AN-J or AN-E with Meishu


I am using an Audio Note Meishu with AN-K speakers. I'm planning to upgrade to AN-J or AN-E to get a better sense of space (soundstage and image).

The difficulty is the size of the room and its dimensions. The room is 4.5 meters wide and 4.2 meters long (3 meters tall). That's almost a quadrangle. (I might be able to move the stereo to another room in the apartment, which is 5.1 meters long and 3.3 meters wide).

My question is this: Is the roughly 17 m2 of the current room too small for the AN-E? I was planning to go with the AN-J because of the general recommendations from the company but I heard that the Meishu works particularly well with AN-E. I'm moving up from AN-K to get a better sense of space (image and soundstage).

Does anyone have experience in using the Meishu with AN-J and AN-E? In a small rooms?

Thanks,
Fred
fabsound

Showing 3 responses by dkarmeli

Fred, construction of the room is just as important as the dimensions, wall materials, floor, windows, furnishings, etc. all come into play irrespective of size. I've done a lot of near field installations of large speakers in small, difficult rooms like yours with excellent results and there have been a couple of occasions that rooms with seemingly ideal dimensions turned out to be nightmares because of their construction. More information is needed for any kind of suggestion, even then without being there physically it will be all guess work, but it might be enough to get you going with your setup.

If your aim is specifically better soundstage and image the key factors are speaker positioning and low frequencies. Bass is the foundation that will give you the solid 3d imaging. Bass is also the hardest thing to get right in almost every room, even large ones.I don't know your level of experience with speaker positioning and system installation, that plays into what you should buy. I'm not familiar enough with any of AN speakers to make a recommendation but I would always pick the one with best bass reproduction capabilities.
Bass traps deal with the standing waves in the lower frequencies, the additional clarity will improve every aspect of your sound system. One caveat, you need high quality traps and they can be expensive.