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Or so we thought. How different reality can be from estimation. Within the first few tones we were, to use a euphemism, disappointed. The midrange and upper frequencies seemed fair but everything below was plunged in a mire of flab. At times both 6.5" drivers were visibly lost in irate movements. We quickly stopped the torture to them and us to instead assess what might be wrong with our setup in electronic choices and placement. The boxes were neither too far in the corners nor too close to the wall.

The radiation pattern of the design with the wrap-around effects of the curved sides looked to be somewhat omni. Lack of bass control can often result from insufficient damping of the drivers. The large port seemed the obvious culprit. We thus sourced some towels to plug the ports. Bingo! Now bass was taut and sufficiently dry. With these preliminary results we started fine-tuning this area and found that replacing towels with knots of wool not only looked but sounded better.


Reviewing is not always a simple task and can even turn haunting. Did we do something wrong? Was the design really off? What could we do to fix this issue? Such questions can acquire a life of their own to run circles in your brain. Bass control in the electrical domain is related to an amplifier’s damping factor or output impedance. The Devialet commissioned for the initial audition is rated at having an output impedance of 1mΩ or 0.0001Ω. To calculate damping factor one divides the loudspeaker’s impedance, Zload, by the amp’s output impedance, Zsource. AudioSolutions rates the Rhapsody 130 as 29Ω @ 60Hz reaching a minimum impedance of 3.6Ω at 160Hz. Both extremes occur in the bass region where the problem is prominent. This meant that the Devialet's damping factor into these trouble spots was a whopping 29.000 and 3.600 respectively. However and for what it's worth, a recent Stereophile review of the D-Premier included some measurements of its output impedance where John Atkinson measured 0.04Ω with the remark that this figure included an attached 6' speaker cable. Using these findings, our damping factor dropped to 725 and 90 for the two mentioned frequencies.


Could this have been the cause for lacking bass control? To discipline our drivers on an obvious rampage meant changing the setup. Our class-D Hypex Ncore 1200 monos are rated at 1.3mΩ. What they would show when measured how Mr. Atkinson did by including the relatively large resistance a speaker cable adds to the mix we don’t know. What we do know is that when we connected the Ncores to the pre-out of the Devialet, the Rhapsody 130 transformed into a totally different loudspeaker - one which needed no wool or towel to gag its ports. Bass control had landed and any sign of bloat and imbalance had vanished. Now the Rhapsody 130 was completely under the amplifier’s authority.

It appeared that the Lithuanian speaker is a sucker for firm dominance by a stern amplifier mistress. In an email exchange with Srajan he confirmed that the top Rhapsody 200 likewise had been most happy once dominated by another Ncore 1200 based amplifier, the Acoustic Imagery Atsah to have him eager to add a pair of Bruno Putzeys Mola-Mola monos to his inventory. It's always a good sign when there's a strong family resemblance between various models of a speaker brand. Depending on room size and budget one gets a loudspeaker that offers the same shared main traits. That said we couldn't make peace with the fact that the Rhapsody 130 eluded the grip of our Devialet D-Premier. So we searched our inventory for cables that might offer the lowest additional impedance to raise the operative damping factor. The budget-friendly Nanotec SP#79 SR did improve things. They got even better when our second D-Premier joined the first in a master-slave mono array. Forced into submission by the Devialet twins with their now 500 watts per side as set up with the latest 5.7 firmware, the Rhapsody 130 finally fulfilled all commands without complaint.