Well, let me attempt to provide a bit of a balanced review with plenty of background, and maybe you guys can give me some advice. I've been using Ncores most of the summer, although fairly infrequently. I just don't have the time to sit and listen as much as I used to given some lifestyle changes. Anyway...
I have Tekton Lores, unmodified, and also using Tranquility SE with upgraded output stage, DB Labs SE USB cable, Mac Mini with SSD and 8GB RAM, Decibel player, and Ed Schilling's The Truth photocell buffer pre. The Ncores have substituted for a Dayens Ampino.
For me, the Ncores greatly enhance soundstage depth and imaging over the Ampino. Microdynamic details are also much greater. It's also smoother and very grain free. There's no noise. Yet, I have to agree with some of the comments about some of the "magic" not being there. I've noted over a half dozen or so listening sessions over the past month or so a lack of presence that I really value. That "electricity" of a Stevie Ray Vaughn guitar in the air, or the real snap of drums or whatever. I just can't make that Ween: Live in Chicago album sound as "live" as I'm used to, despite all the greater spatial resolution and dynamic details and such. Same with the Martin Sexton: Live Wide Open album. To a degree, it's like I'm listening to really well produced recorded music, but the music isn't live and in the room with me the way I would like and feel like I've heard at points in my past system evolution.
I was reading the Darko review of WLM Stella floorstanders yesterday (
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2011/03/wlm-stella-floorstanding-loudspeaker/) and found myself really resonating with the following aside on amplifier matching:
"I re-imagined the more PRaT-centric amplifiers of months gone by. Consider a Naim Nait 5i: a simple and highly-regarded integrated amplifier, it has the power, the bounce, the grit, the sheer electrification to set these small floorstanders alight. Musing theoretically for a monent: if you like more pepper in your sauce, the Nait 5i might be the saucier for the job. Halving the amplifier spend again, the (also Serbian) Dayens Ampino would grit the treble with a hint of electric salt; it takes the smooth from ATC SCM 11 tweeter. Some loudspeakers require a salt lick and citrus suck to get them away from the safety haven of words like “classy” and/or “nice” and provide more of that tequila headrush. Who wants “nice”? Nice guys don’t the get the girl. The ATC SCM 11 are such a product – the Ampino airlifted them from Pleasantville. The WLM’s midrange cleanliness is easily the match of this Brit rival. The SCM series’ lack of top-end air is their only weakness – if only they shipped with a tweeter lemon twist."
I feel like the Ncore make my system really improves on many aspects of my system, but it does go too far into that territory of clean, "classy", and "nice" as he says. The control Ncores offer does remove the raw energy or the "saltiness" of the Ampino as he puts it.
Now, none of that is total news if you've been reading the other reviews. Others have noted some of these characteristics in their systems, and one dialog on the tour impressions thread discussed the Ncores putting you in the middle of the hall rather than right up front. They're not forward amps.
Ok, so what of the rest of my system, then. Is there a way of tweaking my system to be able to use all the great benefits of control, detail, lack of noise, soundstage/imaging, etc while also bringing back that "you are there" magic?
Tekton Lores - they're high efficiency, and pro-audio oriented main drivers handling most of the frequency band. Ncore is class D with high damping factor and woofer control. While that may be excellent news for many speakers, the Lores probably don't need ultra-high damping. Maybe like that review mentioned with other speakers, the Ampino really is a great match because it brings that "electric" energy to the table that gives instruments a live presence in the room. A suggestion I received from someone was that I could insert a resistor in series with my speaker outputs to reduce damping factor the speakers see from the amps. Worth a try? Or would that resistor just muck up the really high quality output of the Ncores?
The Truth pre - it's a unity gain buffer using some kind of photo cell to somehow adjust the gain of the buffer. Maybe I need some more gain? Perhaps a tube preamp? I know I don't need more gain to drive the amps to the volume levels I need. I never get that close to full output, with the speakers as high efficiency as they are. And the Tranquility has plenty of voltage output so that it doesn't need extra gain. But would some extra preamp gain help in juicing the dynamics and bringing back some of that energy? Or would the right kind of modern tube preamp do the job?
Or is it that Ncore just aren't a great match with my high efficiency speakers? Do I need to consider either moving on from Ncore or experimenting with some different speakers? I've been in the low power high efficiency camp for a while, largely because I just can't handle the high energy consumption of lots of the gear out there and demands of speakers out there. I'm trying to minimize my energy consumption throughout my lifestyle, and audiophilia is one of my few guilty pleasures on that front - but only to a point. But the Ncore are efficient enough and have enough headroom that I could reasonably consider some less efficient speakers and it wouldn't make much difference on the energy consumption front. They could be game-changers for me in opening up new worlds of speaker possibilities that I have previously ignored. But then again, the new Red Wine Audio 15 watt integrated can be had for about as much as the Ncore modules and power supplies, and I seriously doubt I need more than 15 watts for 98db speakers in my room.
How was that for a review with some context? Did I miss anything? Any advice for me?
