When I was at CES a few years ago I had the pleasure of visiting the Lamm Industries room. The system was a pair of Wilson Watt Puppy 8s driven by the ML 2.1 monoblocks. I d heard the track from Stevie Ray Vaughan hundreds of times before .. but what I listened to that day was unlike anything Id ever come across in any hi-end audio system.
To put it succinctly it was the most "organic" sounding system I had ever heard. It went beyond hi-fi and to a place where the music and the performance sounded live, real, right there in front of me I'd heard Lamm solid state amps previously and although I liked them, this went beyond the simple Lamm house sound. I left the room convinced that these amps were the missing piece in my system.
So I went about the research (and hand wringing) most audiophiles do when they are searching for the perfect match for their system. In my case unlike the venerable WP8s the Sophias needed more power than the ML 2.1s brought to the table. In my system those watts were delivered courtesy of the Lamm ML 1.1s.
It was a perfect fit. The organic sound that I wanted and the extra power I needed. When they arrived my wife's only comment was they better sound good cause that's a face only a mother could love... I assured her they would (to her credit she admitted after a little listening that they were indeed magical).
The end result has been wonderful, it has all the qualities I'd heard and fell in love with at CES. The combination with my Gen VIII and Sohias has left me a happy camper.
The addition of a new power supply from Channel Islands Audio completely transformed the piece. What an incredible bang for the buck. I use the digital out directly into my Theta Gen VIII
System edited: Over the last few years I lost my listening room and gained a few kids, the hobby went on hold until recently when my system found a new life sharing space with my home theater.
System edited: ----- System updated ---- The wonderful ARC integrated has been replaced with the awesome and very smooth X1 and the EAD Powermaster 2300. Can you ever have too much power...... I dont think so.....
Dmurfet, my speakers are about sixty inches from the back wall to the front of the speaker and thirty seven inches from the side wall. I've played around a bit with the positioning and I think this is the best they've ever sounded. I had them a bit closer together and to the back wall but started moving them around after reading the speaker placement articles on the Cardas website. Once in the new positions the bass was tighter and the whole system came into better focus. I still have some changes I'd like to make to the acoustic treatment in the room which will no doubt necessitate more shuffling around later
The cables are awesome. After installing them it took about ten seconds for my wife to say "hey honey you have your bass back"...
If your budget allows it go with the Ultra or Reference MM series, the bass will be more accurate than the super (not the only improvement of course). As you can see from the posting above I took my cables over to Rhyno for a test drive and he now owns a pair of Ultra MM. Im afraid to have him come over with the Ultra cables; I know the result will be an immediate and unquenchable desire to upgrade.
My only advice to you if you decide to take the plunge is stick to the MM series (newest series). I've owned super, ultra and reference of the old series (with and without XL technology) and the new stuff is a HUGE improvement over all of it.
By the way in an attempt to try new things I went through MIT, PS Audio and various other cables before I went back to what I have now. Everyone has their preferences I suppose and I know Ive found mine.
The room treatments made a huge difference and yes I did roll my own. I created a four inch deep frame into which I put Auralex panels. The whole thing was covered in acoustically transparent cloth and has a backing that allows me to hang them flush. It was a fun project I undertook more as an excuse to play with some new power tools I received for Christmas. It turned out making an amazing difference on my listening experience. The soundstage is wider, deeper and it helped deal with my almost square room reflections. I would recommend room treatments to anyone.
Rhyno I tried PSAudio, Transparent, MIT, AudioQuest, Monster, Kimber, Tara Labs... etc. Overall the two that I preferred were the MIT and the Transparent. Those two were the most pleasing to my ear and with the combination of equipment that I had. After mixing and matching (I went through Transparent Plus, Super, Ultra and Reference all with XL and I went through Super and Ultra with MM) the one thing I can say is that the best combinations I found were always matched versions of speaker cables and interconnects (at least in the Transparent and MIT lines). The two cables tend to complement each other and give the best results. For example I recently tried Ultra XL with my Super MM and the results were not as good as going all Super MM thought.
I would buy the MM series if I could find it and start with a matched set. The one big plus of Transparent is that theres always a market out there in case you decide its not for you. I would love to hear the Wavac they are puurrttyy....
Since you are close maybe I can bring it over and you can check it out (I also have some older MIT speaker cables you may want to check out just for fun).
Carlos I purchased the VSi55 used so unfortunately I can't answer your question. I know that the manual says as tubes get older you start to loose some detail and the sound gets flat but that's all I can tell you.
The two things that really affected the way the VSi55 sounded in my setup was putting it on the PS Audio and the change of speaker and interconnects to Transparent MM. The change to the PS Audio really brought out the highs particularly horns. The change to the Transparent made the bass hit like my previous ARC 200 WPC (which is amazing for a 50 WPC piece).
Rhyno - Thanks for the complement. Ive tried to keep the system as simple and clean as possible. The MIT cable is from my old system but I will be looking to replace the interconnects and speaker cable with either the newer MIT version with adjustable impedance networks or Transparent cable for both the interconnects and speaker cable.
Kleech --- I haven't tried an ARC CD player but I have owned their amps before (the last ARC CD player I heard was years ago and it was a nice piece). I think it's likely that Im going to replace the intergrated with a two piece ARC setup. The LS25 MKII is a likely candidate and so is one of their 100-200 watt amps. I've only had to call audio manufacturers a few times in my life but the people at ARC have always been incredibly knowledgeable, helpful and polite so they have a customer for life. I think in terms of digital I am likely to go to a Meridian DVD/CD player so I can add a nice plasma TV to the top of that rack (that wont be anytime soon).
