Building the Audio Note Kit 1 SET amp...

Mikirob, in my experience the De Capo needs more than 8 watts to get them going, much more. They'll play, but... I'm not at all surprised by your findings.

I too was on pins and needles and checking the "My Forum Threads" link (which used to be on the left column but is now buried in the "Community" tab) at least twice a day hoping for updates and good news.

Rebbi, so glad to hear that they were able to quickly find the issue and I look forward to hearing your listening impressions.

And after switching to an SET amp with my Merlin VSMs, and then following your story, I was actually inspired to break out a soldering iron (for the first time in decades), take the crossovers out of my speakers and send them in to Bobby at Merlin for an upgrade to the current Black Magic edition.

So thanks for posting and blogging about your experience and keeping us all engrossed in your suspense thriller!

Smctigue1,
The bass is good, just not as good as the Tekton. I'm in the middle of comparing the M-Lore against the DeCapo in my room, my ears. Overall the DeCapo is very nice with the Coincident Dynamo 8 watts across the board. I will go into detail at a short future date. I am going to, at some point also compare against my Lore. Going in I knew the bass should/would be better; but I'm interested to find out how they compare in all other parameter, i.e., tone, timbre,harmonics, naturalness, soundstage, etc.

Smctigue1. I forgot to mention that I believe Rebbi will be in audio Heaven when he gets the AN-Kit back. I believe, as I listen, the Ref 3a and AN will perform superbly together, based on what I hear with the 8 watt Dynamo. The Tekton is also a great match.

Rob,
I'm also looking forward to your impressions of the De Capo. I, too, am not surprised that the M Lore sounds more authoritative in the bass region. I am very interested to hear what you think of those other areas you mention.
When I mentioned to Eric Alexander of Tekton that I owned De Capo's, his first reaction was, "Excellent speaker." I was positively impressed that he didn't jump on the opportunity to trash someone else's product, something that I've heard other small speaker manufacturers (who shall go unnamed) do. Seems like a classy guy.