I heard the 936's a while ago. Left me scratching my head, not in a good way or a bad way, just a bit perplexed. To my ears, they didn't fall on the usual scale that runs from bright/forward/analytical to warm/laid back/musical. I found it hard to find the right adjectives to describe the presentation, the tonality, the timbre. It was different. Quite detailed, certainly, allowing you to listen into the music, and certainly far from unpleasant. Having heard Audio Note AN-E's years later, and allowing for acoustic memory, I'm going to say they didn't sound, to me, as natural as the AN's did, but again I'd be hard pressed to come up with the right adjective to describe how they departed (just a little) from that ideal of naturalness. We'll be curious to hear your impressions.