ying and yang--Lamm ML3 and darTZeel 458

Well, live unamplified is as good a reference as any other. It certainly provides a range of torture tests to compare our gear to, other than subterranean bass. And out here in the country, I’m going to more classical and jazz than I ever did in London.
Strangely enough, I wouldn’t want my system to totally resemble live
all the time, it would have a tendency to test my nerves - can you imagine totally realistic live dynamics at home, w crazy levels of volume scaling up and down?
For me the aspects of live I want at home are: transparency/neutrality (for me meaning clarity of instruments even during massed playing, with little or no hint of the gear or room) - I’m only close to this in terms of getting twds eliminating the room signature; tone density and timbral accuracy - here my Zu full range/zero crossover/101dB eff with SETs sensibility is more adept, at portraying real solidity w agility, and indeed a reason I hate so many so-called neutral realistic uber high end systems is replacing this aspect of tone density that I hear continuously in live situations, with tipped up energy and upper mids/treble emphasis - this I never hear live.

morricab said:

But sound quality is not ice cream, Ron! With music, there is a reference...

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Totally understand that, Morricab and have always respected and sought to learn from your most excellent posts.

The critical element about your point is that [because there is no perfection in sound reproduction]...all of us are obligated to prioritize which elements of 'reference' we wish for most in our system...and where we are prepared to live with compromises...and thus begins a completely personal approach to what is a 'reference sound' and a reference system.

Some care of bass reproduction, others detail in highs, others mid-range magic, etc...

This is still true, even if all parties have the exact same definition of reference sound and have the exact same level of hearing acuity. Each party will still have different ways of ranking which compromises they can live with.

hence, we are still back to Ron's 'ice cream' analogy.

LL21 said:

hence, we are still back to Ron's 'ice cream' analogy.

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You are. I’m not. Nor is Morricab with whom I agree completely.

Until there is a perfect sound system, all of us has to make a personal choice about what kind of imperfect system we choose to listen to...and that is where personal preferences come in. That is what I am interpreting as Ron's ice cream analogy...the different choices people make in which system they prefer as 'closest to the reference of perfect sound reproduction'.

morricab said:

But sound quality is not ice cream, Ron! With music, there is a reference...

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I agree, with music there is a reference. I intended my (analytically inadequate) analogy to reflect my understanding of Mike's intention to have slightly different sonic versions of state-of-the-art.

I should have picked two slightly different things, both of which have the same perceivable reference. But from there we descend into the complications discussed by LL21.

(Brad's "reference" comment affords me the opportunity to boast that I am going to my third recent classical concert tonight at Walt Disney Concert Hall! So I am trying to establish my own sense of "reference.")

morricab said:

Are you talking about power or output transformers? Darts do not have output transformers...Lamms of course do. To my knowledge only McIntosh regularly uses output transformers for SS amps.

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Just saying the output transformers on the Lamms could influence the sound or make a difference when compared to the SS Darts. Now whether this means anything to the overall sound I don't know. As a point vintage output transformers are sought after because of coloration they give.
In my experience power transformers can influence the quality of sound also.

I think Mike knows what he is looking for..been at it a very long time with loads of experience...

Mike Lavigne said:

I am fortunate to have a 270 pound, strong, Son, whose thoughtfulness allows me the latitude of dealing with heavy amplifiers. and he knows if I am injured then he will have to assist me even more.

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Dear Mike,

I feel very good every time you mentioned of your son being close to you.
My son is very close to me too. But he just sits on equipment not helping me switch RCA’s between tts.



Kindest regards,
Tang

GMKF said:

Wowza... That one sound's very exciting...

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Thanks GMKF!!

for me, Component Designer , like Vlad, Lukasz, Kondo, Nishikawa and many others are like artists. They invite me to share their understanding of music reproduction.

It is like viewing a Sunset with a group of friends, everybody sees the same happening and you can share with them the great moment.

But when some artists start to paint the same Sunset, the paintings might be very different, some like a soft aquarell, some like a heavy oil picture, some with thin pencil lines, some hyperealistic.

When you go with your friends to the artists, it is possible, that all of your friends will choose a different picture as their favorite, saying, this is the Sunset they have seen some minutes ago.

The lesson learned is, that you have to find „your“ artist, your picture to be perfectly associated to the „real“ music.

This is a very personal decision.

And I perfectly can understand Mike, to listen currently to two great amps and to love both!

A decision, what is „better“ does not need to take place, sometimes it is just enjoyable to compare the different views into the music this components allow.

I personally love this type of comparisons, as I do get a much deeper understanding of the music I am listening too.

Tango said:

Dear Mike,

I feel very good every time you mentioned of your son being close to you.
My son is very close to me too. But he just sits on equipment not helping me switch RCA’s between tts.

View attachment 38848

Kindest regards,
Tang

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Nice, very sweet Tang!!

bonzo75 said:

Cool... Please let us know what PX25 valves you are using. I use the KR. More on Bob in a few weeks

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Here you go...

Mike Lavigne said:

Xander and Hi-Fi Guy have a standing invitation. but likely any visit from Xander and Hi-Fi Guy will be music, not gear focused. crass gear compares come much later....let's not scare Xander away.

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First off my name is Mike too!
This much I can tell you, Xander is no where near that point yet. He is so overwhelmed with the amount and rate of information he is receiving from me and now Mike.
Xander and I have had long talks about music, music production techniques, what an audiophool is along with my journey through my love of music and a lot of my experiences with live music and concert experiences.
He is a long ways off before this becomes even remotely feasible.

Second, for me it is always going to be about the music. Always! I am not format specific, if its good music I could care less about the format. My preference is vinyl, but I have my server and sometimes I put on Pandora and let her rip to discover new music.

Third I am a tweaker just like you all, I am just not nearly as financially invested as you guys. I am always trying different things, measuring,moving things, reducing vibrations, dampening, diffusing,grounding, the standard addiction symptoms. I am not shy,or to proud, as you all know I post pictures of my feeble system and the changes I make. I am not hurt that my posts don't generate 50 pages of comments over my vintage kit. I do however appreciate the comment I do get and then head into the next round of "adjustments".

Fourth, with out question I am gear focused but don't want to just sit in the room and make a fool out of myself with drool dripping off my chin! When at Mikes and Steves place I could sit there with no music for hours and be ok with that. The attention to detail is overwhelming with a big pay off for both. Both systems sound fantastic but both have different approaches and sound attributes (ice cream any one)! I have had the honor of visiting Garys facility many times and even had the honor of listening to the Dragons by myself one day.

In the end I am here for the music.

Mike Steve and Gary have been the most gracious hosts when I have imposed myself on them and the guys at the PNWAS are the Beez Neez as far as clubs go, its been a fantastic experience.

For the next little while I will let Xander dictate the flow as he has been introduced to a lot in a very short time. He is pretty stoked on seeing the AS2000 up and running.

Last but not least for you SPIRIT, I have had the honor of being allowed to blast 2112 on Mikes and Steves system and it chilled me for 20 minutes, beginning to end. These systems let you know right away its a mid 70's rock record, but at the same time sort it out extremely well. The story comes alive! Worth the price of admission!

spiritofmusic said:

Well, live unamplified is as good a reference as any other. It certainly provides a range of torture tests to compare our gear to, other than subterranean bass. And out here in the country, I’m going to more classical and jazz than I ever did in London.
Strangely enough, I wouldn’t want my system to totally resemble live
all the time, it would have a tendency to test my nerves - can you imagine totally realistic live dynamics at home, w crazy levels of volume scaling up and down?
For me the aspects of live I want at home are: transparency/neutrality (for me meaning clarity of instruments even during massed playing, with little or no hint of the gear or room) - I’m only close to this in terms of getting twds eliminating the room signature; tone density and timbral accuracy - here my Zu full range/zero crossover/101dB eff with SETs sensibility is more adept, at portraying real solidity w agility, and indeed a reason I hate so many so-called neutral realistic uber high end systems is replacing this aspect of tone density that I hear continuously in live situations, with tipped up energy and upper mids/treble emphasis - this I never hear live.

Click to expand...

its funny that you would hear more music in the country than in London...it is everywhere in London! I was at 2-3 concerts a week when I lived in London. All scales, unamplified, amplified etc. etc. My all-time favorite was for a Schubert festival that had an evening in the home of a doctor there. In their foyer (which was roughly circular) they put on a home concert of Schubert quartets and the finale the famous Schubert quintet (the one with double cellos not the trout quintet with piano). We sat maybe about 3 meters from the performers. All I can say was WOW! It brought tears to my eyes it was so beautiful to listen to. I also had the privelege of living with a top violinist and got to hear her play a number of exclusive instruments (Strad, Guarneri, Amati and Guadinini) live in my apartment...I also made (R2R analog) recordings of some practice sessions. Last year I had two very close up concerts, one was in a house (again) of two cellists and again I sat about 3 meters away and the other was in Zürich Tonhalle where I was in the front row for Evgeni Kissin, sitting very close to the piano...what dynamics!

I want realisitic dynamics at home...at least when I am not only having music for background. If the system is really clean and capable it is never annoying.

Brad, I was a bit vague here. Of course I want dynamics. The Loudness Wars nearly put pay to that. Having spkrs 101dB eff and full blooded SETs helps me here.
But:
1- I think I would struggle at home with a system that replicated live swings absolutely accurately.
The volume buttons on my remote control would get seriously worn out LOL.
2- no home audio gets even close to live dynamics, not even the best horn systems.
I’ve had a lot of fun immersing myself in Blue58’s AG Duos which have great dynamic capabilities, but even the owner Barry admits the first bars of a live classical concert put the Duos firmly in their place.
—
The nearest thing I’ve ever heard to an approximation of live was the Denman Exponential Horn, but this was never likely to be a home audio product (despite ironically being one of the first actual audio loudspeakers installed in a home, in the 1930s).

Mike Lavigne said:

but which reference for music do we use to judge hifi?

I think we use the recording which comes in all shapes and sizes, and degrees of space and naturalness, relationships to the source....and variations of dynamic energy.

some think an acoustic live environment is the only reference.

is either right or wrong?

and do we choose a system telling you only the truth? or do we want a bit of enhancement to the truth? and who is to assign weights positive or negative to those variances?

no; we all have our own references for music. or multiple references to match our multiple systems, speakers, turntables, or tone arms, or cartridges, or dacs, or...amplifiers.

some, of course, claim to have special insight into the one view. I agree it is special....for them. and we do seem to gravitate toward people and systems that align with our own viewpoints.

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The live, unamplified, music is really the only reference...it might not be a practical one to use but it is the only one, nonetheless. I guess, if you were only listening to amplified rock music you could argue that hearing someone playing live through a guitar amp etc. could also be a reference...but it is still with another layer on top (speakers, amps, mixer, engineer etc.) to muddy the waters.

I don't know what you mean by "our own references". This is pure relativism. This changes as per your whim and is not a reference at all...by definition. Reference means something you "refer to"...a constant if you will. It needs to be somewhat outside yourself. Sure it is observed and interpreted by you but for normal hearing people it won't be so different how we hear the real event.

There are recordings that have done an admirable job of capturing a performance accurately...use of these to establish the quality of a system as a practical reference. If your system captures these close to a live experience of something that is very similar (this relies on a good aural memory of course...or frequent repetition) then one can be reasonably certain that it captures what is on other recordings accurately as well...for better or worse.

The Audio Note UK guy, Peter Q. has a pretty good, but incomplete point in that a system should capture maximum contrast between recordings and this is because the range of recording quality is so diverse from attrocious to sublimely accurate. What is incomplete about this is that what he is advocating is that a system has a high precision and so small changes are readily discerned but that approach says nothing about the accuracy of that system. A system can show the tiniest differences but still be way off the mark in terms of tonality, dynamics, resolution (transparency), imaging, soundstaging etc. Discrimination alone is does not make a system accurate. A lot of people fall into this trap...they have über resolution, attack, soundstage etc. and every recording sounds different...but the sound of every recording is far from realistic, even with the best recordings, and therefore wrong.

Do you really know what it is in your system you are striving for? Or, having reached it (so you thought) , you realized that it wasn't what you thought it would be? I have long ago decided that there is not a system on this earth that will give me a true live experience for large orchestral works...I have never heard it and I doubt it exists...so I have focused on getting a system that is as realistic as possible for smaller ensembles (jazz, classical). This doesn't mean it won't do big classical well...it does but not realisitically well. Rock and electronic music sounds good and (right?) through it if the recording is good or harsh and compressed if that is how the recording is made...I don't want to change that because that means introducing deliberate bias to "soften" bad recordings.

I know a guy who changes whole systems on nearly a monthly basis...he has no idea about what is correct sounding but just likes changing the aural flavor for the experience of it and for his unabashed love of the gear. Knowing this, it is pointless to talk seriously with him about sound quality because he just wants to play and that's fine and that is his defined goal of the whole thing. I suspect that the guys with 4 of this and 5 of that are similar despite their protestations to the contrary. Now, I have three systems at home but they have well defined purposes. 1 is for "serious" listening, 1 is for late night listening and 1 is for TV and background listening...they are all in different parts of the house. Each has only 1 source of a given type and one pre/amp or integrated amp. Only the "serious" rig is striving for what I have posted above. The background rig is decent enough for me and my wife likes the looks. The late night rig is in our attic room where I can listen at night with disturbing and it is efficient (96db single driver) so it works really well at low volumes. it is limited in both highs and low but still sounds rather nice...great for working while listening because the big rig always commands my attention.

Hi-Fi Mike, that’s great. I can only imagine the thrill Xander had as Lifeson’s guitar turned to white noise at the end of Grand Finale.
“We will assume control” certainly could be Mike talking as his system absolutely nailed this song LOL.

spiritofmusic said:

Brad, I was a bit vague here. Of course I want dynamics. The Loudness Wars nearly put pay to that. Having spkrs 101dB eff and full blooded SETs helps me here.
But:
1- I think I would struggle at home with a system that replicated live swings absolutely accurately.
The volume buttons on my remote control would get seriously worn out LOL.
2- no home audio gets even close to live dynamics, not even the best horn systems.
I’ve had a lot of fun immersing myself in Blue58’s AG Duos which have great dynamic capabilities, but even the owner Barry admits the first bars of a live classical concert put the Duos firmly in their place.
—
The nearest thing I’ve ever heard to an approximation of live was the Denman Exponential Horn, but this was never likely to be a home audio product (despite ironically being one of the first actual audio loudspeakers installed in a home, in the 1930s).

Click to expand...

You can have the live swings without the live levels...if your system is good enough at low volumes. I learned this with good electrostats. They can go down down down in level without falling apart and so you just shift your SPL register down as well to fit their comfort range and you still do pretty well. My horns allow a wider range so I open them up a bit more but still short of true live levels most of the time...the dynamics are still there but not the live SPLs (which would probably have my wife kill me most of the time).

If your system doesn't play well quietly then you should change it. This is very important for many other reasons like micro-dynamic retrieval and soundspace retrieval. it should also be able to resolve very low level sounds in the presence of loud sounds...something the late Allen Wright called Downward Dynamic Range (DDR).

I disagree somewhat about the live dynamics at home...for large music I agree completely but for smaller ensembles it is definitely possible to do it correctly and I have heard it in a few top systems. it should be able to handle at least a quartet of musicians (classical or otherwise).

Brad, Zus thrive at low levels. Indeed it’s a deal breaker for me re Apogees which always seem to need to be played loud to come alive.
Zus w NATs are absolutely sensational at medium to low volumes, and any potential move to horns (which I remain interested in) would have to convince for late night/drink in hand listening levels too.

I love live music and enjoy live concerts not because they give me any references but just because it is an essential way to access music. I also wish I had a real and deep grasp of Cheevers and Geddes but I glaze over with a lot of science and truth be told the people that I have met who have set up the best systems i have heard none of them particularly do either of the these. Everyone has their own preferences but these don’t necessarily set any limits for anyone else particularly.

I wonder if Mike has a particularly deep understanding of Cheevers or Geddes (but clearly even if not) has managed to put together a world class SOTA sound system. Way beyond any of this I am unsure if he even needs a basic understanding of Cheevers or Geedes to ever explain why he likes the Lamms, I am guessing probably not. I don’t know how many classical concerts Mike attends a year but still Mike clearly has put together one of the great systems that regularly sets the highest of standards and continuously wows so many audiophiles.

All of these rules about what it takes to be a proper audiophile and to be able to make a proper system... I just don’t believe any of them. The systems I’ve heard that are great are the result of commitment and take time and a genuine understanding and appreciation of music. Science is a nice way to get some kinds of understanding but I’ve never heard anyone who has set up a truly brilliant system just by using specs or theories. Choosing purely by specs is what we do at the start when we just don’t know any better.

I do wonder why some feel that a simplistic understanding of acoustics theory is sufficient to fully explain even the very basics of a rich human experience like listening to music and what are just individual preferences. This isn’t just about simple psychoacoustics, understanding states of consciousness is an area yet to be fully grasped by any of us and still waiting to be fully grasped by neuroscience.

Let’s let go of the hubris and just admit this is all just about preferences. That’s one of the things I admire about Mike, the lack of hubris and lack of absoluteness in his approach. The reason his observations are always so useful is that they seem to come from a middle or moderate position.