Living Presence

Syntax

Well-Known Member
Feb 26, 2012
259
307
970
At The Dark Side

The Omni Gon
(The Final Preamplifier)

Nowhere in the whole chain is the loss of detail so huge, nowhere in the chain the signal is so low...
So a custom made unit was made with the goal to avoid all compromises and cheap parts (they degrade sound). I decided some years ago to listen to low output MC, max 0.3mV and most Phonostages failed. Gain only is not the solution, the mosaic has to be rebuilt step by step to get a sonic picture which is not pale and smeared.




Ultimate Phono preamplifier w/optional line stage. All triode tube design. Full symmetrical.
Unique passive phono EQ. Each tube with its own independent heater supply.
Unique double mono PS with bridge-type tube rectification (8 single-wave rectifiers - 4 each channel) and pure foil CLC-PS.
100 lbs - dual chassis, my 5 Phono inputs (50dB, 63dB, 68dB, 72dB, 77dB pure Phono gain), Output AES Studio specification, (600 ?, digital 110 ?) No- loss-of-Signal-Parts, the best out there (TKD, Silver plugs, Tubes from US Army rocket defensive stations, Silver soldered, Tantal, Caddock, all Parts internal decoupled via Electron microscope devices...)
Result: Superior Detail, accurate specs, no coloration and lifelike Reproduction.The sound ?
Well, it is no longer about sound.
Dynamics, colors, soundstage, 3-dimensionality - yes, all that and much more. But it goes a few significant steps beyond that. Imagine opening the windows of your room on a clear early summer morning. A breeze of fresh air comes in.
Then go further in your imagination and tear down the walls of your listening room. All a sudden there is fresh air, the warmth of sun rays on your skin, a world of ?????????????color, beauty and a flood of details around you.
Touching your senses - with brute directness, unfiltered, unaltered. Involving, dramatic, breathtaking and demanding.
Nothing between you and the nature.
You can no longer move your attention away from the music. VERY different from anything else I have ever heard - anywhere.
Quality inspection from Science Lab for every single piece incl. Tubes, final quality report Engineering Lab.
 

Syntax

Well-Known Member
Feb 26, 2012
259
307
970
At The Dark Side


Lamm ML2.1

When connected to a high sensitive Speaker (97dB+) they show what's all about...




 

Syntax

Well-Known Member
Feb 26, 2012
259
307
970
At The Dark Side

Audioquest Sky

24ft Cable from Preamp to Amps, DBS 144V,there is extreme air and outstanding smoothness coupled with a more absolute sense of background silence --> a combination that made it easier to hear deeply into recordings and never feel as though some ugly byproduct was lurking around the corner. Modified with Eichmann Silver Bullet Plugs, Silver soldered.
AES (Audio Engineering Society) made the following Standards for the ability to transfer information: OFC-Copper (9N) = 100 and is the Standard, Gold = 90,4 and technical Silver (3N or 4N) = 106


 

ALF

Well-Known Member
Mar 15, 2012
531
243
955
Southwest
Have you heard the Lamm ML3/LL1 Signature combo?

Also Vladimir is working on his soon to be released Signature Phono stage that will complete this trio of gear

Hi Steve,

I believe that the ETA for new three-box Lamm Signature Phonostage will be out sometime after the first of next year. In the meantime, the LP2 Deluxe with the special SUT is a real beast.

Cheers!

ALF
 

Syntax

Well-Known Member
Feb 26, 2012
259
307
970
At The Dark Side
Well, analog reproduction is a chain, the Phonostage is indeed a (or THE) key element but today there is unfortunately one big mistake:
Price or the number of boxes have absolutely nothing to do with Performance. Only brain counts.
To split a signal in parts is no big deal. all do that, the secret is to build it together for the amplification. And when one Designer made a outstanding unit it is no guarantee that his next one will be better. Different yes, but the description of "better" or "true reproduction" is a endless chapter. When someone listens to Reissues, a female Singer with a Guitar in the Background or some Jazz, that is no big deal.
Gordon Holt once said

Audio actually used to have a goal: perfect reproduction of the sound of real music performed in a real space. That was found difficult to achieve, and it was abandoned when most music lovers, who almost never heard anything except amplified music anyway, forgot what "the real thing" had sounded like. Today, "good" sound is whatever one likes. As Art Dudley so succinctly said [in his January 2004 'Listening,' see "Letters," p.9], fidelity is irrelevant to music.
And he is (was) right.




The high Gain LP2 with its 70dB Gain is indeed "a real beast" like ALF wrote. The better your Analog System is, the more you will discover what that unit is able to do. I had - and listened - to much more expensive units (Boulder, Audio Research, Vitus, Aesthetix, Allnics, Audio Note Japan, Nagra, Pass and 10 more I think...) and was more or less glad when I got the chance to leave the room.
The LP2 I bought twice. Its ability to reproduce details without smearing them in combination with its true tonal colors - when they are in the grooves - is not their only secret to others. The sound flows with the LP2 unlike anything else that I've heard. Most chop up the music the music or affect the balance between instruments. There is no way to improve the first Signal, all you can do is to keep it as complete as possible (everyone has his own Fantasy for that). Cartridges come and go but a Phonostage - a real good one - can indeed close a chapter.
 
Last edited:

FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
6,455
29
405
Syntax

My congratulations for a well put up and laid out system. One can tell looking at the qulity of pictures the care that been put forth to arrive at such a system

I am in total agreement with the statement and wish I had the wordsmith skill of Gordon Holt, he has expressed in a clear fashion my personal positionon the notion of "preferences".
Let me repost it as the "preference" notion has been taken too far and is threatening the notion of High Fidelity where the pursuit is that of preference wtih systems costing the price of mansion, whose output routinely doesn't bear any resemblance (even to the most deeply ignorant of audiophile) to the sound of what they are purported to be reproducing. The idea of "preferences" and of whatever your wallet can conjure are very prevalent in the High End Audio these days and the results are to me very unfortunate .. in the absence of reference what is High End Audio then? Just High Price and apparent complexity?

Emphasis is mine ...
Audio actually used to have a goal: perfect reproduction of the sound of real music performed in a real space. That was found difficult to achieve, and it was abandoned when most music lovers, who almost never heard anything except amplified music anyway, forgot what "the real thing" had sounded like. Today, "good" sound is whatever one likes. As Art Dudley so succinctly said [in his January 2004 'Listening,' see "Letters," p.9], fidelity is irrelevant to music.
 

DDB

New Member
Mar 28, 2012
18
0
0
Frantz,
I couldn't agree more.
High Fidelity has been abandoned by most all so called "audiophiles" today.
Sad story, but maybe just a sign'o times....
D.
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
11,236
81
1,725
New York City
Frantz,
I couldn't agree more.
High Fidelity has been abandoned by most all so called "audiophiles" today.
Sad story, but maybe just a sign'o times....
D.

I think this kind of a non-story. Go back and read Edward Villchur's book written in the '50s where he bemoans the fact that not enough audiophiles attend live concerts. We're just as always, reinventing the wheel. Or Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

The problem is that we're going about changing people's behaviors using methods that date back to the prehistoric era and just don't work.
 
Last edited:

FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
6,455
29
405
I think this argument is old news. Go back and read Edward Villchur's book written in the '50s where he bemoans the fact that not enough audiophiles attend live concerts. We're just as always, reinventing the wheel. Or Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Myles

What wheel is being reinvented? It is a fact that is truer today than ever that fewer people attend to live music and many of these have an opinion and a strong one on proper sound reproduction. IN the meantime, more so than ever the notion of "preferences" is becoming more popular. It is not a matter of flavor, of what one likes... In the absence of a reference even one that is difficult to quantify or measure as music reproduction, how can there can a "best" or "better"? Music reproduction is not the same as its production and is very fa from entirely subjective endeavors such as wine where there can't be any no best or better, Wine Tasting is an entirely subjective area with no objective reality, regardless of what wine lovers would like to think. One can derive some characteristics some of them very objective about wine and declare those desirable or make of them a standard and that is ok. A music system either reproduce the signal that corresponds to a specific instrument or group of instruments or it doesn't. This can be measured to certain degree. We are not at a point where we know everything that must be measured but we do know a few ...
This is OT.. I'll drop it for now but to repeat myself in no time as today have we sen such a strong prevalence of the notion of preferences and it is not toward truer reproduction of sound , rather it is about a flavor, should we dare say favorite colorations?

I apologize to the OT but this IME needed a reply/rebuke.
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
11,236
81
1,725
New York City
Myles

What wheel is being reinvented? It is a fact that is truer today than ever that fewer people attend to live music and many of these have an opinion and a strong one on proper sound reproduction. IN the meantime, more so than ever the notion of "preferences" is becoming more popular. It is not a matter of flavor, of what one likes... In the absence of a reference even one that is difficult to quantify or measure as music reproduction, how can there can a "best" or "better"? Music reproduction is not the same as its production and is very fa from entirely subjective endeavors such as wine where there can't be any no best or better, Wine Tasting is an entirely subjective area with no objective reality, regardless of what wine lovers would like to think. One can derive some characteristics some of them very objective about wine and declare those desirable or make of them a standard and that is ok. A music system either reproduce the signal that corresponds to a specific instrument or group of instruments or it doesn't. This can be measured to certain degree. We are not at a point where we know everything that must be measured but we do know a few ...
This is OT.. I'll drop it for now but to repeat myself in no time as today have we sen such a strong prevalence of the notion of preferences and it is not toward truer reproduction of sound , rather it is about a flavor, should we dare say favorite colorations?

I apologize to the OT but this IME needed a reply/rebuke.

I only think the degree to which you feel it's an issue is because you're living in the present. Go back in time and accounting for there being less audiophiles, do you think the situation has changed? Not me.
 

Syntax

Well-Known Member
Feb 26, 2012
259
307
970
At The Dark Side


J. Gordon Holt: Since the only measure of sound quality is that the listener likes it, that has pretty well put an end to audio advancement, because different people rarely agree about sound quality. Abandoning the acoustical- instrument standard, and the mindless acceptance of voodoo science, were not parts of my original vision.”
John Atkinson: “As you were so committed to surround, do you feel that the commercial failures of DVD- Audio and SACD could have been avoided?”
J. Gordon Holt: “I doubt it. No audio product has ever succeeded because it was better, only because it was cheaper, smaller, or easier to use. Your generation of music lovers will probably be the last that even think about fidelity.”


 

DDB

New Member
Mar 28, 2012
18
0
0
I think this kind of a non-story. Go back and read Edward Villchur's book written in the '50s where he bemoans the fact that not enough audiophiles attend live concerts. We're just as always, reinventing the wheel. Or Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

The problem is that we're going about changing people's behaviors using methods that date back to the prehistoric era and just don't work.

Well, I remember the past vividly - and it wasn't always as it is now.
We do not have to go back as far as the 1950ies.
Let's go back to the days just before the Internet took over High End Audio.
MylesBAstor you will certainly agree that back in the late 1980ies we did care about fidelity when hunting down the shaded dogs and dark maroons following SM's latest article from the Record Vault.
Some ( most ) of us adjusted their VTA to be groove-compliant to the various cutting angles spread widely among the LSCs, SRs, SXLs, ASDs etc.
Fidelity was key.
I remember you were - back then - one of the very first US-audiophiles pointing at the sonic importance of high quality capacitors.
And rightly so.
High End audio in my opinion was much more serious and true to the original purpose than it is now.
Certainly not for all, but for a majority.
Today I just too often see/listen to set-ups, which may reflect taste and preferences of the respective owner, but hardly high fidelity in the sense that it does justice to the sound of the real thing.
Nothing wrong with this - after all it is about emotion and enjoyment of music - it is just that "high fidelity" may still be written on the flag, but it is no longer vowed for nor is it the center of attention.
 

NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
24,305
1,323
435
Vancouver Island, B.C. Canada
Fifty years ago, most acoustics from concert halls were very poor. Today we have some much better ones.

And forget it, 'bout music rock concerts and all those poor theaters or/& clubs where the sound is just a cacaphony of reverbs!

You can live in a place where there are no good places to serioulsy attend live music concerts with the right acoustics! So then you are slave to your own demise; at home trying to recreate it! :b
...But recreate the good ones (concert halls with the best acoustics).
And how would you know if you have never been there???

Audiophilia is a relative Living Presence; an interpretation, a brain recreation, a conjecture.
 

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing