Helical. Still upstairs and just in from the UK were Node Audio's Hylixa. Those are premium ultra-stylish very compact 3-ways with innovative helical transmission line and laser-sintered glass/nylon enclosure. The integral stand houses a 3D nylon cartridge whose filter parts each sit in their own chamber, their hookup wiring in discrete channels for total acoustic/mechanical isolation.

Soundaware D100Pro SD card reader, COS Engineering D1 DAC, Nagra Classic Pre/PSU, Bakoon AMP-13R, Node Audio Hylixa

These renders show the dual-entry triple-turn transmission line for the internal rear-aimed Tangband woofer and the wind-slip ovoid shape for zero diffraction. Add that the woofer's front/rear radiation sums then exits through a circular slot around the floating baffle for true point-source radiation. You'd expect and get phenomenal soundstaging. The price for unexpected bass power and reach is 82.4dB inefficiency. But the high voltage gain of our 25/50wpc into 8/4Ω Bakoon AMP-13 had the Classic's attenuator at 12dB gain below 12:00 for room-filling SPL and headroom to spare.

Comparing w/without manifested as greater dynamic authority, higher focus certainty and greater depth of field for the Classic PSU.

On complex mixes, the relative distances between listener and individual sounds were more distinctive. Thus the most set-back layers of the virtual stage were more informative and built out. When we talk of bass impact, it's always in combination with steeply rising transients which pack greater weight. Speed and power meet and the result has colorful names like welly, shove, oomph and crunch. Whatever your pick, the external PSU produced more of it.

Focus certainty is the same as image lock. It's unwavering very acute localization supported/surrounded by high contrast ratio. With the Classic PSU, that visual aspect of tripod-steady ultra focus was higher. To fully explore the same dynamic edge which the PSU had shown on our ribbon headfi, I needed bigger speakers. Time to move downstairs to 200-watt mono amps and Børresen Acoustics 02 speakers.