After power-lifting the NL-12 out of its box and receiving the necessary adapters, I hooked it up and let it cook for a week. Two things stood out at first listening: The amp sounded a little tight and unforgiving at first—the mids and top sounded rather dynamically constricted—but its bass power and control were astonishing. The NL-12 joined the rotation of amps in my system and, over the next 100 or so hours, lost its somewhat pinched sound and began to open up, harmonically and spatially.
As it was the bass that had made such a strong first impression, it seems logical to…