Joe
If you are in the US and are looking for smaller footprint floorstanders that employ TL principals contact Bob Neill of Amherst Audio and reviewer for PFO. He carries the Reynaud line as well as AN and is a long time fan and owner of in the past of Harbeth, Spendor and other BBC favorites. Reynaud has several floorstanders in your "price range" that may fit what you are looking for.
As for AN speakers, Peter Q has taken the design work of a legend in Peter Snell and turned his work into a pricing and options circus. As an owner of multiple Snell designs including several of the iconic "Type A's" I find that AN has taken many of the lesser works that are easily duplicated and attempted to make a fortune whereas Snell was trying to give great sound to many at a fair price like the other New England design icons he followed. Unfortunately if you have followed Richard over the years on multiple forums he always ends up in the same place in any thread he joins as the AN cheerleader.
Hi Jack I can't disagree with you - I do like Audio Note a whole lot and I do recommend them a lot and on many forums and for over a decade! On the other hand, I am pretty consistent and I believe in what I recommend.
But you should also consider that while Peter does charge some hefty dollars much of that came from consumers who kept badgering him to make higher quality versions. The AN OTO amp I have for example is in the $3k price range and many OTO owners emailed Peter to make a higher quality version with better transformers, caps etc. So they came out with one. But you should be fair to Peter - he still sells the less expensive model.
The basic AN E and AN J and AN K that Audio Note sell are all much better than the Snell variants and these versions are not crazy priced and are in line with inflation from the 80s Snell versions. And yes I am a fan - I enjoyed my AN J/Spe speakers for 13 years and sold them for nearly 20% more than I originally paid - and I had the boring black finish. So when people talk about high AN prices I have no interest - what I want to know is what is my NET cost. If I buy an AN speaker for $2500 in 2003 and sell it for $2950 in 2016 that is pretty good. OTOH if I buy a speaker in 2003 for $2000 to save a few bucks (against AN's high prices) and in 2016 I sell it for $600 - well which person will end up the happier? Which person is likely to be a bit of a cheerleader?
AN speakers start at $600 or so. It's not ridiculous. And if you are objective - look and directly A/B the AN E/LX at $5800 against the DeVore o/96 at $13,000 or say the Harbeth 40.1 at $15,000. Sound is subjective and I like all three and I could live with all three - but there is nothing about the other two that should "cost" more. The AN E uses just as expensive parts quality. My dealer carries all three. So it's not a difficult comparison. Without listening - just looking at the internal parts and the cabinetry - I doubt anyone would walk away thinking one was 1/2 to 1/3 the price. And IF you, like me, walk away feeling the sound is also considerably better then gee you will be a cheerleader because you just listened to a speaker that is just as well made and sounds just as good if not better for 1/2 the money.
There is a reason I am a cheerleader - and that is it - just as good quality sound (IMO better albeit that is subjective) just as well built for less than half the price!
Anyway back to Sugden - These are fine speakers - but I tend to always judge stuff with price factoring into the equation AND what you can sell them for when it comes time to upgrade.
Looking into the Sugden they appear to retail for $5000US and are 90dB sensitive and come with a 2 year warranty. So I offered up for audition a considerably more sensitive speaker that follows the same design approach that is at least $2500 less money. And there is a pretty good chance the AZ Three will sound better as well. I cheer-lead saving money.
If all this were reversed and a Sugden guy came and told me I could get a speaker that is similar in design approach for half the price I would at least want to uncover that rock if possible. It's one of the reasons that for a more than a decade I have been harping on people to listen to the A21a amplifier - there's a reason it has sold for 50 years - it's one of the few SS amps that actually sounds good. And the price has more than doubled since 1994 or so but it still sounds great.
I don't know if the OP has a Sugden amp as well - but there is often the notion of generating a "more than the sum of their parts" magic with keeping the system together - an all Sugden system for example. That should not be discounted. Sugden's logo is apt. "Rescuing Music from Technology.
