Natural Sound

[Three quid]

Same old story. A bunch of secret tweaks discussed, promoted, and photo graphed, but when you ask about them you are directed to go directly to DDK.

Smart marketing Peter.

In other threads, there’s brief mention of some of ddk’s rca cables : belkin synapse (blue jacket), gepco, belden 1192, and maybe Gotham gac-4

 

[morricab]

If you say so. But...



This is a caricature. Things don't happen this way (if you set aside the 100€ Chi-fi designed to please the ASR crowd).

And you know how they happen because you are an engineer and/or scientist...or run an audio company?

 

[hopkins]

And you know how they happen because you are an engineer and/or scientist...or run an audio company?

I am not asking you for your resume, and frankly could not care less who you are. An online forum is meant to debate, not to pontificate.

Innovations takes many different forms, from small "incremental" improvements to sometimes more profound changes.

 

[morricab]

I am not asking you for your resume, and frankly could not care less who you are. An online forum is meant to debate, not to pontificate.

Innovations takes many different forms, from small "incremental" improvements to sometimes more profound changes.

Well, perhaps you should try your own advice and try debating rather than make uneducated flat pronouncements.

What have you innovated that I can take seriously your latest pronouncement regarding how innovation works? Or did you just read this somewhere?

 

[hopkins]

Well, perhaps you should try your own advice and try debating rather than make uneducated flat pronouncements.

What have you innovated that I can take seriously your latest pronouncement regarding how innovation works? Or did you just read this somewhere?

as a rule, i try not to waste time arguing with people on forums, and in this case I am not going to make an exception

If you feel offended by the name calling, read over your post number 7344

Post in thread 'Natural Sound'
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/natural-sound.32867/post-1096980

 

[bonzo75]

This debate never ends because audio subjective discussions relate to listener and there is no way to prove Lamm is better than other SET amplifiers.

I have seldom heard SET openers on EU prefer Lamm with higher efficiency speakers.

The ones from the US are solid state high power converts. David was Krell Apogee before discovering Lamm, Peter was Magico and then picked up Lamm from David, Tima was Wilson before picking up Lamm from David.

There are tons of other sets, quite a few would be local to whatever region people are in, the deification to justify a choice just shows lack of experience with other sets.

 

[Amir]

B

Amir,
A good hearing model will tell you statistically what most people would prefer, from a distortion perspective, and if that is then put into practice correctly with an amp design, it should guarantee that at least a fairly large number of people will find that amp excellent sounding. This is the case with Lamm, where most people who have heard the products think they are excellent sounding. It doesn't mean everyone will agree. Human psychology also guarantees that a good correlation might be 50-60% agreement to the model. That leaves room for a significant amount of naysayers. So, please don't compare this to the proof or absence of proof to the existence of God.

Finally, as a student of the philosophy of science (I was a chemistry major and philosophy minor in college...later Ph.D in Analytical Chemistry), Popper came up with the now adopted concept of hypothesis falsifiability. He didn't believe anything was provable...only falsifiable. You can have 1000 positive data points on a hypothesis and it only takes one negative to deem a hypothesis invalid. Nothing is ultimately provable but the best hypotheses are those that withstand efforts to invalidate them.

In his view, it wasn't science if you couldn't formulate a hypothesis that was testable and falsifiable. It doesn't mean the thing you espouse is necessarily false...it simply can't be explored by science. Human hearing and determining preference does not fall into that category, it is testable and at least potentially falsifiable.

Psychology is probably somewhere between science and non-science because there is a lack of precision in the test methods and responses that yield correlations, which at least by 'hard' science are weak, leave a lot of room for people to think differently than those that correlate well with the hypothesis or model.

So, what this means is that, if the story of Lamm using a model to design his amps is true, he was in a way kind of a pioneer in trying to merge the human psychology of hearing with circuits that deliver the best sound based on the model. This doesn't mean they will be universally hailed as the best ever but it does mean that they are likely to sound better than most to a large percentage of audiophiles.

Brad, Thank you for your reply.

I think the “human hearing system and human music listening experience” subject is very very complex so I doubt if Lamm or any other audio designer could introduce a complete model to design a perfect amplifier. I respect Lamm audio thinking and his theories but this subject is much more complex than finding better distortion pattern.
I believe sound and music are different subjects, many times I enjoyed music in my crap car stereo, my car amplifier not designed by lamm theory.

You know Romy is a big fan of old Lamm ML2 but he does not like ML2.1 model.
you and some others do not like sound of M1.2 hybrid amplifier and some prefer ML2 to ML3.

 

[Amir]

No, at best we can do statistically analysts of how many audiophiles Lamm and how man prefer other SET amplifiers.

I do not care about how many audiophiles prefer Lamm because most of them are not expert.
Check the market and you will see most audiophiles prefer more dead sounding speaker/amplifiers .

 

[Al M.]

I do not care about how many audiophiles prefer Lamm because most of them are not expert.
Check the market and you will see most audiophiles prefer more dead sounding speaker/amplifiers .

Ok, I understand: Someone is an "expert" if you say so and if they share your personal opinions and preferences.

 

[tima]

The ones from the US are solid state high power converts. David was Krell Apogee before discovering Lamm, Peter was Magico and then picked up Lamm from David, Tima was Wilson before picking up Lamm from David.

Not sure what you are saying here.
I bought my JBL speakers from David. I had Lamm hybrid before I knew David with Wilson then ran those on JBL.. I bought Lamm SET several months after the speakers but not from David.

 

[morricab]

B

Brad, Thank you for your reply.

I think the “human hearing system and human music listening experience” subject is very very complex so I doubt if Lamm or any other audio designer could introduce a complete model to design a perfect amplifier. I respect Lamm audio thinking and his theories but this subject is much more complex than finding better distortion pattern.
I believe sound and music are different subjects, many times I enjoyed music in my crap car stereo, my car amplifier not designed by lamm theory.

You know Romy is a big fan of old Lamm ML2 but he does not like ML2.1 model.
you and some others do not like sound of M1.2 hybrid amplifier and some prefer ML2 to ML3.

Well, no one said anything about perfect amplifiers. Models are by definition simplifications of reality but can be suitably close for good prediction.

Even if you had a perfect model, it wouldn’t be perfect for everyone because there will always be some percentage of people who don’t fit with the majority. And it might not be technically possible to design it, thus compromises are likely necessary, taking it away from the model ideal.

Also, downplaying the difficulty in getting an amplifier to sound perceptually pure is clearly non-trivial because otherwise there would be dozens or hundreds of amp brands out there sounding nearly the same.

Finally, music IS sound but sound isn’t necessarily music, so they are not equivalent or readily interchangeable. The sounds our systems make that aren’t music are what keeps them from achieving a high degree of realism.

 

[tima]

Do you want me to ask him for you so that you don’t have to contact him directly?

KDS

 

[PeterA]

KDS

Tim, I thought that affliction was banished from the pages of WBF a couple of years ago.

 

[tima]

Tim, I thought that affliction was banished from the pages of WBF a couple of years ago.

It came back after hiding on the moon.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

It is the essence of natural sound in this thread. We learn about great methods and tweaks, but never the complete information. Some skeletons in the closet around ...

don't pay any attention to that man behind the curtain.

 

[bonzo75]

Not sure what you are saying here.
I bought my JBL speakers from David. I had Lamm hybrid before I knew David with Wilson then ran those on JBL.. I bought Lamm SET several months after the speakers but not from David.

Yes there was no SETs experience. By picked up I didn’t mean bought, I meant picked up the idea/influence of the amp. If you went through as many sets as you did cartridges and rolled tubes etc on different efficient speakers you might have a different experience

 

[tima]

Yes there was no SETs experience. By picked up I didn’t mean bought, I meant picked up the idea/influence of the amp. If you went through as many sets as you did cartridges and rolled tubes etc on different efficient speakers you might have a different experience

Yes, I would have had a different experience. I wasn't up for an exhaustive hunt for both amp and speaker combination. I'm inclined to choose the amp first. I was fairly set on the SET I wanted as witnessed by my thread from 2018:

Best contemporary speaker under $100k for Lamm ML2.x type amplifiers?

If I owned Lamm ML2 or ML.2.2 amplifiers what's a satisfying full range speaker under $50k and under $100k. (please, no subwoofers). Speaker should be available new with excellent manufacturer support. TIA

www.whatsbestforum.com

And I have a strong preference for gear from my home country to avoid shipping overseas for repair. The awareness of SETs in the US has increased significantly in the last nn years.

 

[bonzo75]

Yes, I would have had a different experience. I wasn't up for an exhaustive hunt for both amp and speaker combination. I'm inclined to choose the amp first. I was fairly set on the SET I wanted as witnessed by my thread from 2018:

Best contemporary speaker under $100k for Lamm ML2.x type amplifiers?

If I owned Lamm ML2 or ML.2.2 amplifiers what's a satisfying full range speaker under $50k and under $100k. (please, no subwoofers). Speaker should be available new with excellent manufacturer support. TIA

www.whatsbestforum.com

And I have a strong preference for gear from my home country to avoid shipping overseas for repair. The awareness of SETs in the US has increased significantly in the last nn years.

There are lots of SETs in the US, just not on the standard forums which have lot of Wilson Magico type history.

I understand local country for price and maintenance, but Lamm has maintenance/failures reported quite frequently

I wouldn’t choose the amp first unless I had been through a lot of similar amps. Also with amp first philosophy, trips of amp and brand of amp are quite different things

Either way, my point was on deification.

 

[tima]

I understand local country for price and maintenance, but Lamm has maintenance/failures reported quite frequently

Okay but that's not a reason to buy from overseas.

I've had the M1.2 for over ten years now and chose to stay with Lamm for SET. (I understand you don't care for it but it works for me.) I could have done something different but I'm actually quite satisfied with the choices I've made with no interest in changing directions. I do wish I'd bought a second ML2 to bi-amp while the company was still in production. Nowadays all the ML2 versions are very scarce on the used market.

 

[bonzo75]

Okay but that's not a reason to buy from overseas.

I've had the M1.2 for over ten years now and chose to stay with Lamm for SET. (I understand you don't care for it but it works for me.) I could have done something different but I'm actually quite satisfied with the choices I've made with no interest in changing directions. I do wish I'd bought a second ML2 to bi-amp while the company was still in production. Nowadays all the ML2 versions are very scarce on the used market.

I can understand ML2 and ML3 being a strong reason to try the hybrid, but not the other way round