Audio Note offer an extensive range of loudspeaker cables. From the low cost copper internal speaker wire to the exotic pure silver cables like the Sogon 96. Lexus XL speaker cable. Way better sounding than it has any right to be. A great cable value. An all-copper wire but built with the same architecture as Sogon, so it offers the classic warmth with detail. AN-SPe speaker cable, pure silver litz conductor is comparable to an interconnect halfway between AN-V and AN-Vx: a great sounding cable that will satisfy most audiophiles. Ideal for K/SPe’s, J/SPe’s, and E/SPe’s. AN-SPx speaker cable, weightier sounding overall and more brilliant in the upper midrange. SOGON LX 96 speaker cable. 99.99 pure silver conductor, now 96 strands. Probably the best there is and single cables can be split rather than doubled for biwiring, resulting in 48 strands, close to what Sogon was for years. Even in that configuration, it is gorgeous. So do judge for yourself, when you audition a product, whether ours or some one else’s. As always buy what you like, but always bear in mind that Audio Note products are designed to be used within a carefully designed and voiced system. To inform and aid your choice we grade our products according to levels (see “The Audio Note Performance Level System”). The better products are capable of performing the more they will yield when set up with know how and care, this applies to audio, cars and pretty much everything else in life!

In our products, we use silver where we know it makes the most difference to the sound, which within an effective design philosophy maximises the quality to price relationship considerably. We are constantly learning how to improve the application of this and our latest research has revealed that even silver plated parts (provided the plating is thick enough) can compete with solid silver versions sonically. Having pure copper or brass as a base material has the added advantage that it does not break so easily, pure silver is both soft and brittle, so to this end we have introduced silver plated sockets and connectors across our entire product range, there are places where it is impossible at the moment to use these sockets, so we stay with the gold plated versions. But future product development and production engineering will take this into consideration.

Consistent performance is a major issue in loudspeaker design and unfortunately all drive units vary slightly from each other, even if they look the same and have the same basic specification. Many loudspeaker manufacturer’s will tell you that they provide “computer matched” crossovers, and whilst this may be true in one sense (each crossover may have been matched to have the exact same capacitance, inductance and resistance) this essentially “passive” method does not adequately take into consideration the mechanical and acoustic variance present in the drive units themselves, where minute differences in acoustic behaviour will result in quite substantial differences in performance and sound. Therefore, to obtain the best possible combination of drivers and crossovers, we have developed a dynamic matching process. This ensures that each loudspeaker in a stereo pair matches a "master curve" and also its partner, to within 0.4dB. To the best of our knowledge, no other loudspeaker manufacturer achieves such close matching and tests 100% of its production.

Another much overlooked area of loudspeaker design is the material choice for the drivers. It has become very fashionable to use all manner of exotic materials (beryllium, diamond, carbon fibre, ceramics etc.) as cone materials in modern drivers, mainly because it gives the impression that the manufacturer in question is making great strides in their research into better sounding speakers. The sad fact is none of these materials work as intended, as they all have their own distinct sonic signature, so no matter how the crossover is designed, this sonic signature will be present when the speaker reproduces music. It may be less obvious and audible with some types of music, but ultimately the chosen material will always imprint some of its own signature on whatever sound is reproduced. In addition, it is vitally important that the sound and characteristics of an individual drive unit are complimentary to those of its chosen partner, so that when an instrument is reproduced by both drive units (which is almost always the case), the upper range does not sound detached from the lower range and vice versa. This is an aspect of performance that cannot be measured by even the most sophisticated test equipment; it can ONLY be judged by listening. We at Audio Note are keenly aware of this and have deliberately chosen drive units whose sonic signatures are as closely matched as possible. This has led us to favour good, old fashioned paper for the woofer cone and impregnated silk for the dome tweeter. These materials, when matched correctly, marry the low and high frequencies seamlessly, providing the best level of performance possible in the real world of acoustics.