versatility, innovative design, build quality

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I am not owner of the Millnm. MkII, I've heard the NAD S/Millnm/ RCS 2/ Dali Grand Diva demo.

If somebody affords the Millnm Mk II, should also buy the RCS 2 in my opinion.

The sound was coherent, nice pace, rythm, but edgy. This might criticise the recording instead the system. Who knows _objective_ measures how CD recordings sound in reality?

The system was said to provide perfect impulse response (i.e prefect frequency and phase response) in the sweet pot. It certainly sounded faster and rounder with correction on.
However, the timbres were very similar, proving that perfect measurements don't necessarily guarantee success. I felt there was too much amount of high-frequency energy, with or without correction, maybe caused by high slew times or overshooting or not-perfect filters (the nightmare of digital systems). Yet, once again, no one knows how CD recordings sound in a _perfect_ system. I lacked an LP source from the demo.

I wouldn't buy them at this point of time, the sound is too agressive and not too natural for me. Maybe this excellent technical idea will maturise also in sound over time. This is about the Millnm amplifier.

I have several points against the RCS idea, but this is only a humble personal opinion:
- although it provides a technically easy solution to solve phase and freq problems in an unknown room, but only for the listening POINT. A correct polar pattern would be more correct and more pleasant for human hearing. See Quad ESL.
- if you have a dedicated listening room, then some simple room treatments can provide 90% of RCS performance at a much less cost, and for a bigger listening area.
- a crossoverless, phase-linear speaker/amp/source system provides much more listening pleasure, occasionally for much less price;
a Quad ESL-63 with proper amplification and sources is still much better, and I bet the new Quad ESL-989 will be stunning.
- in an acoustically not treated room, anyway you will have bass timing problems regardless you use or not the RCS.

In any case, these products are innovative and offer quite good performance. Therefore, I don't want to ruin the score, and i give 5 stars for the product. But, as usual, listen before buy and set up preferences.

Similar Products Used:

RCS 2.0