The AN-E must be the most efficient wide band speaker of moderate size on the market.
Audio Note's involvement in the loudspeaker world dates to the early 1980s, when Audio Note's Peter Qvortrup represented the Snell Acoustics line throughout Europe. Qvortrup admired Peter Snell's design innovations—not only were their cabinets precisely sized and shaped to support a particular range of frequencies, but Snell Acoustics was among the first companies to hand-match every crossover component to its own unique set of drivers. As Snell's distributor, Qvortrup enjoyed particular success with three relatively efficient models: the Snell Type J, Type K, and Type E.
​
Everything went swimmingly until fall 1984, when Peter Snell dropped dead on the factory floor—and his surviving business partners hired Canadian designer Kevin Voecks, late of Mirage, to take his place. Almost immediately, Voecks began to take Snell's product line in a direction that had nothing whatsoever to do with Peter Snell's original work, as far as Peter Qvortrup was concerned.
​
After that, Qvortrup took the only route left: He sought and obtained permission to continue building Js, Ks, and Es on his own, crediting the original designs to Snell and selling the finished products under his own label. Thus, more than two decades after his death, you can still acquire Peter Snell's finest "bookshelf" loudspeakers, the ensuing evolution of which may be in keeping with their designer's intentions.
​
Over the years, Audio Note worked to refine the E formula, in an effort to wring even greater efficiency—among other things—from the very same box.
​
The AN-E is a two-way, ported enclosure, with a carefully designed cabinet which is shaped to enhance and aid driver dispersion on one hand, and bass output on the other. The cabinet is lightly braced and little internal damping is used. The cabinet is designed in such a way that it augments and supports the drivers in their task, not unlike the box of a guitar. The drivers are selected and paired before they are matched to the crossover in the same process as the AN-K and AN-J.
​
Our pièce de résistance—the AN-E/SOGON, uses silver-foil capacitors and silver-wire inductors in the external crossover. In fact, there's a total of about 40 pounds of silver in each of those external boxes, with which we enter another era of Loudspeaker. With the AN-E/SOGON loudspeaker, the joy of audio now conjures up not a mere recreation attempt, but a redefinition of the world only audiophiles will get to appreciate.
​
Actual auditioning of an over ₹1 crore modest-looking pair of 2-way loudspeaker may and may not persuade you of its worth more than a ₹1 lakh five-way design, because sound quality is never the only factor involved in a purchase decision. But were we living in a world in which we were all judged ultimately by the contents of our character, and loudspeakers were judged qualitatively and not quantitatively, the AN-E/SOGON would sell like pancakes.
​
A further introduction and an In-Depth analysis of ours speakers can be found in the video's below by Real Hifi and Real World Audio.
