The amp is on it's way to kbuzz3 for review.
First off a big thanks to OzarkTom for organizing and carrying out the TBI MG3 Mk II Tour part deux.
OK a little background on my listening situation.
On Tour1, I had the amp in my listening room that was in the final tweaking stage with various absorbers, diffusers, etc...
In late October 2012 Hurricane Sandy deposited 2' of Great Bay through the room, and like sooo many others in this area, I have had an unpleasant education about my flood insurance policy!
Also my daughter and granddaughter have returned to occupy our remaining bedrooms.
The Tour gave me an opportunity to unbox all of my gear and get back into what makes this hobby fun. Setting up my system and tinkering around with the set up to perform optimally in a given space.
The space used was our living room, the room is 15 x 28 with 2 story cathedral ceiling and L shaped into the kitchen. Hardwood floors, throw rugs, a big comfy couch, and comfy chairs. I had to set up my monitors centered on the long wall 8' apart and 3' into the room with my listening position 11' from the front wall. Although not optimally placed on the short wall, there was the advantage of side reflections being greatly reduced. I had saved some absorption material and placed it behind my head on the back wall 4' away.
I have a 2.2 set up with a DSpeaker Antimode Dual Core 2.0 as dac, preamp, and room correction with a 47 Labs Flatfish CD Transport. Setting up the system was exciting and heartbreaking since I knew after a couple of days it would be back in the boxes and stacked neatly in my daughters' room. My wife was great about the whole thing since she knows music makes me happy, and listening to it on my system well...
The TBI was used to power my monitors which are 86db 6ohm and drop off steeply at 100hz where the matching subs come in. I powered the amp with the supplied 12v battery and 24v wall wort .
So how did it sound?
Crazy good!
As noted in my Tour1 post the detail was there in spades only this time through the tone has improved from 1% milk to 2% milk. A little thicker, but not the full bodied whole milk variety that can be delivered by a superior tube or class A SS (think Pass Labs) amp. I don't have a tube buffer or tube preamp so I can't comment on the effect, but I'm sure one could add a little bit of "weight" to the sound to make this a world class set up.
The sound stage improved some also. The back round came forward as did the whole presentation, I felt closer to the stage say from 12th row in Tour 1 to 7th row this time around. Closer but not so close as to loose the affect the venue offers to the recording.
The amp sounded better on the battery than the wall wort, but the lower wattage from the 12v battery was a slight problem for my monitors. Perhaps 18v-24v set up as mono amps with a quality tube buffer(iFi iTube?) would be the way for me to go YMMV. This amp could be a welcome addition to most systems and at less than the cost of a boutique power cord is a no brainer.
Chris
