I had the pleasure of visiting PeterA’s system last week for a listening session with the added of bonus of meeting MadFloyd for the first time. We had a great listening session and went to lunch in the beautiful Marblehead harbor.
I had visited Peter several years before to hear the Magico and Pass Labs system. I really enjoyed this system and thought it was the best Magico system I had heard. During the Magico/Pass session we listened to classical, small combo jazz, singer/songwriter and finished off with Pink Floyd. Where the Magico/Pass system utterly failed was Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. From the very first “rush” of sound at the beginning, it lacked scale, sound stage and was undynamic. I concluded that if you listened to choral music, small combo jazz and singer/songwriter music the system was great. For large symphonies or rock, it was not convincing enough for my tastes.
Three years ago, Peter came to Los Angeles with his daughter to visit colleges and during that visit he visited a few audio systems with Ron. He came over to hear my system, which consists of all Lamm playback and custom JBL horn speakers made by PBN Audio with four paper 15’s. One of the first records I played was Dark Side, I wanted to demonstrate the scale that my system could produce. Also, I wanted him to hear the magic that Lamm brings to any system. He seemed relatively impressed with the system, especially with the playback of Dark Side. I did also tell him that my audio gurus in Seattle used Lamm and vintage speakers and were following the advice of DDK and Rommy the Cat. I’m not saying I’m responsible for were Peter ended up with his system or visiting DDK, just that my system might have been a data point for him along the journey.
Ian, Peter and I listened to several pieces of music including:
- Mozart quartet (Grameaux)
- Rimsky Korsakov Scheherazade (Reiner)
- Miles Davis Kind of Blue
- Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon
We started with a Mozart string quartet. Peter started spinning the record on his flawless Micro Seiki 8000 Mk2 (I’ve seen a few but never one so clean) with the VDH and SME 3012R. I was immediately struck by the presence of the strings in the room and that resolution. You could hear the individual instruments, but they blended perfectly and did not call attention to themselves, just like live classical sounds to my ears. At first the sound seemed to come from the speakers, which is different from my system where this image is tightly in the center and slightly behind the speakers. But once I closed my eyes, the image did materialize in front of me. I had to “retrain” my brain to be less analytical and let the sound flow into the room. Zero strain, zero compression, just pure music.
We listened to the final movement of Scheherazade and increased the volume. This was a real treat as the flow of the system really allowed the music to present itself. Again, we were treated to full range and glorious sounding music, nothing calls attention to itself, the music just flows. The system has less treble energy than mine, which I thought I missed on some of the violin parts, but the bass was perfect.
Moving on to Miles Davis was an interesting experience as I had just listened to this on my system before I left for Boston. I love how my system presents Kind of Blue, the cymbal energy, the definition of the bass and the piano. But Peter system excels and beats my system is two areas: piano reproduction and the presentation of the acoustic bass. I believe that it excels in these two areas because of the effortless S2 compression driver and the horn bass, piano and stand-up acoustic bass are both percussive instruments in jazz. This system sounds real (natural) and delivers the presence of a live jazz club. Horn presentation was also spot on, benefiting from the outstanding decay of the Lamm based system.
Finally, we listened to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the moon. I was eager to hear this as it was such a big disappointment the last time I heard it at Peter’s house. I’m just going to cut to the chase: this was the BEST reproduction of Dark Side I’ve ever heard on a stereo. We cranked this up very loud and we were not disappointed. From the huge bass rush at the beginning of the album, to the vocal solo in the Great Gig in the Sky, we were treated to fantastic effortless sound. No strain, no compression, no harshness, just music. This system plays vocals like I have never heard in my life. I turned to Peter and said: “you have now treated me to the worst, and now the best playback of Dark Side I’ve ever heard.” And dare I say, Ian was there with me too.
In closing this was one of the best playback systems I’ve ever heard. It shares similarities with all Lamm systems I’ve loved, but it also had a magic that I think the Vitavox’s deliver. Although I didn't have a definitive frequency test, I believe that system does not go much below 50 hz and much above 14 khz. Between these frequency ranges it was simply
the finest system I’ve experienced. Could you get a subwoofer? Maybe, but how could you match the effortless and realistic bass that the corner horn delivers? Could you get a super tweeter? Maybe, but how could you match the resolution of the famous S2 compression driver?
