Three Way Evil Design Study

[JonMarsh]

And then there were two...

Finally!

Geez, talk about a run down to the wire! Took my car in for service this morning, too, and things came up at work I had to help deal with, even though I'm off today!

I haven't tested the second one and crossover, other than verifying that tweets come out of the tweeter and woofs from the woofers...






Biggest part of the effort today was making up the temporary crossover cables, because there isn't time to build the "real" ones the way I want, though I have all the materials. Well, it's just a demo of a work in progress.

Stereo is NICE, though!

[5th element]

Congratulations, me thinks you'll be glued to the speakers for the forseeable future. Stereo is always very nice

[Silversmoky]

Very nice Jon! Bet they sound great. Can't wait for it to get nice enough around me to go outside and start this years project/projects. Looking at what you have gotten done here only gives me the itch even more!

[JonMarsh]

Boy, am I beat! Been a long day, a long week!

But the system is torn down, and the big cabinets are already loaded into my Element for going to Davis- it's amazing what you can do with a real by gawd appliance dolly!

I've not had a lot of time for listening, put a few special cuts on, which sounded quite nice. But what was particularly eye opening was putting on some stuff I'm VERY familiar with, in this case "The Very Best of Acoustic Alchemy", which is a pretty nice compilation of their stuff on GRP. These tunes I'm quite familiar with, but it was like hearing new recordings of them. To be fair, it's probably not just the speakers; this is with the new TotalDAC D1, too. Power is just my Cambridge Audio 840W, on balanced inputs.

I'm curious to see what they sound like in a bigger room, but won't have more than 10 minutes or so of my own music to play at the DIY tomorrow; GF's family room will be the real shake down cruise. Still need to build the real crossover to cabinet cables (would have been too time consuming today, so just did something quick for the initial testing).

I've still got to tweak up this new iMac for music playback, and make sure I've got everything on my checklist taken care of. But it looks like wheels up tomorrow at 6, and what should be an easy drive to Davis up I-680 and 80 East.

[kvardas]

Awesome speakers!

:T

[JonMarsh]

Awesome speakers!

:T

Thanks! Won't be doing anything like this again soon- first I have to tweak and tune these!

But for now, I'm loaded and ready to leave for Davis for the Northern CA DIY meet today, April 20!

[cjd]

Either your photoshop skills are top notch, or you finally have a pair that look fully assembled!

Love the box construction and bamboo.

Hope they sound as good as they look!

C

[JonW]

Jon,

That is one impressive looking pair of speakers. Very nice! :T

Even with the split upper and lower sections, they look so heavy that my back hurts just thinking about trying to move them. Have fun!

[Steve Manning]

Very nice Jon, love the overall look, especially with the bamboo. :T Wish I could make the get together and hear how they sound, even with your thrown together crossovers I bet they sound awesome.

Steve

[---k---]

Those look amazing. From the photos, they look like something that would sell for $50,000+ :T

I'm getting curious about these cables you keep mentioning. Are you going to provide some details? You might also have to explain to the skeptic why your copper wire is better. I'm not looking for a debate, just want to hear your reasoning as I respect your knowledge immensely.

Good luck at the DIY event. Make sure you get some help loading and unloading so you don't damage those.

[JonMarsh]

Those look amazing. From the photos, they look like something that would sell for $50,000+ :T

I'm getting curious about these cables you keep mentioning. Are you going to provide some details? You might also have to explain to the skeptic why your copper wire is better. I'm not looking for a debate, just want to hear your reasoning as I respect your knowledge immensely.

Good luck at the DIY event. Make sure you get some help loading and unloading so you don't damage those.

Woo Boy, long day yesterday, but it all went pretty well- will have pictures up later, but camera is at GF's, where we're setting up the system this evening, after a celebration diner for another topic (we're behind in our celebrations, which is good for excuses to go out! )

I planned ahead and had an appliance dolly and lots of moving blankets, so was prepared to manage it on my own- the Honda Element is pretty capacious, especially with the rear seats out and the fronts pulled forward- it packed in even easier than I'd hoped. But it certainly was a bit of work the last two days loading and unloading this many times!

We had a pretty good turn-out at the DIY meet, and Linkwitz was there showing and playing his Pluto's, though he seemed to have a setup problem of some kind with them. There were a lot of different kinds of speakers and complete systems. An interesting point, which emphasizes how rushed this was for me, it that I didn't even have a chance to preview the official demo tracks on my system at home, before the meeting Saturday!

[meb46]

Jon - They look fantastic, great work!

[JonMarsh]

Thanks Mike!

Now there's still some detail work- the grille panels, for instance.

And I'm going to do another measurement series now that they're in GF's family room. It's a good sounding room, at first blush, where I've placed them; seems to be a pretty neutral setup. I've taken some pictures I'll put up later after I bring my camera back home. I think it will be a good room for doing the final tweak/tuning. At home, the side walls were close enough that even with the real traps on the walls, there was more early reflections and increased brightness. In the family room, they're pretty much optimally placed for boundary position relative to LF design; about 1.5 meters from rear wall, and 2.5 from side walls. Imaging is pretty good; the speakers don't sound like sound sources with any kind of good program material.

I did stuff the LF and midrange cabinets differently, and haven't had time to check the measured results; hopefully will get around to that this weekend, as well as evaluate optimal placement and listening position- I think we may pull the couch back a little, but these do work quite well up close, with very good integration at just one meter at seated ear height. I want to do some vertical tests to see how well response holds up with different listening heights at 1 and 2 meters and further away. They sound very good still down in the dining room and kitchen, which is always nice...

At this point I am planning on reviewing and doing any further tweaks over the next few weeks, then building a final new set of crossovers in a nice looking box, taking some time for working out the layout, and probably not cutting corners on some of the caps (like the midrange; using all Superior Z instead of a mix, for example).

What a long road it's been to get to this point; it sure is nice listening to them. And now GF is wondering if there's some way to get her turntable hooked into my system... (no preamp; all digital up to output to power amp) anything is possible, even the LIO-8 would make that work, though I might be more inclined to go with an Ayre A/D, keeping the LIO-8 free for other experiments.

AND, the other problem that comes up with adding new gear into the mix, is that we have to do something about equipment cabinet/furniture; she'd found some decent stuff at consignment shops, but now we have to setup to handle her HT and phono and the new 2 channel rig. That's going to take some head scratching and thought, considering we'll need to have a spot for an iMac music server and an eventual update in that area to an Aurender or TotalDAC server, which may keep both online. She's even wondering if we shouldn't look for a nice looking "rack", given my Tascam transport and other bits we have, and she's sort of used to the esthetic, having put together server rack systems back in the day before retiring. Now, that's a "keeper"! : B

I think the key will be doing research and not rushing into anything.

And now.. back to the Ardents!

[ColoradoTom]

She's even wondering if we shouldn't look for a nice looking "rack", given my Tascam transport and other bits we have, and she's sort of used to the esthetic, having put together server rack systems back in the day before retiring. Now, that's a "keeper"! : B

I think the key will be doing research and not rushing into anything.

And now.. back to the Ardents!

Hey!!! Nice looking racks (that sounds like something for a different forum!) is becoming my specialty! Want to trade the Ardents for a custom piece!!

Haven't been active on the net for a couple of months..... Got shitty news the begining of March that my little brother has stage IV brain cancer so I've been traveling to California spending time with him!

Tom

[JonMarsh]

Hey!!! Nice looking racks (that sounds like something for a different forum!) is becoming my specialty! Want to trade the Ardents for a custom piece!!

Haven't been active on the net for a couple of months..... Got shitty news the begining of March that my little brother has stage IV brain cancer so I've been traveling to California spending time with him!

Tom

Tom, I'm so sorry to hear that! The last quarter has been sort of hard all around on that front for many people I know, including GF's sister who passed away in late March.

Sorry to hear about that- hope you guys have been getting some quality time together!

[craigk]

tom, very sorry to hear about your brother. glad you are able to spend some time together. every thing else will wait.

best, craig

[ColoradoTom]

Jon and Craig,

Thanks for the thoughts....

He's 12 years younger than me and I had moved to college/Colorado before he even entered junior high school so the majority of our contact through the years has been holidays and the random visits. He's in radiation and chemo for the next month or two and I'm hoping to get him to Colorado for a couple of weeks after the treatments......

Tom

[JonMarsh]

Updates in progress....

The reviews and tweaks have started, along with what may be the "production build", depending on how things work out.

After more pondering of listening tests and measurements (but maybe not enough of the latter; haven't been back at GF's since setting things up on Sunday), have revised the LF to midrange crossover design and simplified the midrange BSC (which means less tweakable but fewer parts).

Crossover point trial will be moving up to 300 Hz from 250 Hz; impedance looks nicer, and as mentioned, component count is reduced in the midrange crossover by one inductor and one resistor; parts ordered last night.

Also, the revised woofer crossover will probably fit into the shelf at the bottom of the cabinet as originally planned! "Should" being the operative word...

I also need to test based on the newest stuffing system, which I think is about perfect on the mid cabinet, but may be overstuffed slightly on the woofers. More testing to be done this weekend.

Pictures should be up this weekend, also. And by then we should have picked and ordered some new racks for our mutual equipment.

Progress is our most important product...

[JonMarsh]

Still working on setup, this picture was taken last weekend, but this weekend we got a Salamander Designs SDAV3/7022 setup for her TV and HT gear.

Making progress, but haven't got the two channel setup yet, though it sounded nice last weekend with the check setup!

[sdl2112]

Still working on setup, this picture was taken last weekend, but this weekend we got a Salamander Designs SDAV3/7022 setup for her TV and HT gear.

Making progress, but haven't got the two channel setup yet, though it sounded nice last weekend with the check setup!

Those look awesome Jon...great job:T

[5th element]

The room looks also looks like a very nice size and I like the decor too. I don't know what the typical room size is like over there, but over here it's quite small.

[JonMarsh]

Here it can be all over the place, depending on where you live, when the place was built, etc.

GF lives in an old neighborhood in Danville, and actual living room was not very big. Original build around 1955. It was added onto substantially before GF and her ex husband bought it in 1977; the family room and some additional bedrooms being the main work, plus a poured patio and pool. They didn't want a pool, but I guess it's come in handy since, and GF added a solar heating setup for it back around 2007. (former IBM system engineer- she actually did most of the design, using online resources).

So the family room is a pretty nice size, the pic only shows the center northern side; the eastern side has glass doors opening up to the back, and the south end is completely open to the dining room/kitchen area which then goes to the living room at the south, on the street. I estimate the "stage" width at about 7.5 meters; cabs are spaced at about 2.5 meters apart. Some bedrooms are off that area to the West, and some are off a hallway from the Kitchen going East. That's typical of what a lot of people have done to these older home at one time or another- in many cases nearly doubling the square footage (discounting the two car garage).

The room does sound pretty nice to my ears; we're going to do a measure and tweak session for the HT pretty soon (that's been on the agenda for about a year!). Now with a new subwoofer built for it (but not yet setup), the need is urgent! The mains and rears are located up at the wall/ceiling junction in all four corners; they're a bit bottom heavy that way, as I think they were original design for BSC. So we may buy or build something to replace them before the year is out- plus I want to upgrade the center channel- a new NeoD CC with the SB Acoustics tweeter is already in construction.

[5th element]

So how does the new Dayton sub shape up?

[JonMarsh]

So how does the new Dayton sub shape up?

The response using internal EQ, with and without the internal roll off filter looks like this:



I'm expecting it to work out pretty well...

[5th element]

That's pretty good and no breakup till ≈800Hz, what does the distortion profile look like? Ie how high can you really use it?

[JonW]

Jon-

Those look amazing. You can kind of tell that they are now residing in a lady's place, rather than a bachelor pad. Based on the prior photos.



ColoradoTom-

Very sorry about your little brother. That's rough going. Best wishes to you, your brother, and the family.

[JonMarsh]

That's pretty good and no breakup till ≈800Hz, what does the distortion profile look like? Ie how high can you really use it?

Distortion is pretty flat from 100 Hz to 300Hz, then starts gradually rising. Really not bad for a fairly high Xmax woofer in this price range. You could use it up to maybe 250 or 300 Hz, though a little lower would be better for the Xover. It's not like the BPD 12'sa I have in storage which are about 24 mm Xmax, but no copper, and THD starts rising at 150 Hz.

[JonMarsh]

New crossover parts arrived today- the balance of the parts for the revised low midrange.

Now, do I build crossovers tonight, or practice the guitar? These are the questions one should be confronting every day... :W

[PMazz]

Considering you started this thread in 2006, no sense practicing guitar cause it'll be 2050 before you get the hang of it again! :W

[JonMarsh]

Considering you started this thread in 2006, no sense practicing guitar cause it'll be 2050 before you get the hang of it again! :W

Ah, but that wold only be the case if I keep working at my day job until 2050! There's a small chance I won't have to do that! :W


Seriously, the remarkable thing is how much more comfortable I feel after just a few hours of playing. OTOH, there's still clearly a long road in front of me on that topic. I think I should try to put together a plan to show real progress by 2030... I'll be 79 then! (cross fingers!)

I did unpack and look at the parts and shuffle them around on a trial board just to see...

Tonite's mid week date nite, so no work on either project this evening. But may pick up my other new guitar, a sentimental purchase of an Epiphone SG Custom; it won't quite replace my old 67 Gibson SG Custom, but it should be close- the last one I could find new in the USA, shipped from the Harrisburg Guitar center store to Concord; should be arriving today.




The SG was the one I played for the longest part of my working career; though I later bought a Les Paul Professional low impedance, I never gigged with it.

I was horrified to see a totally beat to crap '67 Gibson SG on eBay this week, that the guy was asking $9450 for and pitching it like it was in pretty fine shape... don't see it there today, the listing must have expired. Good riddance!

[dlneubec]

Jon,

Outstanding work on this project!:T

[JonMarsh]

Jon,

Outstanding work on this project!:T

Thank you for the kind words, Dan- it's been a real learning experience, to say the least! :W

And then, there's still checking this latest crossover update; building final crossovers; building the grille panels and mounts, and prepping the BOM's, and a build thread? It seems never ending, but it's getting close. :yesnod:

Some of this will take a while, because most of May will be dedicated to ramping up the physical training for our Coast to Coast hike in Northern England coming up in June; then we'll be doing 10-12 miles hiking every day for two weeks. For example, this Sunday, rather than working on crossovers or grille panels, we'll be doing the Devil Mountain 10K run, though for us it will be a walk!

http://www.devilmtnrun.com

She has numerous medals for placing from 3rd to 1st in her age class in past years when she's run it, but she's got one new artificial hip since Dec 2011, and her "natural one" is a bit delicate.

The rest of May GF has a lot of other activities mapped out for us- in addition to the kind of stuff we've been doing in March and April with shorter hikes and the old elliptic trainer and stationary bike.

[Carl V]

back in the early 70's I used to bike up Mt Diablo or up and over Mt Hamilton(century).
But I see this a downtown event.
Also back in the day we used to Autocross in Pleasanton.

Your projects are looking good.
Have fun in your Walk across England.

[JonMarsh]

Things have changed a lot around here even since I moved here in 1986. I can't imagine what the differences are like since the 70's!

Thanks for the kind words- we're really looking forward to the outing in June! The rest of the summer may be a bit anti-climatic after that!

[JonMarsh]

More progress on crossover tweaks, including lowering the cost a bit; updates for the tweeter and woofer, and parts ordered.

in spite of all this guitar stuff going on lately, I haven't completely lost focus...

But I also ordered one of these today- :W




Not a standard Marshall cabinet and not easy to find. This is a VM 425A cabinet with special design Celestions. Should work very nicely with the new VM2266, and for keyboards, too, due to the more extended bottom end.

[gbegland]

Am I sensing a major mid-life crisis going on or what? Keyboard, guitar, Marshall cabinet....jeez, pretty soon you're going to announce the NSX is out in favor of the 2014 Corvette.

On a serious note Jon, I can't remember if you got your bamboo ply from Rockler or Cali direct? I ordered mine direct from Cali, but now I need just enough for baffles on the studio monitor. I can't afford to commit to the 2 sheet minimum from Cali. Didn't you get some smaller pieces already cut up from Rockler? I looked on their website and didn't see anything I could use. Any ideas? I've looked all over the web and all I find is 4*8 sheets or cutting boards.

Greg

[JonMarsh]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]21869[/ATTACH]

Am I sensing a major mid-life crisis going on or what? Keyboard, guitar, Marshall cabinet....jeez, pretty soon you're going to announce the NSX is out in favor of the 2014 Corvette.

On a serious note Jon, I can't remember if you got your bamboo ply from Rockler or Cali direct? I ordered mine direct from Cali, but now I need just enough for baffles on the studio monitor. I can't afford to commit to the 2 sheet minimum from Cali. Didn't you get some smaller pieces already cut up from Rockler? I looked on their website and didn't see anything I could use. Any ideas? I've looked all over the web and all I find is 4*8 sheets or cutting boards.

Greg

Problem is, Greg, I'm too old for a midlife crisis, unless we've radically changed the notion of what midlife is! :B OTOH, Marshall stacks and guitars is really just returning to the days of my misspent youth in early to mid 20's, though maybe misspent isn't the right word, as those activities supported me and got me through school, too! Beats McD's any day of the week as regards hourly pay, though it requires a skosh more up front investment!

Got super lucky, the more I think about it, with this week's finds- the Line 6 HD100 is like my old 100W Traynor but with all kinds of effects and gear built in- it's like a complete pedal board, includes flanging, chorus, echo, reverb, and looping, but in the chassis! And the VM2266 should give me some significantly more modern functionality than my old 50W head (not sure which one it was- it was a '67 if I recall correctly) (('m better at remembering girl friends from that era than amplifier model numbers). I had my own DIY double 4-12 stack home built, but finished in tolex and all with handles to where you couldn't tell it didn't come out of someone's factory; Celestions (can't remember the model), when everyone over here was using Jensen's or JBL if they had cubic money to spare!

I plan to get a Rivera Rock Crusher or two, to tame the amplifier's output level as needed, and a second straight front 425B cabinet before those things disappear off the market place. I kind of realized last week after the visit to the Concord GC that it was an opportunity to recreate an improved version of my guitar/piano rig from the 70's. For the same money, instead of getting a single Line 6 DT50 head, I've got two heads with a much broader functionality and tonal palette. With gear, just like HiFi speakers, it's about the tone.

And hey, the new Corvette is clearly the best one ever, and I wouldn't put it down in front of a Chevy lover, but if I win the lottery or keep working long enough, I'd sooner go for one of these:



You know, stay true to your school, and all- I've been riding or driving Hondas since I was 14- and that was a long time ago!

Then I might even half way fit into Danville, where the GF lives, home of more high end BMW's, Mercedes, Jags, Audi's, Bently's, Tesla's, etc, than you can shake a stick at.


Back to business, Rockler in Pleasant Hill only carries from time to time 12" x 3/4" by 8' boards; no wider panels, at least not the last time I looked. And Cali doesn't seem to have the 4' x 6' size so much anymore, which is what I bought, and isn't so expensive. And yeah, the Isiris build all came from Cali. I spec'd what I bought pretty carefully, have very little left over (nothing bigger than 12" by 18" or so..).

Wish I could think of a better solution for you... can't say as I know one. The $1200 for the wood for the Isiris wasn't cheap, and I've just laid out about another $500 in crossover parts. But that only brings me up to about $8500 in total expenditures for a speaker pair that really is something special- I'm not complaining. Can't buy much of a car for $8500.

If these latest crossover updates pan out the way I expect, I'll be ready to start putting together the "official build thread" soon.


Xover Updates
I've been sorting out some issues in near field versus far field power response in the upper bass/lower mids, and also better optimized the cost performance structure of the tweeter crossover, by sacrificing a little bit of amplitude and phase tracking in the 1500 to 1000 Hz area of the tweeter, for slightly better phase in the 2-4 kHz and lower component cost. Form factor on both the woofer and tweeter crossover boards will be much reduced, if these change work out, and the SQ is acceptable from the 500W Erse solid core inductors. One caveat, is that the second LF inductor will have to be unwound from a 1.5 mH to a 1.0 mH, so it's not quite an off the shelf part, but the DCR will be down around 0.1 ohm. For the big 6.2 mH inductor, it will be under 0.3. Impedance curve is nicer, too.

Basically, just fixing some stuff from previously doing a partial junk box crossover... gotta be sorted out for the official build thread and for Mike.

[JonMarsh]

Delays, delays. Parts Express took my money the beginning of the week, but didn't process the order or send a shipping acknowledgement- a follow up today got things back in motion!

For reference, in order to reduce the DCR for the ported version Mike is doing, and make the think more compact, I'm trying out the Erse 500W cored inductors. Hope they have less hysteresis than the Jantzen parts I tried in the Modula Xtremes.

[BOBinGA]

Jon,
My last order from PE was a little strange, too. I never got an email with the shipping info either. I found that you have to log into your account at parts-express.com to see the tracking number. I guess they are changing their order system. Nonetheless, they still shipped the order the same day I put the order in and I got it two days later just like I had in the past.

-Bob

[JonMarsh]

Jon,
My last order from PE was a little strange, too. I never got an email with the shipping info either. I found that you have to log into your account at parts-express.com to see the tracking number. I guess they are changing their order system. Nonetheless, they still shipped the order the same day I put the order in and I got it two days later just like I had in the past.

-Bob

Interesting. In my case I was paying with Paypal instead of the usual credit card, and got an email acknowledgement saying there would be delays until they confirmed Paypal funds received. Which always happens the same day, in my experience, and checking my Paypal account online confirmed that. No other acknowledgement until I queried them, then got the "oopsie" message, with a shipment invoice and tracking info. Could have been an IT glitch while they're changinging over the system. Who knows?

[JonMarsh]

OK, this may be interminably boring for most of you, as I agonize over details in the crossover and play with the bits once again, but maybe it's good to show that often things don't happen just in a flash of divine revelation! (well, not for me- those of you with a closer connection to the divine may do things a bit differently!)

Given that a picture is worth a thousand words, these three pics show the current state of what's going to be built and tested shortly, also doing this such that I can do direct A/B's, as this isn't a mod of the existing LF and HF crossovers, but new builds that can be tested side by side, as soon as the rest of those pesky parts come in!



In particular, with regards to the LF crossover, note that C5 and R5 were revamped for the flattest but also highest net impedance curve on the woofers by them selves (before hooking up to crossover), and not lowering R5 to achieve some modification of the SPL response as the optimizer is wont to do if you let it have it's way...

The switch with R11 allows tuning the midrange output a skosh, and might be desirable if you have the system a bit closer in to side walls than my design target. The switch bringing in R10 is probably not needed, but would be what I call the "BSC switch", as it tames a region that can be a little forward, especially if the tweeter is at full up, with many rock recordings. For acoustic music, I doubt you'd want that. The switch with R9 gives a two dB adjustment to the tweeter level. Close for measured flat response; open for recordings that are up front or close mic'd, in my opinion.

The overall impedance curve is about as happy as I can get it at this point, considering the net impedance of the midrange and it's BSC response in parallel with the woofers. But at least it's not a 2 ohm load in the mid bass like many Avalon's and other similar three ways.





This should be reasonably benign to drive, excepting those Home Theater receivers that come out of a Cracker Jack box and aren't rated for anything tougher than an 8 Ohm pure resistive load!

This LspCAD simulation shows what should be expected if all of the switches are open, using the data measured 30 degrees off axis with boundary placement too close (i.e., the LF tip up), which tends to be reasonably representative of the power response in room.

[tktran]

Hi Jon,

A few pages back I noted the Hypex DS4.0.

Did you get a chance to use/evaluate this unit?

Is the rumble filter defeatable? What is the slope of the
Low pass filter ?

Regards,
Thanh

[JonMarsh]

Hi Jon,

A few pages back I noted the Hypex DS4.0.

Did you get a chance to use/evaluate this unit?

Is the rumble filter defeatable? What is the slope of the
Low pass filter ?

Regards,
Thanh

The manual is rather sparse, but as near as I can tell there is no defeat for the rumble filter- with so many ported systems these days, I suppose that's wise.

The built in low pass filter is 24 dB/octave nominal, but it does seem to cut some corners in the DSP processing area and levels out somewhat beyond -40 dB attenuation; I confirmed that measuring into a resistive load with voltage divider.

[5th element]

Reasonably benign except for the 5 ohm + 60 odd degrees phase angle at 50Hz. Not bad by audiophile standards but could certainly give some lower powered/valve amps a run for thier money at loudish levels. What will you be driving these with?

[JonMarsh]

Reasonably benign except for the 5 ohm + 60 odd degrees phase angle at 50Hz. Not bad by audiophile standards but could certainly give some lower powered/valve amps a run for thier money at loudish levels. What will you be driving these with?

Initially just my Cambridge Audio 840W; though the test amp for initial development and listening is an Aragon 8008 X3. I COULD run them off a pair of Aragon Palladium monoblocks I have (aka "arc welders"), but for eco efficiency and keeping my GF happy, there's an NCORE 400 build in progress.

I've toyed with the idea of taking over the Palladium's first, running those a little while and letting her see how the 125 watts class A dissipation warms up the room, just so she'll really appreciate the 12 watts idle power of the NCORE 400's. The build will be in two monoblocks with chassis I got from Hexateq, but we'll have to see how they sound- the reported measured performance is quite good. No tube gear planned at this point! I don't think my Marshall VM2266 or Line 6 HD100 would really have the right kind of "voicing". :W