Downstairs. To know the turf which the Dutchies parachuted into, here's what they replaced: Aurai Lieutenant 3-way speakers with front/back hornloaded tweeters wired bipole; vintage-style paper-cone widebander run open-backed so dipole; and hidden carbon-fiber woofer in a 4th-order bandpass triple vented out the rear. This midrange's surface is larger than the 98's combined two. In that range, offsets on body and tone would be bigger still than upstairs. Reviews aren't about repetitive small print though. I'd do a reboot of my grey matter—ctrl-alt-delete—to meet the Nobilis Sonum 98 on its own merit. Adieu comparisons. Bonjours as is.

Naturally most other hardware now was mere window dressing. My iMac with locally hosted files output USB via Audirvana 3.5 still saw the supercap-powered Soundaware D300Ref bridge isolate and reclock the data. From there it was coaxial S/PDIF into Noble's right master speaker. All the rest of the kit and rackage just sat there utterly redundant. So hit ctrl-alt-delete on that, too.

LessLoss Firewall passive inline filters on the speaker inputs.

Small speaker + bigger room = lovely results. Here the longer reflective path lengths created more acoustic reverberance. This plus sitting farther away bolted onto the drier clarity of upstairs more body and textural elasticity. Then the 'flicker zone' in the bass diminished significantly. That was another relocation benefit. This happiness of expats even translated to big stuff like Hans Zimmer's Dune Sketchbook. Naturally the low end expressed small-woofer bass. Its talking points were quickness and articulation over shove and energization. Yet reach even in a scaled-up venue was perfectly up to the task. Coming first in my subjective assessment of virtues was image specificity aka exacting soundstage mapping. To demonstrate best effect favored large-scale heroic fare so evocative film music mastered for the Lost Age of Cinema. For the seasoned audiophile it approaches a cheap trick since Noble & Noble's concept predicts it with certainty. Just so, experiencing a big half dome of panoramic expanse populated by pin-point actors against an agitated maelstrom of phase-trickery atmospherics remains single-mindedly impressive especially when its creators are such slim-line micro towers.

A likely big contributing factor had to be the low system noise floor. Short signal paths plus avoidance of big-trafo line noise from properly implemented SMPS plus quiet cab construction serve small-signal resolution. Just so, I preferred priming the pump a bit to experience fuller arrival. I'd not call these speakers ideal hifi whisperers. But because they excel at imaging and offer the bandwidth and resolution required, I'd peg them perfect for dual-purpose A/V systems. There speech intelligibility against potential dialect and enunciation challenges plus location din plus background music is key. The 98 should unlock such doors beautifully and cast a dense soundstage that's very easy to navigate and comprehend. More immersive staging without surrounds is a strong bonus for a simple 2.0 video system when on-screen action heightens in realism because imaging tracks closely; when the visually definitive sense of space and time is maximally enhanced by revealing a production's full foley artistry. Think impeccably sorted.

Prior to the 98, downstairs had hosted Cube Audio's Nenuphar to set my stage for their new v2 drivers. Against Aurai's Lieutenant, our Polski originals had traded density for still higher speed, lucidity and directness. The Dutch played it noticeably more polite and distanced than either. On immediacy and energetic jump factor, the visiting actives thus behaved more passive than our passives. That's an important distinction if one still correlates active drive with very upfront studio monitors. No such effrontery here. For me these drivers, their physical time alignment, controlled directivity, bass loading and cab all summed to more genteel than brazen, polite not brash. We recall how the 98 shrunk its mid/woofers over Rob Meijst's passive MP 3.1. It also shrunk the hidden driver's bandwidth to just overlay the outer below 200Hz. It all feels groomed for accuracy and linearity where it succeeds splendidly. Dynamics, shove, color intensity and density are subservient to those parameters so more on the back burner. Into the same equation I'd still insert a room that's not too overdamped. For a psych profile, I'll call the 98's laid-back sound not that of a young but older listener. Its sonic qualities correlate with human tendencies which typically arise later in life when things get more settled, calm and still.

Nobilis Sonum 98 buyers insist on a compact form factor, set'n'forget use and hardware reductionism. Accomplish more with less. Declutter. They prioritize hifi's visual aspects of soundstaging, image specificity and accurate mapping from unruffled clarity and precision. They have sworn off endless tweaking and futzing about. They want a 'closed-loop' solution where pros took care of all interface issues. This speaker thus isn't part of traditional audiophilia's hardware worship and its unruly altars. It aims at people who demand minimal visual intrusion to quickly forget all about the means. They want to enjoy well-sorted playback in a typical home dedicated to living not the ever-escalating hifi obsession. Really, this Noble & Noble is for when normal is actually allowed to be the new normal – so Normal & Normal from the low lands behind the Dutch dykes.