Not really happy with the loud start-up pop of the tiny amps which only occurs with power up from off and not when going live from signal-sensing standby/sleep mode, we decided to combine the King V60 with our 92dB sensitive Sounddeco Alpha F3 loudspeakers. Those are part of our analog corner with a Feickert Blackbird turntable, Trafomatic Reference Phono One and Trafomatic Reference One preamp. Here the lower speaker sensitivity immediately paid off with a much more genteel click when the Maraschinos kicked in. However, the Trafomatic + Maraschino combination was far from quiet before the click. During the first few seconds, there was substantial hum. After the click, all grew quiet. In this setup, the small amps' character was overshadowed by the more dominant nature of the analog front end and as such, the amps should be termed neutral. Power wise the volume control sat between 11.00 - 12.00 for a full and enveloping musical experience that exhibited plenty of oomph and attack speed. The combination of small tubes plus switching amps was a fortunate one.  

Downstairs in our alternate listening space we run a combination of Devialet D-Premier and Soltanus ESL Virtuoso. These Serbian electrostatic transducers are rated at 86dB and the Devialet has to run at near 0dB to make them come alive. We now used the pre-out of the French hybrid amplifier to feed the Maraschinos. Sources were either the PS Audio PWT for discs or the Devialet Air for Qobuz, Tidal or iTunes streams. Any ESL's forté are transparency and speed. Both were abundantly in evidence with the small amps attached. Manhandling this 4Ω average ESL load which drops to 1.5Ω at 20kHz was no problem to beat the Devialet left, right and center. The shiny French pizza box runs out of steam with music which is rich in overtones like cymbals and brass to go soft on its output and thus surrender dynamics. We decided to skip our initial impulse to try the tiny amps on our super sensitive109dB Avantgarde Acoustic Duo Omega horns. The startup burp could be a bit much and we did not want to risk our precious oldest loudspeakers around. Instead we concocted a far more exotic plan. We'd use a pair of super tweeters to see what the effect would be with Tommy's wider-than-any-other Class D frequency response claim. Let us introduce the TakeT Batpure. This is a tiny 23 x 12 x 3.8mm piezoelectric tweeter with a wave-shaped membrane. TAT of Japan rate its bandwidth as 20kHz to 150kHz with a very low sensitivity of 70dB per input watt. Impedance is infinity to 4KΩ, so high that the amps wouldn't see it at all.

According to our notions, when an amplifier outputs HF and connects to a super tweeter, the listener should notice the latter's presence. The human hearing system is known to cover 20Hz to 20kHz when we are very young. Soon after birth our sensitivity towards high frequencies lowers and by the time we are 40, it is halved and 10kHz is about as high as we can hear with our ears. However, we do not solely perceive sound with our ears. Our whole body/skin is pressure sensitive and part of our total multi-sensory perception system. Ultra-low frequencies are not heard but are felt. The same goes for frequencies above our ear/brain threshold. Our bone structure with its honeycomb insides forms tiny resonance chambers and that's where and how we notice when HF resonances or pressure present themselves. To test this, we ordered a pair of super tweeters from TakeT's French distributor which were promptly delivered. We then took some alligator clips and wire and connected the super tweeters to the terminals of our Pnoe horns. The wires were long enough to have the midget tweeters sit on the coloured rings around the AER drivers. The first question to be answered was of course, would we notice the presence of the super tweeters? Even playing Redbook via the Hypex nCore monos with/without the Batpure made a difference big enough to notice with eyes closed. With the Batpure active, the sound became more enveloping and had more presence. We felt moved one or two rows closer to stage. Now that we knew for sure how there was ‘something' in the high frequencies which the AER drivers by themselves did not pass on, we tried the Batpure on their own. Now there was a hiss-like sound coming from the tweeters but no music.

Time for the Maraschinos to prove that they had the wider frequency response. Whilst playing Redbook, there was no difference with the nCore setup but the same two-rows-closer effect. Onto high resolution recordings to bring in the PS Audio DSD DAC. Again the Pnoe on tweeter steroids did the magic with the nCores first. When the super tweeters disconnected, there was a bigger difference than had been with standard Redbook material. There was a collapse of the virtual image. Instruments moved closer together, the listener's vantage point much further away. After reconnecting the Batpure, our involvement with the music increased. We were impressed by the effect.*

* With our EnigmAcoustics Mythology M1 monitors with auxiliary electrostatic super tweeters as well as during earlier tests with Elac's 4pi omnipolar ribbon super tweeter, I enjoyed the very same results even with ordinary Redbook fare like Marja & Henk did. The ambiance gets ‘wetter', tone colors acquire a minor sheen and the soundstage opens up to get more spacious and involving. Given how  our ear hearing is supposed to limit far below where such super tweeters operate, the implications are surprising and, I believe, independent of geographic audio bias. In short, even if you don't live in Switzerland or Holland as the three of us do, you'd likely appreciate these effects - Ed.