[JLM]

Depends on how big room you have and how loud you listen.

My DDA-100 drives Amphion ion+ which has even lower sensitivity (86dB/8ohms) and in my 14 square meters room works perfect together. Very musical little combo. Even on loud levels with DDA's volume set to 80% with such ease you can't believe. No clipping, no signs of struggling whatsoever. That little Nuforce 50w machine is a monster for its money.

Please detail how the pairing performs (I'm considering the same combo).  Thanks in advance.

[audiofill]

Please detail how the pairing performs (I'm considering the same combo).  Thanks in advance.

First sorry for my loussy english, I hope you will understand my words.

Amphions little Ion+ are very interesting speakers. They have ruler flat frequency response but they never sound dry or heavy, even when you feed them with bad recordings. Very resolute, you hear everything, deep into a recording, but never in a hars way. I have them for some months and now I know why a legend Bruce Swedien and other sound technicians love them so much.

I love their wide dispersion. There is no sweetspot, but a sweetcone! And they are not so sensitive about  room acoustic and speaker placement. You place them wherever you want in the room and they will never perform bad. Yes sure in optimal position you will get the best result, but even with non optimal position they will sing. I have them practically in the middle of my 14 square metres room. 2.1m apart while I’m listening 1.9-2m away (slight nearfield) and man how they performs. You can’t see them, they totally dissapear in a deep, wide, airy 3D soundstage. If you don’t like nearfield, no problem, place them and listen how you want and they sing. Such universal little speakers.

Another thing i like is their deep and controlled bass, totally unimaginable for a cabinets of a such size. Friends coming by to listen them with prejudice, like... what so small and they cost 900-1000 eur are you nuts, get serious, this little Logitech plastic fantastic style can’t sing. You should see their faces when their world, their philosophy that they built over the years (that little speakers has no bass, it can’t sing like big ones) falls apart in 10 seconds. First they think you fooling them, for sure you must have a hidden subwoofer somewhere, but when they realized the potential, they start to looking with different eyes.

And what I particulally like with ions... they sing homogene and rich even on low volume levels. You don’t need to open them loud. Perfect for lets say night listening when you can’t afford loud music or you just wanna low volume relaxing. Or maybe just background music during the day activities at home, working in the office,... even on just 20-30% volume you have that feeling of spacious soundstage.

With whatever material you feed them, they always performs so natural, refined, with a feeling of ease, nothing is hidden and nothing scream in your face, so nice balanced. Music flows, you can listen hours and hours, it simply sucks you into the music.

All that with a DDA-100, so I talking about combo sound! Amphion team said that DDA-100 and ion+ works so perfectly together probably because of a DDA’s time & phase coherency and ions special design, which is able to reveal (intensify) that DDA’s advantage in all its glory.



I wonder what 6moons will say about combo. I see they testing it for some time now. I think for around 1400-1500 eurs (EU combo price) it is a impressive digital solution.

Regards from Slovenia!

[JLM]

Thanks so much audiofill for your reply.  Most encouraging for fullfilling my plans.  Yes I wonder what 6moons will say, but frankly my guess is that your reply will be just as useful (if not more) as their use of English is so exagerated/excessive. 

I forsee using the Ion+ in larger rooms, but not for "serious" headbanging listening most of the time.  I could always add a sub to help with deep bass or filling the bigger volume (one room is roughly 100 m3 but would be primarily background listening) if needed.  More importantly is that they don't fall apart/soundstage collapse at lower spls.  And I really like reading the word "universal" as I forsee traveling with the combo on weekends/etc.

I've tried to warm up to active studio monitors, but they all sound boring/dull (big box sound done "right"??) versus musical.  Could have been associated equipment, but hey it's the retailers job to make stuff sound good, right?

Hey, is there "combo pricing" available here in the U.S.??

Your use of English is wonderful.   

[audiofill]

Ouch, for 100 sq. m. little Ions are no go. For that you need big suckers.

But for small and average sized rooms they are wonderful. I tested combo with my friends in various ambients between 9 and 25 sq.m. I suggest max 20 sq.m. for them otherways they can get lost, what is normal and logical thing. I would say 15 sq.m. optimum, for sure that you stay on the safe side.

That little combo is my B system. Main one (Nuforce DAC-9, Reference 9SE V3 monos, Mark&Daniel Maximus Monitor with Omni harmonizers) is compared to little combo of course higher league, a different universe, but for me DDA & Ion+ is a real star of the day because of so much bang for the money. It gives me so much pleasure.

Now I temporary put combo in the bedroom since I renovating house. I paired it with squeezebox and controlling it with iPeng application on iPad. A big mistake... wife fell in love with its sexy look & fine sound and became addicted with fancy navigating music collection via iPad and don't wanna give me back, saying this aint going out, you have bigger ones. And now be happy hehe.

[JLM]

Room volume (for background primarily) is 100 cubic meters, room area is roughly 25 square meters (opens into entry, 2nd floor loft, dining, kitchen, mud rooms) and has tall/sloped ceilings.  For ordinary use (and I'm an old guy who listens mostly to mellow/softer music) the room would be 25 square meters (70 cubic meters).  So I the combo should be OK (again could add a subwoofer if needed).

Here in the U.S. rooms tend to be a bit bigger than in Europe.

[audiofill]

Aha you talking about cubic metres, sorry I missunderstood, I thought 100 square metres (like 10m x 10m room), well this would be way too much for little cutties.

But in your case in some 25 squares and for ordinary use maybe enough. If not then a sub support and thats it.

Regards!

[JLM]

I got a e-reply from Andy Norman, who did the above TNT review.  My inquiry:

"Just caught your review, thanks for taking the time to listen and write about it.  I too am disappointed that it doesn't quite reach 88.2/192 sampling rates (wonder why not?).
 
So how large of a space and how loud do you listen in?  Asking because am a bit surprised with 250 wpc peak available that it'd have any problem with much of any "reasonable" speaker load.  (I'm a strong believer that amps should be hefty enough to have a "commanding" grip on the speakers, but 50 wpc plus 7 dB of headroom is quite a bit.)
 
Any comparison to other amps that struggled with macro dynamics?  I'm an "old fart" and so will gladly trade ultimate headroom for resolution.  BTW how do you judge it's imaging/soundstage to be?

Thanks in advance,

jeff"

His reply:


"Thanks for the feedback Jeffrey.  The lack of 88.2 is a limitation imposed by the USB interface, the lack of 192 is a limitation of the DAC.  From talking to the nuforce CEO it was a case of getting the best sounding components to meet the price point and there had to be some compromises to do that.  I’m not sure my speaker load is reasonable.  In my main system (in a room of about 12x5m) I use Usher standmounts that seem to be quite insensitive – probably below 85db.  They never really came to life until I connected two 150 watt Mosfet amps to them.  The nuforce was able to drive the speakers – it’s just it sounded a little thin and lacking impact in that set up and so not something I’d recommend.  Qualitatively it was a bit similar to the T-Amps I’ve had in that system, albeit it did a better job when turned up (the T-Amps just gave up and distorted).  I think of the Ushers as a torture test for amplifiers.  By comparison, with my Acoustic Energy floorstanders (91db efficient in a room maybe 5x3m) it sounds great – plenty powerful enough – even though the room’s a bit small for the speakers.  It would sound even better in a bigger space – plenty of power with the more sensitive speakers.   I’d actually love to hear it with horns – I can imagine it would be a great match.   Imaging is very good indeed.  Deep and precise."

[audiofill]

I think it's logical. 50w (250w peak) is not enough for totally controlling heavy speaker load in a room like 12x5m. I can imagine that it sounded like mr. Andy Norman wrote - thin, without a body and no life. It's a 60sq.m. room, he needs a lot of power to properly drive Usher there. Mass market budget amplifiers with similar power are not ment for such extreme conditions.
 
Lack of USB 88Khz, 176KHz, 192Khz support I don't see like a big problem. Smart software automatically change the rate into supported one so that files are playable. I using playback software Audirvana with built in state of the art iZotope 64 bit processing and it works like a charm.