This should be looked upon as being similar to the way an acoustic musical instrument resonates. The cabinets are actually designed to resonate to a certain degree whereas most other manufacturers do their best to completed deaden their cabinets. Everytime I take a picture of them, they end up looking totally different and I've not yet been able to take one that actually looks like the real thing or does them justice - sorry.Īudio Note's opinions, methods, and philosophy about loudspeaker manufacture differ from many other manufacturers (as do their opinions about many other areas of Hi-Fi equipment). I must also say here that I have had a lot of trouble photographing these cabinets. So, click here to view some of his work in a new window. Mark has a website that doesn't do his work justice (or did at time of writing) - so I decided to set-up a page on my site that would show off some of his work in a better light - as well as linking to his website. He told me not to touch them for another two weeks to let the finish settle before doing anything with them. He had spent days French polishing them to a high sheen. They looked stunning under his workshop lights, I couldn't have been happier. Two weeks later, I arrived to pick them up. We settled on an African Satinwood that he used a lot because of the way the grain seems to move when you do - giving it a kind of holographic quality. We discussed my requirements and he showed me a whole bunch of veneer samples that he had. So, I went down to see him and saw some of his wonderful work - most impressive. His name is Mark Hopkins and he makes and restores furniture. I then turned my attention to cabinetmakers as a search criterion and found one that lived very close by. So, I looked around on the web and contacted a few companies that I came across but they all dealt with panel veneers. It looked like it would have to be a paint job but first, I decided to ask around about veneering. Again, I am no carpenter and I didn't feel confident about veneering - at least not my precious speaker cabinets with a first attempt. This left the options of either a solid colour or veneering (my 'ideal' solution). However, the MDF sides and top didn't look too hot so a stain was out there. If the cabinets had been all Birch ply then I might have considered a simple stain because the birch has a fairly decent looking grain to it. However, the bass ports had been fitted and the T-nuts, used to hold the drivers in place, had also been fitted. So, the time came to pick up the cabinets. Audio Note changed over to the new cabinets only a few years ago and the changeover left some cabinets behind. I believe that the internal materials used for bracing etc. The old style cabinets, that I would be getting, were the same Birch for the front and back but the top, bottom, and sides are made of MDF. Now, to fill you in on this, the newest cabinets are made exclusively from muti-ply Baltic Birch (the top, bottom, front, back, and sides). Well, you can imagine my excitement! The big stumbling block had been overcome and I would have factory made cabinets too. What's more, his wife would be visiting with relatives that weekend in my area and I could pick them up from her locally. He then informed me that he still had some old design, factory made cabinets that were laying about the factory doing nothing and I was welcome to them. I was in the process of exchanging e-mails with Peter Qvortrup (owner of Audio Note UK), asking his advise on some other aspects of my system when I happened to mention my problem. So, I had to find someone to build them for me in the UK. then that wouldn't have been a problem but living in the UK as I do would probably mean an extortionate amount of money being spent on shipping costs. I knew that AudioNote Kits could provide ready-built cabinets but they are situated in Canada. I am no carpenter, so that meant that I would have to obtain the cabinets somehow. The big problem for me personally was building the cabinets. The speaker kits themselves do not include cabinets. They are a rear ported, dual driver design originally based on the Snell type E speaker but refined since. The finished cabinets measure in at approximately 31-inches high x 14.25-inches wide x 10.5-inches deep. Since then, I had been reading many good things about their speaker kits and just had to try one for myself. The system that they were part of was quite a modest one for Audio Note and was, to my ears, the best sounding system in the entire show by far. Audio Note speaker kit fully assembled and looking goodĪlthough I have been quite happy with my Tannoys (15-inch dual concentric DC 386) over the years, I was quite intrigued when I heard Audio Note's entry-level AN/E Lx speakers at a recent Hi-Fi show.
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