Hi all fellow HT3 owners - I tuned into this thread for the first time in a long time, being pre-occupied with getting an investment property on the market ( full restoration ) and being out of audio for some time. I even have a boxed Grand Prix Audio Monaco stand still waiting to be set up, purchased second hand over 4 months ago.
I have one of the last Supratek Dual pre-amps lined up ( Mick Maloney from Supratek is sadly closing his doors in the land down under, due to the falling U.S. dollar and increasing competition from China ) as well as one of his Malbec valve amps, so I intend to directly evaluate how the Malbecs drive the HT3's on top, with Nu Force V2 SE's on the bass. For now, I can say that I drove the HT3's with Nu Force 9.02's on the bass and the V2 SE's on top and was very impressed with the difference versus the stand alone V2 SE's driving the HT3's full range. It was almost downright scary, with a sense of awesome power on tap. I wouldn't say it was altogether ' musical ' but there are stand issues leading to a tipped up response that hadn't been properly sorted, which I haven't had time to work on. Unfortunately, on CD's with deep sustained bass passages that placed a bigger demand on the Nu Force 9.02's ( 160W RMS ) , on certain parts of certain tracks, they couldn't drive the HT3's woofers without some bass break-up, swomething I hadn't expected at all. It took me some time to trouble shoot it, suspecting faulty connections etc. However no such problems reversing it with the V2's down the bottom (200W RMS ), however it lacked the synergy of the former combination. The woofers driven on their own no doubt provided a bigger load due to increased resistance ( strange how it is easier to drive a pair of speakers in parallel rather than a single set ) and at the dip below 4 OHM at somehere below 250 Hz on the HT3's, the 9.02's simply didn't cope.
When I have stand issues sorted I will post my impressions of the Nu Force V2's driving the Salks on their own - at this stage both very neutral components that demand exacting partnerships with other cables / components. I have onsold the 9.02's in anticipation of the Supratek gear.