yes, i had the Kharma Exquisite 1D......sold to me in 2001 by......drum roll.......David Karmeli......who in partnership with Bill Parrish was the new Kharma distributor. those Kharma's were also 91db efficient 4 ohms. but a reasonably easy impedance curve and first order crossover. so 75 Tenor OTL watts was enough in my small room until the Tenor's decided to go 'boom'.....which they did 2-3 times and typically destroyed an Accuton ceramic mid range driver.
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If you will indulge me in a clarification, my writing that "I am happy to give up headroom for other sonic benefits" does not mean that I no longer believe in the effortlessness of unlimited headroom philosophy. In other words, I don't think merely avoiding amplifier clipping is the right way to think about optimal amplifier power.
yes, i had the Kharma Exquisite 1D......sold to me in 2001 by......drum roll.......David Karmeli......who in partnership with Bill Parrish was the new Kharma distributor. those Kharma's were also 91db efficient 4 ohms. but a reasonably easy impedance curve and first order crossover. so 75 Tenor OTL watts was enough in my small room until the Tenor's decided to go 'boom'.....which they did 2-3 times and typically destroyed an Accuton ceramic mid range driver.
i preferred those Kharma's on the Tenor's to the also great and more sorted Lamm ML2's at that time, which directly compared to the Tenor's seemed just a touch 'dark', never heard them on ML3's. first time i heard ML3's was on Wilson Maxx's at a show. and i was quite taken with that combo even though it was a bit mushy. but i was hooked and eventually, years later, got a set of my own to play with and scratch my itch.
the original Tenor 75 watt OTL mono's were very, very special sounding amplifiers. too bad they were not yet a mature product when i owned them.
What Did Your System Look Like 20 Years Ago???
Mine 20 years ago - Genesis 200 Pass Labs 350 Krell 20il CD/Preamp Sony BluRay 9000es + 36" XBR tv Talk about old, this was what I was using 40 years ago! SAE + JBL Jubles + Denon turntable
I heard all of the Lamm installations at CES for 10+ years. Lamm always had two rooms, one large room with his top electronics, and one smaller room with his second tier electronics. The ML2 and ML3 failed to drive the larger Wilson and Kharma speakers in the large rooms. Lamm always had the volume set fairly low, and the sound was mushy. In the smaller rooms, the hybrid M1.1 drove the Kharma speakers perfectly. These smaller rooms were always my favorite at CES.yes, i had the Kharma Exquisite 1D......sold to me in 2001 by......drum roll.......David Karmeli......who in partnership with Bill Parrish was the new Kharma distributor. those Kharma's were also 91db efficient 4 ohms. but a reasonably easy impedance curve and first order crossover. so 75 Tenor OTL watts was enough in my small room until the Tenor's decided to go 'boom'.....which they did 2-3 times and typically destroyed an Accuton ceramic mid range driver.
i preferred those Kharma's on the Tenor's to the also great and more sorted Lamm ML2's at that time, which directly compared to the Tenor's seemed just a touch 'dark', never heard them on ML3's. first time i heard ML3's was on Wilson Maxx's at a show. and i was quite taken with that combo even though it was a bit mushy. but i was hooked and eventually, years later, got a set of my own to play with and scratch my itch.
the original Tenor 75 watt OTL mono's were very, very special sounding amplifiers. too bad they were not yet a mature product when i owned them.
What Did Your System Look Like 20 Years Ago???
Mine 20 years ago - Genesis 200 Pass Labs 350 Krell 20il CD/Preamp Sony BluRay 9000es + 36" XBR tv Talk about old, this was what I was using 40 years ago! SAE + JBL Jubles + Denon turntable
never heard the Lamm in a small room like mine at home. might have been just fine. cannot say in the show conditions that it was lacking drive. or at least that that was any top mind significant issue. the Tenor/Kharma pairing always seemed free and easy to me as far as presentation. not so much that the Lamm's lacked that but that it did not stand out as a feature like the Tenor's. sometimes the Lamm's used were the Hybrid models, or the Lamm ML2's were bi-amped on Kharma's for shows.
the words i used to explain my love of the Tenor were 'sparkle' in the mids, and 'agility' in the bass. something unfettered and free about them. probably the simple OTL circuit.....also it's 'bane' in terms of instability. and they got really hot.
were only relatively slightly 'dark' in comparison to the Tenor's. can't say they were objectively dark.
not in the same system, but plenty on the same speakers. over this 2-3 year period there were plenty of Kharma owners with one or the other. i was the first to pair Kharma and Tenor. as David was the Kharma distributor and also a Lamm dealer that combo was out there too. JT was a Kharma dealer until Bill Parrish took away his franchise (JT's East Coast network of friends buying Kharma's from JT in Portland upset Bill). JT was also the Tenor USA distributor.
as i recall, David only brought a single Bioner speaker.....mono......for that demo.
