Building the Audio Note Kit 1 SET amp...

REb, one other question I am curious about. Did your amp go louder at Sebrofs before clipping than at home with the Ref 3as? I would expect at least that assuming use with the more efficient speakers. Whether or not one amp rated a few watts higher than another would actually go as loud or louder in any particular case is a little greyer for me.

Seikosha and Mapman,
Everybody agrees that this amp isn't working properly. The tech actually sent Brian video of his scope readings and they confirmed a problem. I played some bass heavy music for Brian and even over Skype he could hear the distortion when the volume went up. I think the experiment at Sebrof's confirmed that this isn't a speaker mismatch problem - we heard the same effects there. We're just not yet sure what's causing the amp to misbehave in this way and not put out its rated power. But I'm confident we'll figure it out one way or another.

If the 86db efficiency number that you posted about earlier is accurate (that would explain some of my failed attempts at De Capo/SET pairings) a healthy version of your amp may still, unfortunately, turn out to be a mismatch.

Smctigue1:
You know, that'll be an interesting thing to see and I'll let everybody know what I find.
Brian thinks we may be zeroing in on the problem, by the way. It's just that I've been to jammed up at work the past few days to do much testing! :-(

I'm hard pressed to see how it could be called a good match if truly not that efficient in the bass but may only need match to a certain extent depending on listening volume requirements and room size mainly. Its not working properly currently would seem to be the consensus so there is still a chance.