Firmly in control. A firmware-controlled speaker offers remote assist by PC here via USB micro cable, to let a tech access it by TeamViewer. It's what I needed Paul to do for me. I had no sound. When after redundant cable fussing I checked on the channel light of the right master speaker, it was set to 'left'. Aha? Once switched to 'right' via the toggle, it finally played. Alas, the other was still mute, stuck to 'right' and refusing to switch to 'left'. Using the master speaker as the left channel instead didn't work either. I was glued to mono. It was the ideal op to show off firmware speaker smarts via remote control by team Netherlands over faraway Ireland, no costly or time-robbing return shipments involved.

With one speaker connected to my Win10/64 work PC via freshly acquired USB Mini link then TeamViewer launched, Paul opened up the Hypex configurator menu, input their password, then launched the device settings pane at left.

Everything looked just as it should have and as he remembered from setting it up prior to shipping. Just so, he still toggled the 'master' speaker back to left channel, saved that, tripped it back to 'right' before exiting. He did the same for the left slave just in case. Belated joy?

Not yet. Back upstairs, I now had no lights on the left speaker and still zero sound. I clearly had no signal lock from the master's left-channel output. Swapping to XLR for both incoming and outgoing signal fared no better. I still had mono not stereo. Finally Paul suggested that I go full-hog coax since they had never yet (cough) actually tried any AES/EBU in their shop.

Like the non-adjustable footers, that spun my wig. Hey, a bit of action up there isn't necessarily a bad thing. And to be fair, the Hypex manual does clearly state that all incoming digital outputs coax and AES/EBU automatically. It just didn't for me.

In any event, now I had sound and in proper stereo. To tally up signal routing, AES/EBU in/out was bad. So was AES/EBU in/coax out. Coax in/out did the business and I was finally in. Onto whether it was love at first listen or more generic respect instead. To kick off, the funky winged ribbon headfi from Raal-Requisite on the Dog Pilot above is my truth serum for what's actually on my recordings before any room interferes in the bass and causes nonlinear decays across the range. With that reference, I soon thought that the Dutchies acted overdamped above the bandwidth's belt line. Hall sound of reflective gossamer action dried out. You'd not notice that on hard-hitting electronica without deliberate reverb injections. You would easily on ECM-type purist fare.

Bruno Putzeys is famous for advocating gobs of negative feedback. His argument is that most competitors don't use NFB correctly. They apply it in nonlinear fashion so that it minimizes with ascending frequencies. His Hypex amps do not. While it's impossible to claim an absolute cause/effect link unless a listener can turn a specific design feature on/off, I thought that's exactly what I heard: relative overdamping in the higher freqs. The sound was exceptionally clean and precise but also lacked fluidity and elasticity. Next on my observation score was a bit of the opposite at the opposite end. Bass was surprisingly extended just as the claims predicted but on texture a bit bloomy. Wondering why, I got up and walked behind the speakers. Whoa. Mega boom zone. Hello rear-firing ports. Hello open backs of the hidden woofers. That ringy underdamped energy created a virtual 'flicker zone' fronting the front wall. It injected some of its textural looseness whenever music energized that range.

Lastly, I had an uncommon but persistent itch to prime the pump. That's because at my usual SPL, the sound felt dynamically homogenized. Playing louder of course makes everything louder. It can't add extra gradations to increase dynamic contrast between quietest and peak passages. If triggered by relative dynamic compression not party lust, the crank reflex is always doomed. It's simply a typical knee-jerk reaction. High SPL can't cure dynamic compression. They just just pump up loudness sameness. My speaker reference in this room—reference only means that which I'm used to, not any absolute—is an effective 4-way. Small 3-way monitors cross over to a 2 x 9.5" sealed subwoofer. That's a lot more cone surface to move a lot more air. Also, vocals and upper/mid bass don't share a membrane. On raw weapon's count, the Dutchies brought to the duel a snubbie against more of a howitzer. The outcome wouldn't surprise anyone. Still it bears mention when on price, things were close. Once I heard them for myself, that in fact became this gig's wet blanket. For what they are, the Noble & Noble seem unnecessarily pricey. Kii's III is technically more advanced but costs significantly less. If the Nobilis Sonum 98 offered a radically different/higher sonic profile, that wouldn't matter. But despite its more elite drivers, it doesn't. Then the cardioid Kii creates decidedly less room interaction in the low end. At least upstairs, it wasn't love then but just respect for spatially big sound from small towers reaching low.

That included crystalline clarity and separation. These are core disciplines for excellent soundstaging. This speaker behaves exactly as it looks: a mini monitor whose integral stand adds cubic inches to its mid/woofers. On the usual Houdini which from our perception subtracts two physical objects as apparent sound sources, it was signature stand-mounted performance. On reach it was floorstanding bandwidth. But small membrane diameters still prioritized transparency and reflexes over body and shove. Active drive can't override Physics. The displaced resident hardware took endless years to combine just so for extreme personalization. Minus the ±1.5dB treble contour which didn't impact their core gestalt, the Nobles represented zero personalization. The persons who'd locked them in weren't me. That's such an obvious thing to say, it'd be trite² if it wasn't so central to our subject. Again unlike the Kii III whose optional hardwired controller adds flexible EQ, the Nobilis Sonum 98 is fixed. How it's been fixed struck me as the symphony of the six C: cool, collected, chilled, crisp, capable and clean. My personal response was respect not love. Yours might invert.

How a new thing strikes us depends. What are we used to? Today we don't piecemeal. We don't replace a little thing like a cable or cone, not even a bigger thing like a DAC. We replace a whole system of possibly many separates with an all-in-one solution. Our sole variable is the digital transport. That's a wholesale makeover. In one fell swoop, it must hit our bull's eye. If it misses even a bit, there are no real adjustments to make. It is what it is. Sampling its is-ness before committing is more important than usual. For a built-in balance to win where Dutch pros sorted all variables and interdependencies demands that our abilities not match theirs. If like yours truly you've spent the last two decades refining and defining your sonic tastes into a very narrow personal 'right', chances for an essentially complete system designed by total strangers to overlay perfectly seem slim. If we're still confused and overwhelmed by how to tick off the audiophile laundry list of possibilities and endless options, letting pros handle the lot could be ideal. That's common sense. It's also the small print of today's assignment. Now that you've read it, let's get back at sonics in our downstairs rig.