Audio Note AZ-2 Deluxe

AZ-Two-Deluxe.

The AZ-Two Deluxe is a floor standing, rear loaded, folded quasi parabolic horn design with a rear facing mouth, and uses two drive units per cabinet. It is very efficient and offers the amplifier an easy ‘load’, making it highly suitable for our range of superior quality, low powered valve amplifiers.

Paper/Hemp Cone. 

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.

At Audio Note they are keenly aware of this and have deliberately chosen drive units whose sonic signatures are as closely matched as possible. This has led them 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.