Cube Audio Nenuphar Single Driver Speaker (10 inch) TQWT Enclosure

Me too Charles, me too. I would never have believed it if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears. I blame it on the transparency of the f4 paired with a second harmonic distortion character (w almost no 3rd and vanishing amounts of higher order harmonics)...

And, totally agree that the Franks should be just spectacular on the cube audio drivers. Wish I could have afforded to store mine for just such an occasion. As you know, I absolutely adored my pair...

(Incidentally, I just bought some .9999 solid core silver speaker cables based on an old comment of yours that had been rattling around in my head... Just as you said, putting in silver added beautiful, natural refinement to the system with no drawbacks over my previous duelund tinned copper. So happy I remembered reading the suggestion from years ago. I already had Occelia silver interconnects based on your recommendations, but am planning to rewire my amp, pre, and speakers to take it all the way through.)

@cal3713 Thanks for the offer, unfortunately I’m in S. CA.
I am confident that my current amp will sound wonderful with the Nenuphar... may not be match made in heaven, but at probably heaven on earth none the less.

From Cube Audio website, there’s mention that most solid state amp will match well, so I’m going to go with that for now until I can listen for myself:

" The Nenuphars are dedicated for rooms of 20 - 40 square meters (my living room is 30 sq meters). They are a perfect match for a tube amp with at least 3 Watts per channel. Our personal preference is somewhere around 2A3, Px4, 45 tube-based amps. Nonetheless, most solid-state amps (especially those working in A-class) are also an amazing match for the Nenuphars. When it comes to placement, they can be placed both forward and placed right against the back wall. They like about 5-10 degrees of toe-in. "

@nitewulf   Yes, I moved to the Nenuphars being driven by Scott Shaeffer's Found-Music 2A3 monoblocks a year ago.

I still have my T+A PA 3100 HV and the Tekton DI SEs.

@khragon Both of your amps will work. As Charles, @cal3713 and @toetapaudio mention, it will be interesting which of the two you prefer. If you bring in other amps to audition it should get very interesting. : )

I have driven the Nenuphars with the T+A PA 3100 HV and the sound is very good but not to the level of where it is with the 2A3s. Of course, my personal tastes need to be factored in. Given my system changes since, I need to audition it again and I plan to once a soon to be delivered component is fully run in.

As an example, I believe @toetapaudio is very happy with the Nenuphars and Nenuphar Minis being driven by his Bakoon amp (Dawid had the same amp on hand but doesn’t mention trying it in his review...which may have been a mistake... based on Robert’s findings).

For reference...a section from a Wikipedia Article on "Damping Factor"

"Typical modern solid-state amplifiers with negative feedback tend to have high damping factors, above 50 and sometimes above 150. High damping factors tend to reduce the extent to which a loudspeaker "rings" (undergoes unwanted short-term oscillation after an impulse of power is applied), but the extent to which damping factors higher than about 20 help in this respect is easily overstated; there will be significant effective internal resistance, as well as some resistance and reactance in cross-over networks an speaker cables.[1][2] Older amplifiers, plus modern triode and even solid-state amplifiers with low negative feedback will tend to have damping factors closer to unity, or even less than 1 (very low damping factor/high output impedance amplifiers approximate current sources).

Large amounts of damping of the loudspeaker is not necessarily better,[3] for example a mere 0.35 dB difference in real-life results between a high (100) and medium (20) Damping Factor.[4] Some engineers, including Nelson Pass claim loudspeakers can sound better with lower electrical damping.[5]

[Start Emphasis] A lower damping factor helps to enhance the bass response of the loudspeaker by several decibels (where the impedance of the speaker would be at its maximum), which is useful if only a single speaker is used for the entire audio range. [End Emphasis]

Therefore, some amplifiers, in particular vintage amplifiers from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, feature controls for varying the damping factor. While such bass "enhancement" may be pleasing to some enthusiasts, it nonetheless represents a distortion of the input signal."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damping_factor