As I understand the situation, PQ of Audio Note UK used to be the Snell UK distributor. When Snell stopped producing this style of speaker he started producing them himself. Perhaps interestingly, Snell no longer make speakers anything like this and it's interesting to look at how the company has evolved.
As you say, at heart, these are quite budget designs; simple two way designs with paper coned mid drivers and soft dome tweeters in a thin walled cabinet (reflex loaded). The fact that PQ has been able to get them to work when placed in the corners of a room (which is how he always demonstrates them) is very surprising as you would expect such a design to boom like hell positioned like that (particularly with a rear firing reflex port). I've heard him demonstrating them many times and the balance of compromises has been worked out really surprisingly well - as you suggest, there seems to be a somewhat symbiotic relationship with the faults of the speakers working with the faults of the amps. Surprisingly, at the recent Cranage Hall show the AN UK speakers did sound like they had a massive bass hump (surprising because they usually don't when I've heard them demonstrated) so perhaps the amps being used were more linear than is usually the case. I know PQ normally demos with very low powered amps.
