 


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