David Karmeli's Natural Sound in Utah
- Thread starter PeterA
- Start date
Thanks
Coming from smallish medium Harbeths, these are pretty much a revelation.
Thanks to Peter for such a great original post and David for the advice! I'll stop the hijacking of this thread now
Thanks, I'll look into them. I've always heard good things about Declare.
Coming from smallish medium Harbeths, these are pretty much a revelation.
Thanks to Peter for such a great original post and David for the advice! I'll stop the hijacking of this thread now
A popular $2k-ish integrated is the Elekit 300b, if your Mitsubishi speakers are sensitive enough for sub 10W. The version with Lundhal transformers is supposedly best. And, it scales up so that when you're ready, you can add Elrog 300b tubes and hear a nice improvement.
10 inch 8 ohm. Can't imagine how incredible the 15" versions are. The guy I bought these from said he had heard them once and was just blow away in a 20 x 15 room.
The ones I heard at David’s house are definitely the 16 ohm version and I think they had at least a 12 inch woofer.
Have heard the Sun amp sound great. Since they are, or at least can be, kits not sure if what I heard was a standard affair...
Unfortunately I don't have that info. Maybe David does?
The guy selling the Sun Amp is a tech so it's been completely gone through to Sun's specs. It's a little overpriced right now so I'm not jumping at it. I've noticed that people who have eBay stores will sit happily on overpriced things for a really long time because there are a lot of impulse buyers out there (for instance me). I sort of prefer overpaying a bit because the bump in service and camaraderie is usually worth it.
The guy selling the Sun Amp is a tech so it's been completely gone through to Sun's specs. It's a little overpriced right now so I'm not jumping at it. I've noticed that people who have eBay stores will sit happily on overpriced things for a really long time because there are a lot of impulse buyers out there (for instance me). I sort of prefer overpaying a bit because the bump in service and camaraderie is usually worth it.
I checked with Peter on posting my comments here about our visit to David and he encouraged my doing so.
First, let me express my appreciation for the opportunity to visit David Karmeli and listen to music through several of his various stereo systems. David is a fantastic host with a charming family, all of whom made me feel comfortable and welcomed into their home. His precocious polymathic daughters made for delightful dinner conversations.
Second, it was super to meet Peter and David in person. I truly enjoyed the conversations the three of us we had across four days, typically late into the evening. Right out of the gate, from the airport onward we yapped about audio systems, the audio industry, music, the world in general, along with little side journeys of tales and anecdotes from our life's histories. Our talk was convivial, spirited and uninhibited. David is highly knowledgeable about creating products, putting systems together and making them work well - he knows what he wants and how to achieve that. It was @bonzo75 who described David's as "a learning mecca" and I'll second that. I believe Peter and I both learned a lot as we experienced four days of musical magic through David's systems.
Along with meeting David and Peter, one of the reasons I chose to make this trip was to gain in-person exposure to components in system that I've only heard through videos here at WBF. Over the past years I came to realize that while the gap between phone videos and real life is there, by and large videos are faithful (not untruthful) to what they present.
The three systems that took the majority of our time were: a) the Klangfilm Bionors, b) the TAD/Pioneer Exclusive 2401s, and c) the JBL M9500s. I remember Peter asking what these had in common: they are all two-way speakers, with 2 large woofers, 15" on the TAD, 14" on the JBL and I think (not sure) 12" on the Bionor. Each speaker had a single horn for mids and highs. They are all from the 20th Century and they all sound delicious.
In common across these speakers were David's AS2000 turntable with SME 3012R tonearms sporting either a Van den Hul Grand Cru or a Neumann cartridge. For me, the Neumann was profound - easily the best cartridge I've ever heard. On day 1 we also used the NeoDio CD player; I listened to an early version of this machine at CES several years back - at the time it was the best player I had heard. At David's, electronics were all Lamm across many models and versions including the four box 32 Watt ML3 Signature amps, the ML2s, and the M1.1. Front end: the Lamm four-box LL1.1 Signature Linestage and the three box LP1 Signature phonostage. Turntables and electronics sat on David's Nothing Racks or as I called them, The Imperturbables - a knuckle-wrap yields nothing.
I had a mediocre camera and did not get a good picture of the Bionors without the JBLs in front of them. There is an interesting thread started by Alan (@ALF) from 2015 that I'll point you to: Speaker Oasis ... Bionor. That thread has pictures, as does Peter's first post in this thread. Along with the Bionors were two large JBL subwoofers driven by Lamm ML2s. You can also see Bionor and subwoofer pictures from Peter's first visit last year here.
Here is the left side TAD 2401 at David's March 2022. The amps to its right are the Lamm ML1, a 90-watt push-pull unit no longer in production. There is much better picture of a single speaker (maybe a factory picture) here. Personally I find these 2401s beautiful pieces of audio furniture.
Here are the JBL M9500s with the Bionors to their back. These were originally intended as studio monitors. Last production was 1997.
Residing in two differently sized cabinets, one of the two woofers covers mid-bass, the other low bass. The small boxes to the left of each speaker are their external crossovers. If I remember correctly, these take a battery and pressing on the gold JBL 'button' will give a light indicating battery status. I speculate the battery is used in the same way as in the smaller S5500, providing "a biasing voltage in the crossover network to keep the music signal from crossing the dielectric zero-point of the capacitors." Ref.
On our last day in Area 45, aka the small room, we heard what I remember David saying was a rare RCA speaker . I don't remember the model number. The turntable is a prototype, the amps are Lamm ML2, I believe. Feel free to correct me on any of this.
To be continued . . .
First, let me express my appreciation for the opportunity to visit David Karmeli and listen to music through several of his various stereo systems. David is a fantastic host with a charming family, all of whom made me feel comfortable and welcomed into their home. His precocious polymathic daughters made for delightful dinner conversations.
Second, it was super to meet Peter and David in person. I truly enjoyed the conversations the three of us we had across four days, typically late into the evening. Right out of the gate, from the airport onward we yapped about audio systems, the audio industry, music, the world in general, along with little side journeys of tales and anecdotes from our life's histories. Our talk was convivial, spirited and uninhibited. David is highly knowledgeable about creating products, putting systems together and making them work well - he knows what he wants and how to achieve that. It was @bonzo75 who described David's as "a learning mecca" and I'll second that. I believe Peter and I both learned a lot as we experienced four days of musical magic through David's systems.
Along with meeting David and Peter, one of the reasons I chose to make this trip was to gain in-person exposure to components in system that I've only heard through videos here at WBF. Over the past years I came to realize that while the gap between phone videos and real life is there, by and large videos are faithful (not untruthful) to what they present.
The three systems that took the majority of our time were: a) the Klangfilm Bionors, b) the TAD/Pioneer Exclusive 2401s, and c) the JBL M9500s. I remember Peter asking what these had in common: they are all two-way speakers, with 2 large woofers, 15" on the TAD, 14" on the JBL and I think (not sure) 12" on the Bionor. Each speaker had a single horn for mids and highs. They are all from the 20th Century and they all sound delicious.
In common across these speakers were David's AS2000 turntable with SME 3012R tonearms sporting either a Van den Hul Grand Cru or a Neumann cartridge. For me, the Neumann was profound - easily the best cartridge I've ever heard. On day 1 we also used the NeoDio CD player; I listened to an early version of this machine at CES several years back - at the time it was the best player I had heard. At David's, electronics were all Lamm across many models and versions including the four box 32 Watt ML3 Signature amps, the ML2s, and the M1.1. Front end: the Lamm four-box LL1.1 Signature Linestage and the three box LP1 Signature phonostage. Turntables and electronics sat on David's Nothing Racks or as I called them, The Imperturbables - a knuckle-wrap yields nothing.
I had a mediocre camera and did not get a good picture of the Bionors without the JBLs in front of them. There is an interesting thread started by Alan (@ALF) from 2015 that I'll point you to: Speaker Oasis ... Bionor. That thread has pictures, as does Peter's first post in this thread. Along with the Bionors were two large JBL subwoofers driven by Lamm ML2s. You can also see Bionor and subwoofer pictures from Peter's first visit last year here.
Here is the left side TAD 2401 at David's March 2022. The amps to its right are the Lamm ML1, a 90-watt push-pull unit no longer in production. There is much better picture of a single speaker (maybe a factory picture) here. Personally I find these 2401s beautiful pieces of audio furniture.
Here are the JBL M9500s with the Bionors to their back. These were originally intended as studio monitors. Last production was 1997.
Residing in two differently sized cabinets, one of the two woofers covers mid-bass, the other low bass. The small boxes to the left of each speaker are their external crossovers. If I remember correctly, these take a battery and pressing on the gold JBL 'button' will give a light indicating battery status. I speculate the battery is used in the same way as in the smaller S5500, providing "a biasing voltage in the crossover network to keep the music signal from crossing the dielectric zero-point of the capacitors." Ref.
On our last day in Area 45, aka the small room, we heard what I remember David saying was a rare RCA speaker . I don't remember the model number. The turntable is a prototype, the amps are Lamm ML2, I believe. Feel free to correct me on any of this.
To be continued . . .
Last edited:
Saved for continuation of impressions on my trip to see ddk.
Which you can find here:
www.whatsbestforum.com
Which you can find here:
David Karmeli's Natural Sound in Utah
Yes - good report. David is a dealer I believe - he said early models are best. I vaguely think I heard it 2013 in a Lamm big room. on somebodies footers? They sell direct too
www.whatsbestforum.com
Last edited:
Good idea, for a while we were worried you would start your own natural sound thread
I wrote about the neodio in Dec 2017 http://zero-distortion.org/neodio-origine-vs-trinity-aqua-formula-and-stahltek-opus-prime/
Yes the midbass and bass for the TAD and JBL is not horn loaded. The TAD 1601 series are cone type woofers
The 2401 midrange driver 4001 is same as Tang's. The 2404 has the TAD 4003 which I first heard and realized the driver was special before going to Leif's
Yes the wood horn Is quite nice to look at and fit into small living rooms.
Yes, gorgegous Japanese audio art, not at hand, but I'd love to hear it. The 2402 would also fit my room I believe.
PRO-HF-UNITS — TAD LABORATORIES
www.technicalaudiodevices.com
I've seen these with stands. I do not know if there are TAD manufacterd stands. This looks 3rd party. Matching the wood color and grain should be relatively feasible - if there any craftsmen still working!
Labeled as Pioneer Exclusive. People change drivers and network on these. I would want to hear original first.
Yes - good report. David is a dealer I believe - he said early models are best. I vaguely think I heard it 2013 in a Lamm big room.
on somebodies footers?
Kevin at Living Voice has been using these for years in his room at Munich.
Kevin has lots of classy equipment - including a favorite TT of mine.
It was a short experience at ddks - l don't mean to swerve to far.Similar threads
