Amp/Preamp Asylum: REVIEW: Lamm Industries ML2.1 Amplifier (Tube) by Stitch

Model:	ML2.1
Category:	Amplifier (Tube)
Suggested Retail Price:	$29920
Description:	SINGLE-ENDED VACUUM TUBE POWER AMPLIFIER
Manufacturer URL:	Lamm Industries
Model Picture:	View

Review by Stitch on June 19, 2011 at 13:17:43
IP Address: 84.156.44.243 Add Your Review
for the ML2.1

The Return Of The Jedi

Well, what are the right words to begin with?

In a way it is so special in our modern world, where endless high powered amplifiers are available, and that one has 18 Watts „only“?
Well, probably these 18 Watts sound better, more true, more real than all others? Maybe.
In the last 20 years I made the experience, that a speakers should be always paired with the right amplifier (or the other way). Most Audiophiles buy the amp or the speakers of their dreams and invest lots of time to match them. Sometimes successfully, but sometimes it can be frustrating, too.
I read some owner commentents and it seems, this ML2.1 can drive a lot of speakers, some of them use Wilson, Avantgarde ... myself I use a 99.5dB Design with a very simple X-over, life is easy you know..
This ML2.1 amplifier is designed around the large Russian 6C33C-B dual-triode vacuum tube. That one is a robust high power, low internal impedance tube, making it possible to design output transformers with very low turn ratio. Such transformer design permit very extended frequency decade factors at both extremes as well as a dramatic reduction in leakage inductance. The result is a natural sound reproduction, not only in the midrange (where triodes rule) but also in the low and high frequencies (a traditional weakness of triode designs). In a way it is unique, nothing else sounds like that „piece of electronics“. It‘s the real thing, it has no weaks. A lot of other designs can create some magic here and there, but at the end of day, they aren‘t complete in their tonal spectrum. Some say „the magic is in the first watt“, or „ all the magic is in the midrange only“. Breathing a spark of harmonic life into instrumental outlines is part of the magic of a outstanding design, and derives from that first watt of power—it propels the harmonic envelope to full bloom. The dynamic microcosm lives or dies by that first watt, and the ML2.1 amplifier possess the purest initial burst of power that anyone has yet to hear.
It is true, the magic is in the first Watt, and also in the following ones, midrange only is waste of time, a justification for an average design. The ML2.1 is made for one purpose only:
The bring the real thing into your home (when the rest of your System is ready for that...).

This is the kind of „sound“ which makes you sit up straight to listen and to feel very small sound impulses come through in the right way. When I have some visitors in my room and I play some classical music, after a while they breathe in the rythm of the musical swings. The listener gets into the presentation, he is inside - or a part of- it. This amp drives the whole audible spectrum with authority, speed and transparency.
The reader is confronted monthly with the sonic revolution of something, every word as description was written countless times... naturalnees, invisibility ... and when you go to listen to the unit(s), you think: Huh, did the reviewer dream? (yes) Did he ever listen to it? (No). Did he smoke something? (Probably). When you are clever, you‘ll visit the „reviewer“, but be prepared...my experience from 15 years, most write about „something“ they can‘t hear with their stuff. It is simply too bad.

Back to reality. When the right speaker is connected, the ML2.1 is a full range Tube amp, loading the room with the right, realistic Bass content combined with the right Balance which is really on the record and not only a part of it we will find so often. With the music of Gounod- Faust, Bizet-Carmen (LSC-2449) - for example - you hear uncompressed music from a time long ago, where those engineers were captured in the sound of dynamics in combination with extraordinary stage depth and image specificity among the different instruments. The ML2.1 gets it all, with vivid colors and tremendous musicality. Melodies reproduced naturally, with believable Details propelling the whole of the score. The most startling quality of the ML2.1 sound, which grabbed me at the very first listening session, is its immediacy. The music seems simply to be there, transmitted directly from the artists to the ear. I could analyze the elements of that immediacy -- principally a combination of excellent transient rise and settling speed and extraordinary tonal neutrality -- but it seems a prosaic response to the sheer sonic poetry of the experience.

Another interesting Detail is the Balance of this amp. Female singers and violins for example, sound as pitch-perfect and true as male voices and cellos. The same is true for different musical genres, there is always the toanl time difference between the different frequencies. Every record will guide the listener in a new sonic experience, it never gets boring. When you listen to one of those older classic records which was recorded in one of those European Concert Halls, you will hear the echoes which are reflected from the side walls, the impression of tonal truth is something total different compared to Digital recordings. Don‘t get me wrong, the Sound of the ML2.1 is like a Schubert piano trio: logical, perfect, well balanced, apparently immortal and glowing with with beauty of the truthful sort. The sound is like poetry at its best, it contains as much meaning as the notes / words themselves and every performance is shot trough with the kind of random beauty which serves the fascination to listen to the same record again and again.

Listening to music can be either a passive or an active experience. The vast majority of the public never actively listens to music, just passively in the car, or while working out, so
fidelity isn't really important to them. Actively listening to music requires that you actually stop doing other things, and just sit and listen to the music. I don't care if they choose to use velvety sounding tubes or bright, upfront Krells. If you want your system to sound biting, forward, and aggressive, hook up a pair of horns to some Krell/Levinson amplifiers, it is that simple. Why should I put up with ear bleeding brightness because he says thats what "high-fidelity" is supposed to be? If I'm going to spend a ton of cash on a stereo, I want it to be enjoyable to listen to (even with some less than great recordings) not tear my head off. If that makes me "part of the problem" so be it. 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. Normally there is no hope today. Normally...

DESCRIPTION
Tubed, monoblock power amplifier.
Tube complement: one each 12AX7, 6N6P, 6AK5, 5651; two 6C33C-B.
Output power: 18Wpc into 4, 8, or 16 ohms at no more than 3% THD (dBW).
Input impedance: 41k ohms in parallel with 470pF.
Input sensitivity: 775mV for maximum output.
DIMENSIONS 16" W by 9" H by 20" D.
Weight: 70 lbs each.

I use my ML2.1 for 2,5 years now, they are very reliable and I still use the first Set of Tubes, only exception is the cheap 6N6P, this one I replace every year.

Product Weakness:	None
Product Strengths:	Excellent Sound

Associated Equipment for this Review:

Amplifier: Pass Aleph 0
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): Lamm L2R
Sources (CDP/Turntable): Basis Debut Vac.
Speakers: Reference 3A
Cables/Interconnects: Audioquest Sky / Leopard
Music Used (Genre/Selections): Decca / Mercury Living Presence / RCA Living Stereo
Room Comments/Treatments: Done
Time Period/Length of Audition: 2½ Years
Type of Audition/Review: Home Audition

Amplifier:	Pass Aleph 0
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Lamm L2R
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Basis Debut Vac.
Speakers:	Reference 3A
Cables/Interconnects:	Audioquest Sky / Leopard
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Decca / Mercury Living Presence / RCA Living Stereo
Room Comments/Treatments:	Done
Time Period/Length of Audition:	2½ Years
Type of Audition/Review:	Home Audition