My wife and kids decided to go to the in-law a week before my wife brother wedding. So here I am, the master of the house for a whole week. With so much peace and quiet (no kids hanging on to my legs), I decided to lug the marble 9.0 into my second setup to see how the LLC-P sounds with cone/dome speakers.
The setup consist of
CD Player: nOrh CD1 with modded power supply and Svetlana 12AX7 tubes
Preamp: IRD LLC-P
Amp1: Modded Audire Forte ( dual mono amp: 125 W into 8 ohms, 250 W into 4 ohms)
Amp2: A pair of nOrh Multiamps in active amping configuration
Speakers: A pair of nOrh marble 9.0
IC: nOrh silver Interconnect.
Speaker Cable: 6 Gauge 19 strands THHN cable from Home Depot)
LLC-P with Multiamp and Marble 9.0 in active amping mode
There is a lot more detail than I have ever heard the marble 9.0 was capable to produce in the past with other preamps including the Bent. However, the image seems to suffer quite a bit (with respect to the 626R). I got the feeling that I was listening to two separate speakers. The sweet spot was wide but the focus was not there. I moved the speaker around and toed them in. The image improve a bit but still nowhere near as good as the 626R. Detail wise, the marble 9.0 now is approaching the 626R. The bass is still not as good as the 626R. Over all, I was somewhat impressed with the LLC-P ability to bring out extra detail from the marble 9.0.
LLC-P with the Modded Audire Forte and the marble 9.0 in passive amping mode
There is some loss in detail with respect to the active amping mode with the Multiamp. However, the image is improving quite a bit. The bass is much stronger than with the Mutiamp. Now, I am very impressed with the LLC-P because it managed to make the marble 9.0 sound a lot closer to the 626R but with wide sweet spot. The 626R still sound better but the gap is closing in and the marble 9.0 has much wider sweet spot. I must say that the LLC-P mates better with dome/cone speakers than with ribbon. In the case of the VMPS speakers, the LLC-P would work good because the bass, mid, and high of VMPS speakers can be adjusted to counter balance the some what forward sounding of the LLC-P and to suite listener’s taste.
Some rambling thought in my head as I played with the setup
- I always thought the marble 9.0 sounded best with the Multiamps in active amping mode (beside separate active crossover and separate amps). I was very surprised to find out that with a good amp like the modded Audire Forte, the marble 9.0 actually sounded a lot more balance. I still remembered how impressed I was with the Multiamp when it first came out five years ago. Now, it sounds average to my ears and somewhat under power for large bookshelf.
- Audire offers really good amps for the money especially if you can get them used. My Audire Forte is 22 years old and after a minor modification, it sounds much better than both the Multiamp and LeAmp. The thing surprised me was that the design of the Forte or most Audire amp is fairly basic but yet sounds great even after 30 years. One thing I learn traversing through the schematic is that Julius (Founder of Audire) perfected the design over the years with minor little modification that translate into wonderful sounding amp. This makes me wonder if the amplify design really improves that much for the past 30 years.
- While reconfiguring the marble 9.0 from active to passive amping, I noticed that the wires, that are connected between the crossover to the tweeter/woofer, are plug into the crossover instead of soldered in. I went ahead and soldered them to the crossover to lower the contact resistance. I did not solder the connection between the binding posts to the crossover and the connections at the tweeter and the woofer. I left them alone just in case I need to go back to active amping some day. Now I found out that the marble 9.0 sounded better with the Audire Forte in passive amping mode than with the Multiamp in active amping, I probably will open up the marble 9.0 again and solder all the plug connections to lower the over all contact resistance. This should improve the performance of the marble 9.0 even further.
- I found out that active amping is not necessary better than passive amping. It depends greatly on how each solution is implemented. I probably will never active amping bookshelf speaker again because it is a lot of work and not necessary provide better sound. I will still active amping the subwoofer with bookshelf speakers via a two ways active crossover to remove the low bass from the small woofer in the bookshelf.
The above are my thought and not necessarily logical so take them with a lot of salt
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