I spent all week trying different ICs, sources and different power conditioning. I finally got rid of most of that bright, irritating character that bothered me. I found a good copper IC that warmed the tonality and the Sacdmods 555ES with its more forgiving treble balance was clearly the best source match. But, the big change occured when I isolated the Novos switching power supply from the rest of the signal path components.
Once isolated, the amp was much less bright, not so etched sounding and the fatigue factor was no longer a problem. There is still some slight etch and the treble remains a little to analytical for my tastes .... which is now my only real issue with the amp. However, I am very treble sensitive so this may not be an issue for many of you. Once I could listen longer, the amp has a very nice bass register, a clean and clear midrange that was thinner than the amps I am used to .... but not to thin. The sound character exhibited good openess and an airy, transparent quality.
The amp at its best, as I said, is now only slightly brightish and tipped up but this is probably responsible for the amps excellent resolution and treble extension. However, as an example, I was listening to U2 last night and the vocals had just a tad to much breathiness and articulation to seem completely natural. The amp holds on to Ss to long, in particular. If this flaw did not exist I would rate this amp very highly. Again, I am very sensitive to treble anomolies, so factor this in when you consider my opinion.
The coherency of the amp is quite good and the slightly bright character does not prevent the amps frequency response from coming together as a whole. This is very important to me as I hate for one part of the frequency spectrum to overpower the other parts. Dynamics are atleast good and on some music dynamics seemed very good. One special character of the amp I especially liked was the bass had speed, taughtness AND a good amount of power to the drum hits.
I really did not like this amp at all in the beginning but my view has changed. I didnt get the amp sounding to my liking at all until Friday when I finally thought to isolate the switching power supply. By Sunday with a few more tweeks the amp was sounding real good on most music. I did not compare the amps to my pure tube amps because I already know I much prefer even inexpensive tube amps to most SS. The Millets and Mini3 I used for comparison I definitely like. My final determination is .... I like the Novo better than the Mini3 and almost equal to the Millet SS hybrids. The Millets, however, do have just a touch of tubiness that makes them more musical to my ears.
Overall, I would say the Beta Novo is a good amp to consider in the < $500 price range. I like the Novo as well as the Gilmore Lite and EC-SS, definitely better than the RSA portables I have auditioned (Hornet/ old SR-71) .... and even the HR-2 which I have never cared for. The amp is on par with my Millet hybrids that I greatly enjoy and listen to frequently, despite having several uber tube amps. I would like to see what the amp could do with a good non-switching power supply.
I need to send the amp out today or tomorrow or it would be interesting to see if my impressions hold long term. I will say, if you havent sampled any expensive tube or SS amps and are used to the typical $300-450 portables many use .... I bet you would be VERY impressed with the Novo. The Novo is a definite step up over any portable I have owned or auditioned and costs about the same as many of them.
