Natural Sound

[Bobvin]

Hey Peter, my wife and I are in Moab, UT. Yeah, we’re roughing it—glamping outside Arches National Park. There was a nice guitar & sax duo playing while we sat round the campfire shooting the shit with folks from ‘round the world, drinking wine, cooking smores. I day say, it sounded completely “natural”

ddk’s a utah guy, he knows

all kidding aside, i hope you’re really getting into you new rig. So much fun to take a chance and enjoy the rewards. Good on you for following your curiosity. Bravo!

 

[PeterA]

Hey Peter, my wife and I are in Moab, UT. Yeah, we’re roughing it—glamping outside Arches National Park. There was a nice guitar & sax duo playing while we sat round the campfire shooting the shit with folks from ‘round the world, drinking wine, cooking smores. I day say, it sounded completely “natural”

ddk’s a utah guy, he knows

all kidding aside, i hope you’re really getting into you new rig. So much fun to take a chance and enjoy the rewards. Good on you for following your curiosity. Bravo!

View attachment 77858

Thank you Bob. There was not much risk involved. I listened to the system for a week in Utah and David told me any or all of it could be returned if it did not work out. I kept the old system around long enough to be sure. My small house looked like an audio store for a couple of months with gear and wooden crates all over the place.

No dinner parties for months.

 

[spiritofmusic]

No risk trial on such a bespoke system? Fantastic.

 

[PeterA]

No risk trial on such a bespoke system? Fantastic.

David has interested clients from around the world who want this stuff. If any of it went back to Utah, David would simply choose whether or not he would to sell to someone else or keep it for himself. That is the nature of some of this very rare gear. David also redid the packaging for the turntable and speaker crates so that it could be safely reused in case I sent it back. I strongly suspect he knew I was going to keep it though.

David supplied all power cords, the two SME stock phono cables (which came with the NOS arms), one set of ICs, and the speaker cables, so the whole system basically was tested and came as a package. He also sent a complete matched set of tubes from Lamm for each of the Lamm components.

The only unknown was the room interaction, especially the effect of the protruding fireplace. It was a very full service, complete system delivery, even though it proceeded in stages, with the turntable one month, the Lamm phono a few weeks later, then a month later the full Lamm chain including the high power hybrid and the low power SET, and finally one month after that, the new corner horn speakers.

It was all carefully auditioned and it proceeded in a very methodical manner. At each stage, I made extensive direct comparisons between existing gear, and the new gear to be absolutely sure I was confident with the direction I was going. Because of COVID, most of this was done alone, though I did have a couple of musician friends listen in.

At each stage, as I made my choices, the old component was sold off. This also proceeded in stages and in order as the new stuff arrived.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Super organised, and w the peace of mind of no pressure. I'm very impressed.

 

[PeterA]

This would make it appear there are videos he chose not to upload of the final Magico iteration.

All of his public uploads can be viewed here.

Yes, it was not clear to me where I should insert those videos, as the system was far removed from the old system, and yet, the Magicos are not part of the new system. I may insert them at the end of the old Sublime Sound thread. That might make sense. One does not see many Lamm/Magico systems.

Here is a photo of this last iteration of the Sublime Sound system. This is with the Pass gear all still here for comparisons, the amps having just been removed from the room to make way for the Lamm M1.1.



I posted two videos of this this configuration in my Sublime Sound system thread.

 

[PeterA]

It would be interesting if you make it easy putting up the Clara White video and Scheherazade video of your previous system vs current system for us to identify differences.

kind regards,
Tang

Here you go, Tango. You can listen to your wonderful system again at the office, and we benefit from you being back on WBF.

Carla White, new system:

Carla White, old system:

Scheherazade, new system:

Scheherazade, old system:

 

[Skanda]

hey @PeterA, sorry if this was answered aleady but i was just surfing "latest activity" and the photo of your room caught my eye.
are the lamm sets able to drive the q3's sufficiently? if so I may have to spring for a pair for my s5mk2's

 

[PeterA]

hey @PeterA, sorry if this was answered aleady but i was just surfing "latest activity" and the photo of your room caught my eye.
are the lamm sets able to drive the q3's sufficiently? if so I may have to spring for a pair for my s5mk2's

I would say no. I tried the ML2 with the Magico Q3s and heard some great things, but overall the sound was a bit soft, lacking dynamics. However, the magic I heard with SETS on the Q3s convinced me to ask David to send the 105 dB/16 ohm Vitavox speakers. Those 18 SET watts are beautiful, but they can't really drive Magico speakers.

I think your S5s would sound great with the Lamm M1.1 based on my month or so with them on my Q3s. They had the power to drive the Magicos with one exception. We played the Sheffield Drum track brutally loud and the amps' protection circuit kicked in. All was fine, but if one were to listen to loud rock regularly, then perhaps the M2 would be a better choice. For my jazz and classical, the M1.1 hybrid was really superb sounding.

 

[Skanda]

thanks for the heads up, really appreciate it. i've been looking into higher efficiency speakers recently - bit of serious investigation, bit of day dreaming

the lamm pre looks awesome. i don't have room for the 4 chassis right now but would love to give that a go in a future system

 

[Gardener]

Peter thanks for those videos , and the detailed journey you have made .
Do you miss any part of your old system , Ive always loved the magic Q3 ?

 

[HenryD]

Congratulation on the new system, Peter. I am a fairly new Magico A5 owner. These videos got my interest piqued in the Q3. They sure sounded lovely in your room.

 

[PeterA]

Peter thanks for those videos , and the detailed journey you have made .
Do you miss any part of your old system , Ive always loved the magic Q3 ?

Thank you Gardener. I chose my old Magico Mini IIs very carefully. They were great for this room and they sounded incredible. It took me about 10 years to change them and I only did it once the Q3 became available at a price I could afford.

The Q3 is my favorite Magico speaker with which I am familiar (after the M Pro), in part because of the way it looks, and in part because it is so highly resolving, incredibly coherent, and was eventually able to completely disappear as a sound source in the room. But it took me three years to get to that. It was a very complete design.

The one sonic trait that I do miss, but only slightly, is that they disappeared completely in the room. The new corner horns do everything at a higher level except they do not quite disappear as well. It is not an issue at all because the sound is so glorious it doesn’t make me think about anything from the system, only the music, but if I am very critical and candid, I will confess that they do not disappear quite as well as my old speakers.

This is only really noticeable with early stereo recording’s that are panned far left and right. The Q threes were positioned to even straightahead and they were in the middle of the room 8 feet apart so that did not kill the illusion, but the corner horns are all the way in the front corners of my room and so on select material the saxophone is far left and the base is far right with nothing in the middle but I think that it’s just the nature of the recording.

 

[PeterA]

Congratulation on the new system, Peter. I am a fairly new Magico A5 owner. These videos got my interest piqued in the Q3. They sure sounded lovely in your room.

Thank you Henry. It took me three years of hard work documented in my other thread to get the Q3s to sound like that. In my opinion, the Q3s represent an incredible value on the used market, if you can find them. The key to getting them to sound right is set up and partnering equipment.

 

[bazelio]

Peter is the same cart in use for both the Magico and Vitabox videos?

 

[PeterA]

Peter is the same cart in use for both the Magico and Vitabox videos?

Vitavox/Technics MM vs Magico/vdH Grand Cru. I have not yet made any videos of the new system with the Grand Cru. I just rearranged things so that the two arms are now both set up for the first time so I can now make direct comparisons.

Brian, do you have a preference with the videos?

 

[PeterA]

While the new rack is being built, the Lamm phono stage was temporarily placed on a steel plate and wood platform located on the floor. This meant that the far tonearm phono cable could not reach the phono inputs. I built a new structure to raise the phono stage up off the floor so that both phono cables can now reach the inputs so that I can use both tonearms.

I received four NOS arm board inserts with the new Micro Seiki turntable and one used insert with the SME oval cutout. This must have been the insert used by the previous owner. I discovered that the vdH Grand Cru cartridge has a slightly longer mounting hole to stylus distance, so I needed to switch to the used SME insert to accommodate the SME 3012R and vdH GC. You can see from the photo that one insert has the SME oval further back away from the spindle.

With the different insert and the raised phono stage, I am now able to use both tonearms and two cartridges for direct comparisons. Right now, the vintage Technics MM is in the rear arm location and the vdH GC is in the front arm location. Later today I am expecting my other vdH GC to arrive after being modified by van den Hul to better suit this new high efficiency horn based system. I requested that the cartridge output be lowered from 0.75 mV to below 0.4 mV. I will probably put one vdH GC on each tonearm for comparisons.

The Sipo wood has arrived for the cabinet maker to start building the new rack so that I can get the gear up off the temporary platforms. Two new amp stands will match with new stainless steel plates. I am hoping the rack will be finished by June before David arrives to hear the system.

One can see from the bottom two photos that the arm base is now located more in the middle of the arm board insert/SME oval cutout allowing for more travel or adjustment of HTA.

 

[Kingrex]

I was catching up on this thread and realizing how much more satisfied I myself have been moving from SS or high power tube plus Sonus Faber to low power SET and Open baffle with horn. It was the talk of Al and Madfloyd and are they converts. I can't imagine ever going back to SS plus boxed speaker. I have toyed with the idea of SS amps for convenience. But I just don't get a thrill from it like SET tubes and a horn. I hope over time Peter feels the same way. It's a very personal choice. I have one friend who is a never leave horns guy. 5 or 6 others are all high power this or that and robust authoritative bass box speaker lovers.
Something I have noticed too is that I tend to play with my volume much lower than most of the other people. I wonder if that is a commonality amoungs horn lovers vs SS and boxed.

Do you think you play music at lower DB now Peter, or about the same.

 

[PeterA]

I was catching up on this thread and realizing how much more satisfied I myself have been moving from SS or high power tube plus Sonus Faber to low power SET and Open baffle with horn. It was the talk of Al and Madfloyd and are they converts. I can't imagine ever going back to SS plus boxed speaker. I have toyed with the idea of SS amps for convenience. But I just don't get a thrill from it like SET tubes and a horn. I hope over time Peter feels the same way. It's a very personal choice. I have one friend who is a never leave horns guy. 5 or 6 others are all high power this or that and robust authoritative bass box speaker lovers.
Something I have noticed too is that I tend to play with my volume much lower than most of the other people. I wonder if that is a commonality amoungs horn lovers vs SS and boxed.

Do you think you play music at lower DB now Peter, or about the same.

Kingrex, your experience mirrors mine. I am really enjoying the tube/horn system. I also like the vintage MM cartridge. I highly doubt my friends Al and Madfloyd will change from their current paths, but that is fine and I have no interest in converting anyone. People can and should enjoy whatever they want.

Regarding volume levels, I will say that I am more satisfied with lower volumes in the new system than I was with the old system, but I play the systems at about the same level most of the time. The new system does not need the volume to come alive because there is so much resolution at low volumes with the high efficiency, mostly dynamics, but information levels too. The new system sounds louder because there is more dynamic swing/headroom and it plays cleaner at all frequency levels.

Another factor, and one that I have been noticing with the different cartridges, is the presentation differs in terms of nuance. My friends describe the sound as "vintage" with the MM. I do not know exactly what they mean, but the MM is more nuanced, more shadings in energy, where the high output MC is a bit more forced sounding and one notices the bass and treble a bit more. Both are good, and different listeners will prefer one to the other, but the subject of nuance and shadings, is a fascinating one. It is more apparent with the new tube/horn system.

The analogy I use is that some systems present the music with both a feather and a whip, while other systems/components/setups present the music with a hammer most of the time.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Fetish and toolkit allegories, Peter.