You guys need to quit screwing around and do some work over there in Boulder! Seriously, it looks more fun than work.
I was never enthralled with the first iterations of the AN3’s, but this arrangement looks very interesting indeed. I like the concept, and looks, of the coaxial mid/tweeter very much! Just out of curiosity, the tweeter mount seems a bit large-ish, will it effect the dispersion characteristics of the midrange driver at all?
About 10 o’clock last night after a long, long day of work we were all getting dingy. I had gone out to pick up pizzas to keep us going and when I returned their was quite a ruckus in the sound room.
Darren was laughing. “Holy sh*t,” he said. “You missed the fireworks.”
Chris chimed in and explained that as they were playing this one particular energetic piece with pounding drums and bass smoke started pouring out of the rear cavity of where the crossover is located.
“Stop! Stop!” Cried Chris. “It’s on fire!”
Well, turned out it wasn’t on fire but almost as exciting when some of the hot melt used to secure the parts to our board melted from the heat of a temporary dropping resistor.
Indeed, it’s exhausting and exhilarating.
I wouldn’t have missed it for all the world.
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No, not at all. I asked the same question to Chris and he explained it more eloquently than I can but it has to do with the longer wavelengths of the midrange. I’ll try and get him to chime in when he has a free moment.
I am curious about the speaker inputs on the back. The picture with Darren shows a set of speaker terminals at the bottom near the AC socket. Then there are terminals labeled Woofer Input and Mid/High Input on both the upper and lower cabinets with large straps between them, but no straps between the Woofer and Mid/High terminals. How would you hook these up with a single speaker wire?
Nothing like taking it down to the wire! Wish I could be there, but alas the timing was bad this year.
Not sure if it is the angle of the photo, but the production version looks narrower in width than the prototype version. Of course the sides are not on, but still …
The D’Appolito configuration looks much better than the rather unstructured front of the prototypes.
Personally, with all those electronics already in those speakers and the rather massive crossover with very expensive components, I would really consider building a active filter and BHK kind of amp in. You’d safe a ton on gold plated copper on the back too.
As an option off course.
John Darko has it right in his bookshelf speaker reviews, homes become smaller, partners want less intrusive stereos, and a full active options safe a lot of real estate, and money in the total picture, by eliminating the need for separate power amplifiers.
For speakers at this price range the surface of the black/dark grey parts could deserve a higher quality treatment. But that’s just telling from pictures, in reality it may look better.
The outriggers for the supports are fantastic, really an improvement to the prototypes.
Love the distance from the wall dial on the back. In my case it would be in the far left bottom position. They are just too big for my room, and budget I am afraid. But the design and concept are rather original.
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Hi Rudolph!
Yes, this is good point. There is a 1/4-20 threaded hole in our metal “outrigger” base and you can remove the existing custom spikes that we developed and replace them with your own damping feet.
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Welcome to the fora, Mr. Brunhaver!
Looking forward to learning more about your collaboration with Paul & Co.; and your participation here.
Good luck with your new “baby”.
Regards,
Scott
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It would be interesting to see the bracing inside the cabinets. The finish does look a bit naff, especially the dials at the back, but that should be easy to improve. It’s just about budget and pricing. Personally I hate looking at drivers. Is there a grille? Remember the rather nice original render? These speakers look quite large and that they might be more what would have been envisaged as the AN2.
Yup. Very nice grille. More pictures in a day or two as we set them up.
This is a terrible picture but you can see a small portion of the inside bracing of the woofers at least.
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Grilles are good! I trust they don’t affect the ribbon drivers. The cabinets look like they are moulded from resin, they must be pretty inert to start with.
Linn came up with the idea of coloured socks, so you can have green speakers one day and blue the next. Not sure about that.
Hey Paul, I don’t know if this is been asked yet or not but in your videos I repeatedly see the new speakers several feet away from the rear walls. I know that you’ve referenced in the past that you hope that these speakers can be placed much closer to the rear listening walls to make them a little more listener friendly. How often do you guys listen/voice the speakers closer to the rear wall?
I thought the same when I saw the knobs and indication lights. Let’s say they look “retro”. However they are on the back side, large and the position indicators and scales leave no second guessing of their position, as such they are rather functional. But yeah nice custom black anodize Aluminum ones with the same functional idea would match the anticipated price tag better. But since they are on the back, I wouldn’t be hung up about it.
In this case function over form is better especially for “old farts” with failing eye sight and as you said they are on the back.
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In my house only the speakers are visible, all the rest of the audio hidden. Speakers are unavoidably part of the furniture and unless you have a man-cave they have to look good - and even that is a matter of taste. Form AND function is important for speakers.
I’ve never liked the high gloss colours of Focal speakers, just my taste, even though they are some of the most visually striking speakers around. They then go and launch a 40th anniversary series this year with wood finishes and a cream fascia. Drop dead gorgeous. They were limited edition and apparently premium priced, I assume they sold out. Shame.
Harbeth did a 40th anniversary starting in 2017. Alan Shaw, who is Harbeth, was against the idea, and gave it a measly $60,000 budget, probably enough for only 100 pairs of speakers, applied to one model only. There were a few component tweaks, but mainly new shiny veneers. Something that was meant to be strictly limited ended up being applied to the entire range, generating 40% of their sales last year.
One form and function I like are aluminium baffles. Dynaudio took this approach with a redesign of their popular Countour range (I used them for many years).
https://www.dynaudio.com/dynaudio-academy/2016/october/the-new-dynaudio-contour-baffle
It looks good and provides excellent rigidity. There are quite a few manufacturers in the UK who do this. Piega make the entire cabinet from aluminium. It’s also a great idea for ceiling and in-wall speakers when there is no box to provide rigidity.
Paul calls these production models, but there would seem to be plenty of time to tweak the final finish, it seems to me to be just as important to function and would have a big impact on sales.
@Paul. This may fall under the realm of a really dumb idea. It falls in the Wife Acceptance Factor (WAF) realm. (Full disclosure I have never been married). Many times the best speaker positions in rooms are often not WAF friendly. (e.g. way out in the room from the walls and the corners). Have you guys every thought of creating a device or system to make it very easy to move your big heavy speakers around on either carpet or hardwood floors. Why not make it easy for someone to simply move the big heavy speakers into their prime position when in listening mode and slide them back in the corners to make the wife happy when not listening? Not sure if the device is a simple dolly that is designed specifically for the speaker or some other means of moving a top heavy column around a room.
I am currenlty doing this very thing with my large Maggie 20.7’s. My Maggie 20.7’s sound best 9 ft out from my front wall. The Maggies are easy to slide and move around and have handles built into the speaker. I can simply move them against the wall/corner when I am not listenting to them and they are a lot less offensive to normal human beings in the corners of the room.
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Yes looks are very important for speakers, absolutely. The issue at discussion is taste I am afraid. And that is like Pandora’s box. You ask one person and get 10 different answers depending on time and day you ask. Imagine asking this whole forum. But yet fun to discuss.
It’s a very good idea, but you’ve also answered it in that tall columnar speakers tend to be top-heavy and could well fall over if wheeled around.
Planar and ESL speakers are bottom-heavy and are well suited to trolleys, especially as they need to be away from walls and tend to be big. I used trolleys for my ESL63, flat against the wall when not in use. The ones I used can be seen in the middle of this page.
https://www.quadesl.com/quad_forSale.html
There is a modern obsession for anchoring speakers to the floor. I don’t know why. I’ve tried it and it made no difference. Mine are on stands and the stands sit on acoustic foam. I can push them around quite easily.
Not much yet, but enough to understand the problem and work on solving it. The new AN3 have a position control that you adjust in feet on the rear control panel. This will alter the speaker’s crossover to compensate. Much work remains on this feature, but it’ll
make life a lot easier for those who are constrained with real estate limitations.