AX Two Loudspeakers

The AX-Two is a compact ‘book shelf’ design, using two drive units per cabinet to cover a very wide frequency response, given its modest dimensions.
 
Unlike many ‘book shelf’ designs, the AX-Two is relatively efficient and offers the amplifier an easy ‘load’, making it highly suitable for our range of superior quality, low powered valve amplifiers.
 
Consistent performance is a major issue in loudspeaker design and unfortunately all drive units vary slight 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.
 
Another much overlooked area of acoustics is the material choice for the drivers. 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 visa 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.
 
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. No instrument manufacturer in their right mind would dream of making a trumpet from carbon fibre or Beryllium for example, or a cello or violin from aluminium or plastic (not if they were serious anyway!), 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.
 
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.