ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. The builder does not claim technical better sound, he claims an oldskool tube sound and it also looks a lot better i think.ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. The extra price you pay (price is 2500£+VAT and import taxes if you are not in the UK, last time i checked) is because of the woodwork and the hand build and calibrating, not some esotheric stuff. No whoo or mystic arround it, it's an oldskool design cabinet with a modern push pull amp with custom transformers ( made by Sowther i tought) and solid state psu and generic but very good quality parts. And if i would pay more for a tube amp because of styling, i would rather get something like this: The Axis Valv-A-Tron ST 200, a handbuild 2x100w tube amplifier build in the UK. My tube amp looks a bit bland, but is better build i think, with solid state regulated PSU, autobias and more real technical innovations (not exclusive to the brand mostly), and mainly, way cheaper and more priced reasonable. Each have their styling and very dedicated following. They are all way overpriced, but good working tube amps that sell a lot to rich people who wants something exclusive and shiny with tubes. Brands like Vinylsaivor and Shindo Labs do the same and often for way higher prices. And for this kind of flashy expensive looking amps there is a big market, Audionote is not the only brand that caters them. The parts are made to look good and work well, but are not that special. Am I simple minded to believe that clean, regulated voltage is just that however produced? ).Ĭlick to expand.many keep the lid off to show of to friends, or make a plexiglass lid. (Someday tech savvy person can explain to me in what way(s) tube power supplies are better. are dazzling, but do they improve the sound or are they just sucker bait? Have a gander at the insides of a AN kit DAC 5.1: the expensive transformers, capacitors, etc. Also, they tell you they don't care about sharp resolution or crisp dynamics - or else, implausibly, they tell you that the equipment improve the sound in these respects.Īudio Note, maybe more than most "enthusiast" brands sell equipment with exotically expensive components - analog and power supply components that is. They insist it is more "musical", "organic", "liquid" and other such BS descriptions. Tube fans will tell you they like the warmth, full-bodied, and (sometimes) the "holographic" effect of tube equipment. IMHO, these benign, even pleasant and mask other distortions such as high order harmonics. That is, at least the low order 2nd/3rd order harmonics. Brings to mind an AN fanatic who's been shilling for the brand for the last 20 years.įace it, my ASR buddies: lots of audiophile LIKE distortion. idem with their caps and so.Īh yes, Audio Note. And their parts are very expensive, but even for tube amp builders, they are not the best, the much cheaper Tango and Lundahl transformers are seen as a lot better for instance. He used them with some JBL 4345's with, which was ok with the 15w they had. But no way i would spend 15K for that amp, and how much he spend for the preamp i don't wanted to know (ridiculous ammounts i guess). And it was nice to have arround and to listen to. I had a pair of their dual 300B SET monoblock amps (i don't remember the version) and a preamp full of tubes and transformers of them for a while in my house, guarding it while the owner was abbroad for 9 months for his job. Their speakers are crap altough as far as i heared (never heared it myself). And it's tube gear, so very coloured and high output impendance that will affect the speaker response. But you can get better for a fraction of the price if you search a bit. But for tube amps in general, and disregarding the ridiculous price, it's not that bad. Audio note is wel build and designed stuff, but way overpriced and overloaded with audiowhoo and mystic.
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