D-day? "That 'D' does not abbreviate 'decision' or 'doom'. It's military placeholder for 'day' so a planner could write 'D-3' for three days prior to an operation without needing to change plans each time a launch delayed. So D-Day just means 'Day-Day'." Mine being no military operation behind enemy lines, it meant class D; and a super-resolved dry highly damped rigid reading. Grzegorz had previewed that for full-range duty, I'd want a proper preamp injection. He was correct; perhaps. I rather expected that this next-gen nCore circuit will inevitably prune the signal of lush elastic gear channelling through it. I could easily see how preceding kit could make this reading darker; or shift its tonal balance. I just couldn't see—yet as it turned out—how to loosen the wholesale damping. As the last man in a relay race before handing over the signal baton to the speakers, the NCx500 should impose its gestalt regardless. That cancels soggy-bottom syndrome on bodacious big-woofer'd bass; exactly what I bought it for in the first place. Across the full audible bandwidth however and for this office setting, I clearly preferred the class AB Topping monos. They were both tonally fuller and spatially more elaborate to show more connective tissue of recorded micro decays. On said score, D-day meant Decay-day. It's where Topping were the host with the most. It also meant Decision-day: back into the main system; pronto.

Audiophonics opted for a classy white light ring on the power button.

Here my cheerful cheat happens inside Audirvana's digital EQ. Below 50Hz, I apply a linear rise to be up 3dB/20Hz for proper infrasonics at the seat. On the screen it's not much. At the ear it makes a most satisfying difference. It also works our bass amp/s harder. What does more bass control sound like? Imagine hot air during a punishing summer day rise off radiating asphalt. Whatever we view through this agitated air blurs and flickers. It's different from the grander optical illusion of a fata morgana. That's where a layer of warm air atop one of cold dense air bends light like a curved lens. It makes faraway objects on the horizon look tall, high even upside down. It's what classically led to the illusions of castles in the sky or the flying Dutchman's ship. Back to audible not visible effects, the NCx500 removed residual textural flab aka temporal flicker from less precise stoppages. Its damping of the big AudioTechnology woofers was superior to the outgoing older Hypex monos. This can initially seem like less bass quantity as long as old habit still conflates after-blur with extra substance. Once we shift perspective, we hear that stripping subtle blur equals superior quality. That's all about lower lingering to move closer to the verbiage of stopping on a dime and playing in the pocket. It's where the cut'n'dryness from running this amp full-range came into its own. What my ears called too extreme for the lighter membranes of higher frequencies turned specialized meds for the heavier slower cones of dedicated LF artillery.

Here is the <120Hz/4th-order install in the main system. One fewer component, better sound. Any minimalist would meow; relatively speaking. This signal path begins with four cascaded LAN distributors—two in the office, two here connected to the others via 20m CAT8a Ethernet strip—a 27" iMac with Audirvana, Gustard U26 bridge, Sonnet Pasithea DAC, Hattor Audio ARP-S preamp, spl Crossover MkII, Kinki/Vinshine Dazzle main amp, new bass amp, Qualio IQ speakers, sound|kaos D15 sub… far from minimalist indeed. Guilty as charged. On more guilty pleasures, this French amp deserves a 2nd shoutout for its 4-stage voltage gain option. Particularly in this type context where an analogue electronic crossover offers 'just' ±10dB of bass cut/boost, other means to set the main/bass-amp gain balance to best suit various sensitivities of mains/sub combos are most welcome. It accommodates broader scenarios. With my Dazzle amp in preamp bypass at 23dB voltage gain, I set the NCx500 to 24dB which had my crossover's bass attenuator at dead centre correctly weighted. My next scenario merely awaited the door bell with Greg's opamps. To properly suss out their contributions would require a return to the desktop to go beyond just bass.

Here are some of my go-to LF tracks. Disregard my custom genre tags. The way I look at any such lists is simple. If there's just one track on them you didn't already know but enjoy, they've served their purpose. Here's to one.