The Ypsilon Aelius are poor on drive and bottom half and flow on rise and fall of orchestral. Nice tone, but the lack of drive also shows on stage and mids
ying and yang--Lamm ML3 and darTZeel 458
- Thread starter Mike Lavigne
- Start date
The Ypsilon Aelius are poor on drive and bottom half and flow on rise and fall of orchestral. Nice tone, but the lack of drive also shows on stage and mids
Steve williams
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Mike
You do realize that there are class A PP amps that are more powerful than your amps Not to take this off topic but you did say PP would fall short of the big dartz
Mike I’ve owned 600 wpc class A PP amps and would have to differ with your opinion
Mike, I’m getting the strong feeling that you’re a bit fed up w the varied and numerous responses to yr thread. At 96 pages, it’s certainly one of the most popular ones. As are all the other threads you’ve initiated.
Did you feel that people would just comment uncritically on yr choice? That’s the case when you declare your ownership of MSB Select or AS2000. The combined readership of WBF is gaga over such exotic purchases that can only have upsides.
OTOH, a thread like the Lamms one, where there’s a battle or competition between topologies, was always likely to get more conflicting opinions, especially when you declared the Lamms weren’t as absolutely cast iron in terms of the grip that the Darts excel at. And so the suggestions and disagreements come rolling in, now with you and DDK seeming to be at loggerheads.
Did you expect anything less?
Did you feel that people would just comment uncritically on yr choice? That’s the case when you declare your ownership of MSB Select or AS2000. The combined readership of WBF is gaga over such exotic purchases that can only have upsides.
OTOH, a thread like the Lamms one, where there’s a battle or competition between topologies, was always likely to get more conflicting opinions, especially when you declared the Lamms weren’t as absolutely cast iron in terms of the grip that the Darts excel at. And so the suggestions and disagreements come rolling in, now with you and DDK seeming to be at loggerheads.
Did you expect anything less?
Well, he just recently said that it would be nice to have one product that did it all...I was just responding to this.
so why did you switch to Lamm?
brute strength is not what is needed. it's plenty of headroom combined with inspired circuit topology. my speakers don't need a welding machine to operate.
I hear big ARC amps or other big tubes and what is not to like? these are great amps. yet I prefer the musical message of the big darts. those large PP amps give the feeling of listening through something. the darts seem clear and right.
of course, there are many different opinions about this issue. i'm just one guy with a viewpoint.
Besides frequent live orchestral concerts at the Tonhalle in Zurich? I doubt even your system can top that for big scale sound
. I have also had large systems driven by similarly powerful amps as your system (they were lower in sensitivity but my room was smaller). THe two biggest systems I have had are the Infinity IRS Beta and the large Acoustat Spectra 2200s with the very large Spectra 4400s as subs.I think what people constantly lose out of sight in these discussions, Mike, is that you have a really large room. This makes for disproportionately (i.e. not linear to room size) higher demands on all gear for effortlessness and dynamics, regardless of any speaker sensitivities. driver topologies and such. My system can play very dynamically in my medium sized room, but it just couldn't play that well in a significantly larger one. I think not much gear can play well in a really large room.
The funny thing, Brad, is that you are describing my mission (not Mike's)!
I wish Vladimir made either a parallel SET amplifier, or a single transmitter tube (GM100 or 833) amplifier, putting out over 100 watts. (He obviously does not believe in those designs, which is why he offers his hybrid amps in that power range and above.)
(Mike probably could find an amplifier somewhere in the middle of the sonic characteristics of ML3 and the 458, but then he would necessarily be giving up some of what each of the ML3 and the 458 does better than the other.)
Besides frequent live orchestral concerts at the Tonhalle in Zurich? I doubt even your system can top that for big scale sound
certainly large scale systems.
what uber digital did you try in those rooms? and what different amplifiers? which was the point Micro and I were making......that more power made significant differences on the musical equation with large scale digital music.
agree. i have continually mentioned my system building intentions of achieveing ultimate reproduction of large scale music. hence the room size, and why the twin towers, and all the amplifier headroom. and that with the large size, the challenges of getting it all to work were daunting, and it took a decade to 'seemingly' master it. the whole signal path has to scale to the room.
and until you get into a large room and see how things work, it's hard to realize how issues become more significant, and the sound becomes a mess. witness a show system in a large room. mostly they don't work. and much smarter people than me are trying very hard.
likely a logrithmic realtionship between taming a small, medium and large room and what it takes to get there. and dynamic speaker systems are more room dependent than other topographies, but also; my belief is that they have a higher ceiling in terms of top to bottom extension and coherency. the rest is preference.
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Why cannot you and Brad let Mike be happy with the ML3 for what it does on the types of music on which Mike chooses to use it? No matter how much he tells you he likes X and why he likes X and that he does not want to give up what X does better than anything else, you are still trying to sell him Y. You both keep trying to answer a question that Mike has not asked.
Marc, you know I had hoped that the NAT Magma New SE would solve my high-power SET puzzle, but completely theoretically and subjectively and without basis in user experience data points I decided I could not get comfortable with that amplifier. I just feel that with NAT's on-the-fly parts change modus operandi I would not be able to listen to the music comfortably and relaxedly while watching those two GM100 rocket engines glowing lava red.
ok; just saw 16 and 20 watt peaks (mostly -0- continuous) on the big drum whacks from dsd64 file of Copland's 'Fanfare for the Common Man', Atlantic Symphony Orchestra.
likely running about 75-78 db SPL's when it's not the quiet passages, peaks in the upper 80's to low 90's.(did not measure)
the music is broad and majestic sounding. great foundation and bass authority.
likely running about 75-78 db SPL's when it's not the quiet passages, peaks in the upper 80's to low 90's.(did not measure)
the music is broad and majestic sounding. great foundation and bass authority.
Ron, like we’re torturing Mike. This is a guy who’s quite possibly the world’s leading audiophile (at least that we know of), has in the last 12 months invested in an AS2000, MSB Select 3-box, Troy Elite, various Taiko Tanas, and now he’s bought an ML3 kind of on a whim, ...well, you get the message. There’s no torturing Mike, more like he’s torturing us w all these goodies in his audio Pandora’s Box.
And as I said, if he didn’t think he’d get such conflicting opinions, and have advice offered to him for free, then he really underestimated the number of egos and opinionated souls on this forum. Ron, If you think he doesn’t secretly like the attention this thread is getting, I’m surprised at you .
And as I said, if he didn’t think he’d get such conflicting opinions, and have advice offered to him for free, then he really underestimated the number of egos and opinionated souls on this forum. Ron, If you think he doesn’t secretly like the attention this thread is getting, I’m surprised at you .
no one is holding a gun to my head and making me type. or anyone else that I know of. if we were not on some level enjoying hanging out together we would not be here.
i'm just listening and going with the flow.....on this nice Sunday afternoon. one thing about uber digital, I can be on my laptop and still get amazing tunes with minimal effort. ease of use! yes!
i'm just listening and going with the flow.....on this nice Sunday afternoon. one thing about uber digital, I can be on my laptop and still get amazing tunes with minimal effort. ease of use! yes!
We are not addressing just dynamics, but scale, power and authority. Large rooms have gain down to first axial mode, music expands in a different way.
What you are saying is just an expansion of what I was getting at. No contradictions here.
You have heard their SET 100 Ultimate? It is unlike any of their other amps as it is single ended and hybrid.
yes, a few times at shows. a very fine amplifier and I liked what I heard. I know Brian the importer and always enjoy his systems at shows. I did not hear the obvious magic of the ML3's, or the overall energy and refinement of the big darts in the same way. but if it was in my room who knows?
like I said, this amp could be the centerpiece of a world class system. and if I ever actually auditioned it in my system it could be that 'unicorn'. that's as much as I can say.
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