When last we met, I told the tale of my two-houses-down neighbors Quentin and Laurielle and how a question about a Sonos replacement led to my invasion of their house armed with a Bluesound-and-PSB streaming system.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I spent a few hours at Q&L’s place, listening to their new system as they recounted their complete satisfaction with how it looked and sounded. This experience—giving qualified, considered advice regarding a topic in which I’m fully immersed, and having the recipient act on that advice—is novel to me. Most times, if someone asks me to recommend, say, a speaker, I’ll research their needs, considering their budget, room configuration, cosmetic preferences, and the like, and then deliver my suggestion. Then, they’ll head over to Best Buy and purchase whatever the part-time kid says is “on sale.” It’s a bit of an eye-roller, and, for the most part, I’ve given up taking the bait.
But here, since I was dealing with a neighbor, I did my homework, made the suggestion, and it all slid together like butter on hot toast.
Back to Q&L’s system. At $949 (all prices in USD) for the Bluesound Powernode and $2499 for a pair of PSB’s Passif 50 speakers, this system absolutely rocked. I’ve got interconnects in my own system that sell for more than this. While it’s hard to consider $3448 inexpensive, in the world of true high-end audio, this is chump change.
But their enthusiasm, Laurielle’s especially, made me venture the idea of an upgrade, and holy hell, were they on board. Each time I passed Laurielle in the common courtyard area of our community, she’d beam me a huge smile. “I love our system! We use it all the time—music is playing constantly. Thanks so much for helping us with this. When are we moving forward with the new components?”
I mentioned last month that I’d had them over for a listen to my system fronted by the DALI Epikore 9s. Sure enough, they were quite taken with the DALI sound. So I got to thinking. At the High End 2024 show in Munich last May, DALI introduced their Rubikore line of speakers, which continues the technological trickle-down that started with DALI’s Kore statement speaker. I’d had a chance to hear the Rubikore 8s in Munich, and they definitely exhibited that DALI house sound I’ve come to know and love from my experiences with the Epikore line.
With its dedicated 6.5″ woofer, another 6.5″ driver that handles the bass and the mids, and the signature DALI Hybrid Tweeter, the Rubikore 6 seemed like a good fit for Q&L’s room. At $8000 per pair, the DALI is a significant uptick in price, but Laurielle had already made it clear that she was all in if the value was there. The Rubikore 8 features a larger cabinet and one extra woofer, but Q&L had emphasized that they don’t listen very loud, indicating that there wasn’t much need for the additional firepower. In the cosmetic department, DALI offers the Rubikore 6 in a satin natural-walnut veneer with a light tweed-ish grille, and this configuration meshed with Q&L’s mid-century-modern vibe.
When we started this journey, Quentin’s engineer mindset wasn’t exactly down with my fluffy audiophile ways. “Watts are watts” and “published measurements tell the whole story”—so his thinking went. As we moved along and did some listening, at both his house and mine, he began to sorta-kinda see how component quality can make some difference. So as we plotted the chart for their upgraded system, Quentin became amenable to an amplifier improvement. In the course of his browsing, he discovered that many NAD amplifiers (another brand owned by Canada-based Lenbrook) include Dirac room correction, either built-in or as an upgrade. This idea greatly appealed to the gadget-lover that lurks inside every red-blooded male.
The small-ish form factor of the NAD M10 streaming integrated amplifier (now upgraded into its third iteration as the V3) and its onboard LCD touchscreen make it a more powerful, sophisticated version of the Bluesound Powernode. At $2499, it’s also a fair bit more expensive, but it sure looks the part, all slinky and gloss black. The M10 V3 includes the limited-bandwidth version of Dirac Live, for room correction down in the bass. And it has BluOS music streaming, which had already worked well for Quentin.
From my point of view, the M10 V3 is loaded with a serious amplifier section and a top-notch DAC. It can crank out 100 solid watts per channel, and since NAD built its reputation on significant dynamic power reserves, they quote a fair bit more in real-world use. That’s plenty of juice. The DAC section is stacked with an ESS Sabre chip, and the M10 V3 can stream music from more than 20 different services.
And isn’t this convenient! Lenbrook distributes DALI in North America. A quick email found them down with our scheme, and they shipped us a pallet loaded with gear in short order. As with the first PSB and Bluesound shipment, Quentin tore into the upgraded gear right quick. We set up the Rubikore 6s in the same positions as the Passif 50s and replaced the Powernode with the M10 V3.
It was here where we noted a quirk in the BluOS architecture. We simply unplugged the Powernode and plugged in the M10 V3. In that order. Now, the BluOS app showed a new, virgin client, without any of Quentin’s libraries, streaming services, or passwords. We two tech wizards were somewhat flummoxed, thinking that the app itself should have catalogued all of the environmental details. Turns out this is all kept on the BluOS components themselves. So we plugged the Powernode back in and then rebooted the M10 V3, and I guess they talked to each other, because soon both components were correctly configured. I unplugged the Powernode, and the M10 V3 retained the common configuration.
That sorted, we plugged everything in. We had originally planned to compare the DALIs with the PSBs, but the first few notes through the Rubikore 6s blew that idea out the window. Admittedly the DALIs are just over three times the price of the PSBs, but there was no contest. I found myself settling into that same feeling of warm dynamic power that I had going on in my listening room with the Epikore 9s. I played a couple of tracks through the system to satisfy myself that all was well, then I left Quentin and Laurielle to give a listen.
A few days later I stopped back over to check in. They were both absolutely thrilled, which didn’t surprise me. That said, I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of Laurielle’s enthusiasm. “This system has re-ignited my love of music. I grew up in a household where classical music was always playing on a good sound system. I’d stepped away from that, but now I’m enjoying classical music again with this warm, luxurious sound. When I close my eyes, my living room feels like a concert hall.”
And it wasn’t just the sound that made the cut. “I’m delighted with the design element of the speakers. They fit with the design language of our home. They’re beautifully crafted, harmonious pieces of furniture. The amp, too—the way it fits there neatly on the bookshelf, the album-art display. It’s lovely.”
Quentin was also having a swell time. He had already hooked up the supplied microphone and run through the Dirac Live Room Correction measurement process. We sat down and threw on a bass-heavy track. Using the BluOS app, he swapped between the uncorrected sound, the Dirac Live–recommended setting with bass correction activated, and the NAD-specific custom curve. The Dirac curve was just about perfect, removing a slight boomy overhang. The NAD curve was a bit too bass-heavy for both of our tastes.
While the technical aspects appealed to the gearhead in him, that wasn’t all that had Quentin excited. He was also extremely happy with the sound. “Before we started this project, I was afraid my hearing wasn’t good enough to justify the upgrade, but boy, was I wrong!” He shook his head in wonder and continued. “I can see what you mean about the family sound. The Epikore 9 speakers that you had in sounded incredible, and these Rubikores definitely have a family resemblance. I think it’s something about the precision and detail at all frequencies and even low volumes. The soundstage is amazing. It’s not just wider than the speakers, but it makes the speakers disappear and makes the room sound much bigger than it actually is.”
On a subsequent visit to take a few photos, I found out that Quentin had been taking matters into his own hands. “I’ve activated the optional Dirac Live Room Correction Full Bandwidth license and I’m going to play with that for a while,” he said with almost childlike glee. He showed me the graph of his most recent Dirac calibration, which corrected the full audible frequency range. He was very pleased with the result, but I didn’t have time to sit down for a further listen.
As I returned home, I reflected on how quickly Quentin and Laurielle had immersed themselves in high-end audio, how excited they were by it, and how well this upgrade path had turned out. By any criteria, this experiment was a raging success, and their new system was as good as it’s possible to get without adding an extra zero to the end of the price tag.
While I was writing this up, I took a good look at the specifications and features of the M10 V3. Turns out this thing has two subwoofer outputs, and NAD is planning to implement Dirac Live Bass Control in the near future. With that upgrade, the M10 V3 will be able to optimize both subs and blend them with the main speakers. I hadn’t yet shipped back the SVS 3000 Micro subwoofers after their stint with my other audiophile neighbors, and I began to scheme.
It was recycling day, and as I rolled out our bins, I saw Quentin sorting cardboard in his garage. I cheerily wandered over all innocent-like. “Hey there, good neighbor,” I said, as I now had him trapped. “I don’t think we’ve given that system of yours a complete shakedown. We really need to test out bass correction with a couple of subwoofers.” For a second, Quentin looked like I’d just asked to borrow money. It was clear that he wasn’t exactly thrilled about two additional boxes in his living room, but I persisted. “Good subs don’t sound like you’d think, and these things are small, well finished, and excellent quality. Laurielle would just love how they sound.”
I’m sure she’ll talk him into it.
Jason Thorpe
Senior Editor, SoundStage!
