Yes I know you have it; it's Lamm's top tier preamp. Swap those four boxes for your previous Pass or a VTL TLT7.5 or darTZeel NHB or whatever and hear how the sound changes. Lamm gear is at it's best with other Lamm gear.
Natural Sound
- Thread starter PeterA
- Start date
Yes I know you have it; it's Lamm's top tier preamp. Swap those four boxes for your previous Pass or a VTL TLT7.5 or darTZeel NHB or whatever and hear how the sound changes. Lamm gear is at it's best with other Lamm gear.
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Have you tried Dartzeel, Soulution, directly into a lamm power amp, or any other valve power amp? Any other SS preamp? If so what combination
Stereophile report was very positive...
California is not the world...in Europe and Asia they are popular and a lot of dealers have them (even in little Switzerland). Of course horns are much more popular here too. Too many decades of Sterophile I think.
The Zingali imo is a poor speaker. But think he keeps changing models so maybe gets it right on some. But his big ones had poor midbass and below
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Hi Peter
Any new insights from the system? It has settled and so have you. This can sometimes alter a viewpoint somewhat. What are you loving most and what, if any, weaknesses do you perceive?
Any new insights from the system? It has settled and so have you. This can sometimes alter a viewpoint somewhat. What are you loving most and what, if any, weaknesses do you perceive?
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I have not had a solid state preamp in house since the Esoteric C-03 in 2008, wilth one exception. Currently I can run the Lamm L2.1 Ref into the M1.2 Ref monoblocks. The L2.1 Ref has a tube regulated power supply with solid state amplification, so not sure how you count that but some consider it a solid state unit. Never owned a solid state preamp - at least one I remember. I've been partial to tube preamps seemingly forever or at least starting moons ago when I ran a Dynaco into a Hafler 500 with Magnepans.
My comment to Peter was not so much about solid-state or tube as about Lamm gear with other Lamm gear, which is not particularly revelatory to those with that experience.
Edit: Btw that Esoteric linestage was actually a nice unit sound wise. From my Soundstage review: "It is supremely quiet. Notes from the C-03 simply appear, lasting precisely as long as needed and no longer. There is no "blackness" or space between them, only time. There is no blurring across quick arpeggios; the placement of musicians is not fuzzy. The front edge of attack is natural, not announced or incisive -- as good as I’ve heard. Listen how interior woodwind solos spring to life in Sibelius’s Second Symphony under Barbirolli’s baton on Chesky CD (Chesky CR3) or in Stokowski’s rendition of Smetana’s "The Bartered Bride" on his Rhapsodies LP (RCA/Classic LSC-2471). Oboes nicely contrasted with bassoons, tonally and spatially. It was audibly easy to spot the positions of flutes relative to the clarinets. However, perhaps because of its quietness, the C-03 seemed to better represent music’s natural drive and vivacity when fed from the Ayre digital player than from either of the phono stages on hand. It’s the first component in my system that led me to play more CDs than I usually do. Maybe Esoteric's expertise in making digital gear has something to do with this."
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Heh - Mom's gone we can play without our masks.
Well your preamp is kind of...solid state. The power supply is not but the amplifying circuits are...not that this is inherently bad...it just is. Have you compared this to one of Lamm's preamps with tubes in the amplifying circuit?
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I re-read my own reviews, and knowing myself I do get some value from past sonic descriptions. And there's what my aural memory conjurs up, though that can be relative to the passage of time. That by way of introduction to having heard the Lamm LL2.1 (all tube, review 2009) and the Lamm L2.1 Ref (today).
My current thought on your question is that Lamm preamps exhibit a fundamental character we might call 'the Lamm sound.' As you move up the line (the LL2.1 is entry) that character does not change but its exhibition, its presentation becomes more sophisticated with increasing nuance at the frequency extensions. Increasingly better dynamics, resolution, and authority among other characteristics. Perhaps the lesser variable is tonality which from my experience thus far finds gorgeous no matter which model you have. No doubt there is improvement in tonality as you move up the line - perhaps because other elements are better - but by then one is already smitten.
Both are very quiet. The L2.1 Ref appreciably benefits from a larger power supply that comes in its own box.
I may try to tease out the differences that make up improvements in more detail when I write about the LP1 Sig, having had the LP2.1 deluxe phono. The jump there is pretty significant. Later this year the LL1.1 Sig should show up. We'll see. As one moves up the tiers - and this holds for components other than Lamm - there are only so many "more thans", "deepers", and "clearers" one can write before the differences in degree are diminished by the repetitiveness of the vocabulary.
Keith, why don’t you and Brad have this conversation on the SET/horn thread? What is relevant on my system thread is that the lamb ML2 is a good match for my speakers and vice versa. What the heck does it matter how popular a combination it is?
You encouraged me to go up and down the East Coast to audition a bunch of horn speakers and other high-efficiency speakers. Presumably some would have been driven by SET amplifiers. I went to Utah instead and heard vintage with SETs. It does not really matter to me what gear is at the LA audio show.
I thought this was THE SET/Horn thread.
. I wrote a post asking you on your latest thoughts...I see you chose to answer the irrelevant one...
I think your contradicting yourself. If psychoacoustic are utilized, by that very nature, every person has their own psychology. Therefore no technology is superior. Each technology ticks boxes per the listener's desired preference.
If "Natural Sound " ticks your box, you will pick Peters system. But some here have said they heard Peters setup, but would not purchase it.
Now if you wany to say one technology is superior at creating a type of playback as compared to anothet, then you would be correct. Peters system will never Slam a room like Wilsons fed by 400 watt SS amps.
This is totally incorrect. Sets horns can easily slam a room more. Sets on Wilson cannot. That is the whole point of amp matching to speakers. tannoys too can slam more than Wilson. Art Dudley said best Bonham he heard was on devore orangutans
No, you are wrong. Psychoacoustic studies show that our hearing is all very similar in the way it functions, especially with regard to how we perceive distortion and the masking mechanisms employed by the ear/brain. You are right that it in no way means that 100% of people will prefer the same thing...that would be wishful thinking in psychology. However, the studies show that there are clear correlations and trends that mean that most people are likely to have similar preferences and designing to fit this kind of model will result in better sounding gear.
I wouldn't be too sure that Peter's system can't rock...I know Klipschorns, which the Vitavox is loosely based, can really rock that house with only a few watts. I had Klipsch La Scallas in college and they were one of the best Rock party speakers I ever heard. When you are over 100db/watt those 18 watt Lamms are about equivalent to 400 watt SS monsters on an 88db speaker.
Yes, I heard various components here and there and spent many days with this system setting up and doing the room acoustics when I did the AS2000 setup for Billy.
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/thre...uild-and-world-exclusive-legend-series.24341/
david
Brad, be mindful of the time difference and please be patient. Keith's post came earlier and took little time or thought to respond to. I just saw your question. No, I do not think this thread is about SET/horn. There are many threads on that topic. This thread is about something else and how some horns and some SETs can produce a certain type of sound. Of course, you know much more than I about that subject.
It took me years to optimize my former system. I lived with it and knew it well by the end. This new system is very new, and I have no prior experience with tubes or horns. Yes, the system is settling, and so am I, but neither is "settled". David thinks it will be months for the speaker cabinets to acclimate. He is coming to fine tune the system, perhaps improve the cartridge/arm set up, and when I move the electronics from the floor platforms to the new rack, things will need time to settle again.
I do have further thoughts, but some require independent thoughts for validity. My friend who knew the old system well stopped by yesterday for lunch, music and sailing. We came back for tea and more music. We did discuss his thoughts about the overall sound and particularly the sense of balance, listening perspective, bass quality.
He found the sound very balanced top to bottom in general and at the scale of the note in particular. He did not find the leading edge/transient "de-emphasized" and lacking relative to the rest of the note, but in proportion and appropriate. He agreed with my comments that when listening close to an instrument, it is not only the leading edge and transient that is emphasize or pronounced, but rather the whole note, the attack, the sustain, and the decay. This is how my system presents the note. The highs are not more or less emphasized than the midrange or the bass. They are in proportion and balanced. This is the reason that no aspect of this draws attention to itself. It is only relative to other systems which present the music differently, that one may see something lacking and focus on that aspect. The reference should be real music, not another system.
That observation led to the listening perspective. The listening perspective depends on the size and character of the images and soundstage captured on the recording and presented by the system. An emphasized leading edge does not bring one closer to the musician if the sustain and decay are not emphasized. It only makes the attack seem out of balance and aggressive. It has nothing to do with how close the listener perceives the instruments. That depends on the ambient cues presented through the system and the scale and size of the performers.
We listened to a Beethoven piano sonata. We discussed the touch on the keys. There were soft and loud, low notes and high notes, but significantly, there was the subtle nuance of the pianist's light and heavy hand - his touch. This nuance is where the emotion lives. The Technics moving magnet gets this right. The higher output vdH in this system was too much and forced everything, but it had extraordinary resolution. The vdH now returned with lower output gets it all, the nuance and the resolution.
My friend and I listened compared the two cartridges on both the piano sonata and on Sonny Rollins, Way Out West. He heard the nuance on both, but remarked how much more resolving the vdH is. He also thought the latter had much more clarity. I think that is related to resolution.
Finally, he remarked on the bass quality of the system. This was one of the weaknesses of the former system. Although it improved over time, it was never quite balanced with the rest of the sound. David says that the bass is the hardest part of a system to get right. The new system gets the bass right, at least to my ears. It is not lacking relative to the rest of the sound. The bass has a very natural quality. It is full and hollow and nuanced. Bass strings sound looser than other strings, the body sounds bigger and woody. Drum skins are taught and resonate. Timbre in this frequency range has never sounded so distinct in my room.
This is such an improvement over what I had before that I notice it when asked about it, but mostly it sounds so right, along with the rest, that I simply listen to the music. Before, the weaker bass stood out and the lack of balance was noticeable. Now little or nothing stands out.
If pressed for a weakness, I would say the speakers, on only some specific tracks, do not disappear quite to the same extent as the much smaller Magicos brought out into the room did. I do not know the reason for that, but it may have to do with further settling, something to do with set up, or perhaps the protruding fireplace interrupting the vented output from the speakers. It is a minor issue because I am drawn into the music much more than before and not to the sound of the system which basically disappears. At least I am not aware of the sound of the system to the extent I am with most of the systems I hear.
I am very pleased with how things are sounding and improving over time. The low output vdH Colibri Grand Cru is really sounding superb. My second one has just been modified and will soon be back on its way. I have not thoughts about changes. At this point I am looking forward to my new rack, Jeff Tyo's visit next week and David's visit after that.
Smooth sailing ahead.
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