General Asylum: REVIEW: Lavardin Technologies Model IS Integrated Amplifier (SS) by Joel

Model:	Model IS
Category:	Integrated Amplifier (SS)
Suggested Retail Price:	$1800
Description:	Evaluation of the Lavardin Model IS (Warning: long!)
Manufacturer URL:	Lavardin Technologies
Model Picture:	View

Review by Joel_Waterman on October 02, 2001 at 08:32:45
IP Address: 194.196.100.99

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for the Model IS

Not a review?
-------------
Finally I have been able to fulfill a promise I made on this forum a
while ago and that's to review a Lavardin amplifier. But this is not a
'review'. And let me tell you why. A review implies a lot of things
that I have not applied to this exercise. It implies proper level
matching, a fair amount of reference experience, long term use, a conclusion, a recommendation and the necessary technical expertise to make a judgment. I have none of the above, and I therefore would rather
characterize this post a personal observation of the Lavardin Model IS
integrated amplifier, in my system (which is based around a
non-commercially available amplifier, but more about that later), and in
my room.
At this point you can do two things: 1) skip my ramblings and go
straight to the Summary at the end to get my opinion, or 2) take a glass
of wine or two, turn on the music and read on.
With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy reading about my experience
with this amplifier. The amp has been in my system for two days and one
evening. It was on loan from Point d'Orgue, a high end audio dealer in
Paris (8th arrondissement) who was kind enough to lend it to me knowing
full well that I had no intention of buying at this moment in time.
This type of service is typical there.
Some background
---------------
Before I spoke to the owner of Point d'Orgue I had never heard of
Lavardin, and I guess maybe many of you have a similar response upon
hearing that name. I also never really considered going the integrated
route. Lavardin claims to have cracked the mystery of tube-sound
and how to mesh that into solid state amps. There are others who
claim similar things in this industry. Lavardin seems fairly adamant
that they've got it right and the others don't. For all the technical
and marketing reason's why, you should check them out at
www.lavardin.com (all in English btw). The Model IS has been introduced
in 1998. It's got a bigger brother - the Model IT - at well over twice the price. The Model IS retails for about US $1800 here in France. I have heard people question whether the IT sounds twice as good as the IS. According to those people the IS is pretty damn close, perhaps too close. I cannot judge that, as I only heard the IS.
When I was handed the Lavardin I almost dropped it, it was so light
weight. Great start, I remember thinking. The unit weighs in at about
6kg (+/- 12 lbs). Outwardly, it's a simple design, with only two big
machined aluminum knobs, one for volume and one for source selection.
The volume rotates smoothly and has this nicely weighted feel to it
without being heavy. It does not indicated volume steps. The black
anodized aluminum face plate sports the Lavardin name and model in
neatly engraved white letters. A very understated design that is well
executed. For this money I would have expected better binding posts
though and I did not expect to see those cheap rubber feet. My 200
dollar CD player has better feet. I do understand that the amp I had
was not the latest production run, so these things may have changed on
a 2001 model IS. The RCA connectors are of the better, gold plated variety. There are four inputs. The amp is said to deliver 2x30 Watts RMS, into 8 Ohms. There is no remote on this particcular model.
My system
---------
Before we dive into the music, I have to tell you a little about the
circumstances under which my listening took place. My system consists
out of a Harmon Kardon FL8300 CD Changer. Don't panic, I only use it as
a transport. I have an MSB Link III "Full Nelson" DAC, plus P1000 power
supply and Monarchy 24/96 DIP (Mark 2) to help out on the digital side.
My pre-amp is a Rotel RC971. My amp is another story. It's a VRAA (Van
Ravesteyn Audio Art). It's a WHAT!? I hear you ask. It's a fully
symmetrical, solid state, push/pull design. It should measure 60Watts
into 8Ohms and 170W into 2Ohms. I really wouldn't know because I have
never measured it. A friend of mine from Holland built two, one for me
and one for himself. He is a micro-electronics expert. He was very
picky about parts selection and measured and matched practically
everything. To my ears its sounds pretty good.
But this is also where my and your problem starts. I have no other
reference experience than this amp. Well, not entirely true. I know
what the Quad 33/303 combination sounds like, as that was my old system
for many years. But that's a fairly long time ago and you can't really
compare equipment from the 60's to modern stuff. So I cannot compare
against anything that is currently for sale. Plus my only experience
with tubes is a pleasant 40 minutes with the Red Rose Music Model 5
Integrated/R3 Speaker combination. I basically don't know what a tube
amp sounds like, and that makes it more difficult for me to assess
Lavardin's claims about their amps. That's why I started this post the
way I did.
So think of this as a personal observation. Take it for what it's
worth. For me this was very exciting as it was the first time I stacked
the VRAA against a modern, professionally designed amplifier.
The speakers are full range, two way floor standing speakers. They are
transmission line speakers, made by a small Dutch company called
AudioPulse. When I bought these speakers the company was called
Impulse!. I don't know whether they still exist. They don't seem to
have a website, or if they have I can't find it.
My room is rather small and it's not treated at all. The only thing I
have done is to spread a big rug on the wooden floor between me and my
speakers. I listen in the nearfield. It's not very well damped, but
hey, I've got a dedicated listening room....sort of. I share it with
the cat's litter box (don't ask). Cables are by Hifi Cables & Cie -
perhaps best described as the Parisian equivalent of DH Labs (see
www.hifi-cables.com). They make high quality, PTFE teflon based cables
at attractive prices. I use their Horus cables, the Puretrans speaker
cables (bridged - my speakers are ready for bi-wiring but I was advised
against it by HiFi Cables. Entirely different debate. Let's not go
there.) and the 'Anubis' digital interconnect with isolation transformer
(pretty cool).
So, what does it sound like?
----------------------------
If you're still with me your wine is probably too good, but thanks
anyway. Let's look at my listening process. I think I have spent a
good 15 hours with the amp, over two days and two evenings. Some of it with careful A/B listening. Some of it with A/B/A comparisons and than some
hours just casual listening without taking notes. I think I have the
measure of its sound, but again this can hardly be called long term
usage.
First things first. Disc selection. A full list with reference numbers
you'll see below. The first thing I played was 'The School For Scandal
Overture, Op. 5' from a Naxos disc by Samuel Barber, an American
composer of the modern, but romantic school I guess. Immediately I
heard a bigger extension than I was used to and a broader soundstage. The amp placed me at the 10th row, versus my usual perspective that is a little
further away. To my relief :-) I also felt that although clearly
better, the Lavardin did not put the VRAA to shame. More about that
later.
I followed that with Private Investigations from the remastered Dire
Straits album Love over Gold. This disc presented me with a nice deep
soundstage, fast transient attacks from the solo guitar. Very
involving sound in my opinion. It let me hear deep into the music. The
Lavardin packed quite a punch with the drums at the end of the track.
After that I spun two audiophile gems; Carmen Lundy singing 'round
midnight' on the JVC XRCD sampler and Keith Jarret's "The Koln
Concerts" on EMC, a Japanese import. You gotta check this one out!
It's one of those discs that is packaged like a miniature version of the
original LP, with inner sleeve and all. My wife, not an audiophile by
any stretch of the imagination, came rushing in from the other room,
astounded by the clarity and life-like piano emanating from the
listening room. I cherished this small but significant audiophile
triumph as you can imagine. He he! Both of these audiophile discs were beautifully rendered with a wide and big soundstage and lots of air. Before switching to another classical Naxos disc, I played the Rainmaker from Keb' Mo's "Slow Down'. Great coherence in the presentation and I got
nice midbass from this track.
Next up was Prokofiev. This is on the HP Super CD list, so a worthy
test. I decided to play part of this disc at lower volumes to check how
the amplifier coped. Checking my notes, I wrote "nice presentation,
with subtle microdynamics, such as plucked strings that are clearly audible".
The overall perspective is somewhat laid-back as the music appears
slightly behind the speakers. This by the way, was consistent
throughout my listening process, independent of the volume setting, so I
guess the amplifier is like that. At lower volumes the treble still
sounded natural, but not with huge amounts of energy. Again, something
that I found was consistent. Very nice treble, but not of the high
energy variety perhaps.
Treble, bass and midrange
-------------------------
Time to turn the volume up for the solo violin tracks. I wanted to
check that treble extension. Well, I could literally 'see' the
contours of the violin. "Great treble!' I wrote in my notes.
"Effortless", "an impression of ease", and "the amp never sounded strained". There was a good sense of 'space' around the instrument.
A few clues as to its sound started to emerge. The amplifier sounded
very 'natural' to me. Meaning that voice and instruments had the right
coloration and tone. Brass sounded brassy and not metallic for example,
but I'll get to that. And the midrange seemed to emerge as a strong
point in this amp. Is this perhaps due to the 'tubiness' Lavardin talks
about - actually 'shouts about', their website can hardly be called
modest in its claims. To investigate the bass, treble and the midrange
further I spun Patricia Barber's Companion. There are two tracks on
that disc that are interesting in this respect. Track 2 has this
incredible double bass intro and track 5 is a veritable torture test for treble/sibilance issues. I am beginning to think that there is something wrong with the recording here, because on this otherwise very well recorded performance the sibilance problem really stands out on track 5. With the VRAA it's almost unlistenable. The Lavardin coped slightly better, but on words like "trash" it still made me wince - check 1m.51s into track 5. Also the room gave up before the amp as the treble seemed to really distort badly into the corners of the ceiling. However, there is a cacophony of sounds at the beginning of this track which was presented very well by the Lavardin. Lot's of space and clear sounding treble. The bass lines on the intro to track 2 were also dealt with in an impressive way. Full bodied bass, I wrote in the notes, clearly audible plucked strings, but maybe not as 'fast' as it should be?
Further evidence of midrange success came from Diana Krall on her Love
Scenes CD. Again referring back to my notes ... 'a very life-like
presentation, with Diana standing clearly in between the speakers' I
wrote. This prompted me to a quick switch to the VRAA to confirm my
impressions and recall whether my memory of the VRAA's imaging was
correct here. She was still there, but there was less sense of
extension (headroom) and the image collapsed a little. It still sounded very good mind you. But the high registers became a little harder, the
presentation a little leaner. I am wondering, have I heard the evidence
of tube influence here? Again, I don't know. Switching back to the
Lavardin confirmed these observations.
A/B/A on K/O/B
--------------
The following session consisted out of an A/B/A comparison (A=Lavardin)
in order to see whether I could eek out some more characteristics. The
Lavardin was beginning to reveal its sound by now and I wanted to
confirm a few impressions, as well as dive deeper into the difference
with the VRAA. I decided to use Kind of Blue, the remastered version.
I wanted to use an older recording that was still rendered fairly well on CD. Aptly, I started with "So What" on the Lavardin. The CD starts with
obvious tape hiss. The Lavardin stored that just above the left speaker
in a well defined space. The VRAA mixed it a little more into the left
hand side of soundstage. This maybe a strange detail, but it was very
obvious at the time. The KOB disc has a very definite instrument
presentation. The drums were consistently to be 'seen' on the left,
inside speaker. The bass was centered and the piano came out of the
right speaker. On track 2 Miles himself showed up dead center, hanging
nicely in mid air on the Lavardin. Alto sax was dead left, tenor right
and a little forward in its presentation. Overall I heard a grain free
sound that was very airy. The tenor sax was especially clean on track 2
'Freddy Freeloader'.
Comparing this to the VRAA and I noticed a treble that was a little
harder, with some metallic overtones. The Lavardin was more natural in
its presentation of the sax - more brassy, less metal mixed in. I have
to note once more that the VRAA was not left behind that much. These
differences were in the details, but they are important in that they
involve you more into what's happening. The soundstage was less deep
and the separation of the instruments was there but less spaced.
Another thing I missed were microdynamic clues. The clearly audible
breathing on 'Freddy Freeloader' disappeared. With the VRAA I also had
to resist the temptation to turn down the music just a notch. On this
particular recording I had the feeling that the VRAA rendered the bass more
strongly than the Lavardin. The base line was less clearly articulated
on the Lavardin. I think of this instance as recording related and not
as an observation I consistently heard with the Lavardin.
Rendez-vous
-----------
Being in France, and this being my first encounter with the Lavardin, I
thought it would be appropriate to close the formal listening process
with the excellent John Atkinson recorded 'Rendezvous' disc by Jerome
Harris and crew. In another A/B/A session I noticed that I could not
come up with any new characteristics. I think I got the sound down
allright by now. The Lavardin was excellent in the midrange. The blattiness of the sax on 'The mooch' was rendered very well, without metallic overtones. And I could clearly follow the base line underpinning the band. The soundstage was there, with clear placement although I think there are probably amps that can do better. But on the other hand this could be my room, my speakers etc .etc., you get the picture.
Casual Listening
----------------
Most of the analytical listening was done on Saturday evening and
Sunday. Monday night I used for casual listening. No note taking, just
enjoying the music and re-confirming my overall impression. The
Lavardin is a very enjoyable amp.
Summary
-------
The Lavardin is a beautifully balanced, natural sounding amplifier in my
opinion. By that I mean it's true to the musical instruments it presents. It does not seem to introduce too many attributes the instruments don't have. It's balanced because there is no obvious strong point. And there is also no obvious weak point that I noticed. The presentation is somewhat laid-back in perspective. Independent of the volume it projects the
music slightly behind the speakers. This, in my view is a good thing. With
its ability to display lots of microdynamics clues, it draws you into the music. I did not get an enormously wide soundstage, but in all honestly I cannot pin that on the Lavardin. Too many other variables at work here. There is an impression of ease and lots of headroom when listening to this
amplifier. It's 'fast' enough I think, it's certainly what one may call
'dynamic'. But the word 'fast' was not the first thing that comes to my
mind when talking about this amp. It's very good in displaying microdynamics, even in orchestral passages. As I said, it draws you nicely into the music like that. The midrange is a strong point. 'Non-fatiguing sound' I also wrote several times in my notes.
Could one distill from all of this that Lavardin's claim about meshing
"tube smoothness with solid state muscle" holds true? Once more, I am
the wrong person to answer that question because of my lack of
experience with tubes - among other things. It did, once and for all, cure me from my prejudice against integrated amplifiers.
The VRAA was not left in the dust by the Lavardin, although the latter
was the better product. Would I like to buy this amp? Yes and No.
No, because IMO there is too little improvement versus my current system to
justify the expense. And I would like to expand my reference experience
to integrateds from Musical Fidelity, Creek and Plinius for example.
Yes, because I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Lavardin. Compared
to my own reference, it sounded more......musical?
And it would probably offer me more potential for growth as I upgrade
speakers, spikes, cables, and do more room treatment, and replace my CDP
with a real transport...and..... As Frank Zappa said, "...the torture
never stops"... :-)
Music played throughout my formal listening session:
----------------------------------------------------
Prokofiev, 'Violin Concertos No 1 and 2', on Naxos 8.553494
Samuel Barber, 'Orchestral Works - Vol. 1', on Naxos 8.559024
Dire Straits, 'Love over Gold', on WEA Warner Bros (Remastered)
JVC 'Various Artists - XRCD Sampler, on JVC
Keith Jarrett, 'the Koln Concerts' on EMC
Keb' Mo, 'Slow Down' on Sony
Pat Barber, 'Companion' on EMD/Blue Notes/Premonition
Diana Krall, 'Love Scenes', on Impulse
Miles Davis, 'Kind of Blue', on Columbia (Remastered)
Jerome Harris Quintet, 'Rendezvous', Stereophile

Product Weakness: None obvious
Product Strengths: Dynamics, natural sound, balance

Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier:	See above
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	None
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	See above
Speakers:	See above
Cables/Interconnects:	See above
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	See above
Room Size (LxWxH):	12 x 12 x 9
Room Comments/Treatments:	See above
Time Period/Length of Audition:	See above
Other (Power Conditioner etc.):	AxSon FPS500
Type of Audition/Review:	Home Audition
Your System (if other than home audition):	n/a

Product Weakness:	None obvious
Product Strengths:	Dynamics, natural sound, balance