by Michael

The Listener: The most important component. Part I.

The most awesomest, bestest component EVERRRR … is the one most of us can find on top of our spinal column.

I was at a local Blockbuster, which is going out of business… again. And they were playing “I Want My MTV” by the Dire Straits. The POS(r) speakers built into some kind of TV were behind a pile of something or another, and it was hard to hear just what the words were.

Our Believability Helper Processor

So what did I do? I sang the words [no. no. NO. NOT out load. Silently. In my head :-)] filling in the blanks. We also sing the *music* in our heads, filling in those blanks. The blanks where the bass should be. Where the harmonic color of the guitar should be. The corrected decays for all the notes.

It came to me then that this happens a awful lot when we hear only snippets of music, or when we hear not-so-perfectly rendered music from, say, a stereo system.

This component, this Believability Helper Processor feature of this awesome component most of us have, does this ‘filling in’ for all systems at all sorts of levels. Systems with all sorts of intrinsic and relative qualities – the great and the not so great. Even on the best systems we might fill in the music with a little more lushness, add a little more slam to the bass., add a little more emotion to the voice, a little more color to the brass section.

Our Whiteout Processor

Sometimes the music has offensive sounding things in it. We like it enough to continue to listen to it, but some parts we would just rather not hear. For example, a cover of, say, a Beatles song might put in some distortion at some places in the music that just seems gratuitous and stupid. Our Whiteout Processor helps us ignore this part of the song, and as long as we do not focus too much on it… it just isn’t part of the song for us [or is at least significantly minimized].

Of course, more common examples abound: anytime the treble is bright, or the bass linger too long, or the singer sings off key [and not on purpose, which seems to be fashionable at times]. I often have to tune out somebody whacking the side of a drum as is so popular on some hip-hop, and symbols. Symbols in general as the clash clash clash I find sometimes drowns out the melody and the musicians who are actually, you know, playing the song.

Our Rainbow Processor

Sometimes we get ambitious and our Rainbow Processor helps makes things sound better than they ever could have possibly sounded. We add a ton more slam to the drum solo at the beginning of “I Want My MTV”. There are no windows left unbroken in the listening room. Perhaps we add a little more lewdness to “money for nuthin and chicks for free”. We add harmonics with more color than Timothy Leary saw when looking at a Dr. Who scarf.

I think those are the most common Processors we bring to the party when we process music and information in general.

A lot of learning how to really listen has to do with learning how to turn these internal Processors off – and just HEAR what is really happening. [A lot of learning how not to be a Sheeple also has to do with turning these puppies off when we, say, listen to the news].

And a lot of learning to explore the music-human interface has to do with learning how to manipulate these Processors for our own benefit.

For example, a glass of wine [or three. Or if you prefer, a toke or three] modifies these Processors of ours [or makes us want to or be finally willing to modify them ourselves] and you can just see the knobs being turned up a little bit on all 3 of these Mental Processors as the Tipsy Listener listens.

But what about when you want to go beyond this kind of passive mental manipulation of what you hear. What if you want to enjoy music itself as a drug [without chemical or medicinal assistance]?

[continued in part II]

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Sounding Off 0 comments
 by Michael

Tube-bias? Me? I say thee nay.

Well. Maybe a little bit.

I do tend to favor the underdog. Or whatever alternative there is to the choice the obnoxious people are being… you know… obnoxious about.

The Better Technology

But, like I said in a recent post – I really would prefer it if solid-state was better than tubes, CDs better than LPs, streaming music better than CDs, that everything was better than reel-to-reel [what a pain in the tush], but it just ain’t so. In fact, it is a truism that, in the vast majority of cases, the opposite is true.

I want these newer technologies to be better because, like many people, I like convenience. I like simplicity. I like reliability. I like as wide a selection of music as possible.

This is not to say that you can’t find various components that violate this general truism of what technology is better.

For example, if you pick up a used Edge NL10 solid-state amp for around $3K [ 🙂 Neli has lots of guys who have done this ], which was going for $15K or so new before Edge started changing owners; and which would probably go for $30K – $35K in today’s inflated marketplace, then this is going to beat most tube amps anywhere near this price for most systems.

Similarly, some manufacturers try and keep their prices reasonable, and some don’t, and for some [and this seems to be the trend] the reasonability is different for different models, and is set on a model-by-model basis. So, depending of the reasonability of the price of the particular model of, say, a solid-state amp and the unreasonbility of the tube-based competition, for example, you can again upset the truism that tube amplifiers provide a better sound, per dollar, than solid-state [for audiophiles who care about the sound. I would think ordinary folk would prefer solid-state no matter what the vast majority of the time].

But back to the list of the what technology is better: Note that in this list:

1. The Better Technology, at a given price point, is more forgiving. It fails nicely. Like when, say, you can only afford a very inexpensive version of something. Using the better technology the component will err on the side of by being overly musical, the lesser technology will err on the side of by being overly harsh and unpleasant.

For example, a $1000 tube amp will be most likely be, when not perfect, overly lush, or too warm harmonically, or, at worst: dull-sounding. The $1000 solid-state amp will most likely, when not perfect, have harsh treble, be lean sounding, and render a harsh, aggressive attack in the midrange.

The same can be said for LPs versus CD, CDs versus streaming, etc.

Note also that:

2. The state-of-the-art is implemented with the Better Technology.

The best reel-to-reel is better than any turntable. The best turntable is better than any CD player. The best tube amps are better than any solid-state amp.

3. That at any given price point, the Better Technology is more likely not to sound unpleasant [or horrific, as Neli might put it]

————————————–

Cool huh? Make’s it clearer what technology to choose given your personal preferences.

But… if we try to explore some of the other areas where we must make technological choices [assuming we don’t just, you know, listen to the thing in several highly resolving systems and determine quality with our very high precision portable measuring devices… aka ears. Remember them? :-)], there seems to be some fuzziness about which is better.

For example: speaker driver materials. Paper is more forgiving than ceramic or metallic substances [I do not know enough about Kevlar or hemp drivers to say]. BUT, I do not think the best state-of-the-art speakers are made with paper drivers. BUT, at a given price point, one is most likely to have a paper-driver speaker err on the side of musicality and forgiveness than the other technologies [which is why, if we had to choose between two average looking speakers, and one had paper drivers and one ceramic, or metal, drivers we would choose the one with the paper drivers, all else being equal].

So for speaker driver materials, paper is a safe bet (1, 3) but if you are looking at the state-of-the-art, other technologies may be best (not 2).

Similarly, take horms versus box [cabinet] versus planar speakers. Planar speakers are typically more forgiving and err on the side of finesse, horns typically sound horny and have various hard-sounding resonance frequencies, and box speakers are typically all over the place, [though they are usually too hard to drive and therefore sound dull and uninvolving, and maybe this could also be considered forgiving].

But the best state-of-the-art speakers are [arguably] horn speakers, then box speakers, and finally planars. Again this could be argued that this is the opposite to what one might expect. But, one could also argue that box speakers are Most Often found in a list of state-of-the-art speakers. So again we have planars being a safe bet (1,3) but box speakers also being a pretty good bet (1,3 and maybe 2).

So, this is all to say that my bias for reasonably priced or state-of-the-art gear is that they do not make listening a chore, unpleasant, and harmful to my good disposition [which is hard enough to come by these days]. And therefore I prefer technologies that, when they fail to be perfect, fail in such a way that they still resemble Music. After all, the Music is why I am listening to them in the first place. And at all costs they should not saw through my gray matter with a newly sharpened chain saw and rip my head clean off. 😉 [aka notes too sharp, atonal harmonics, etc.].

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Sounding Off 0 comments
 by Michael

Part 1. Lamm ML3 Signature: Review of Stereophile’s Review

Review of Mike Fremer’s review of the Lamm ML3 Signature amplifiers.

[Hi everybody. 🙂

A few days ago I heard there was a ML3 review by Mike Fremer. OK. Oh boy, another review. *yawn*

It would probably just be the usual cautiously positive review that we see fairly frequently these days. *snore*

But when I saw that Mr. Fremer was doing the review on a system I am somewhat familiar with, I couldn’t resist reading it.

Uh. Oh.

Although it was indeed one of those cautiously but really positive reviews, as expected, other things said in the review resulted in the urge to provide a different, more tube-friendly, many might even say a more listener friendly, perspective.

This review review is not meant to be a dig at Mr. Fremer in any way. I think he is the best reviewer we got and he seems to be able to hear things and describe them well and honestly. This review review does, however, take exception to the solid-state bias, the over reliance on measurements as a determinant of overall quality [even though in this case the ML3 measures quite well], and the general trend in the industry these days of homogenizing descriptions [whether parsimonious or excessively over-hyped] of good and exceptional gear.

This review review also seems to have been used as an opportunity for yours truly to [it seems to me unwittingly, yet at length] ramble on about several only peripherally related things to do with the industry, system setup, and the High-end Audio Golden Age which it is argued herein we are in the midst of – so, you know, maybe we should be enjoying it more.

I decided to post this whole thing here on Audio Federation, instead of Ultimist. In four parts.

Ultimist represents all aspects of audiophiledom – supplying a level playing field for all brands of high-end audio gear. On my blog over there I try to provide hopefully fun and useful bits for average everyday audiophile consumption [not sure I have quite ‘found my voice’ over there yet. But I am hanging in there… :-)]. But until Ultimist takes off [and it is currently under-going an 15X upgrade, being currently too busy (slow) for members right now. So please stand by…] I am going to start posting the usual wild and crazy stuff here again – stuff on the state of the art and what the state of the art means to the industry and to all audiophiles interested in those Ultimate Listening Experiences.

This is a review of the review by Michael Fremer of the Lamm ML3 Signature amplifiers, hidden away in the September 2013 Stereophile.

In the following review review, I am going to refer to Mike Fremer as Mr. Fremer in this review. Many people refer to him as ‘Mikey’ but I have found, when using ‘Mikey’ when talking to a random assortment of industry people, that they feel this shows a lack of respect for him, that it is belittling or something, as opposed to being an affectionate term for him, which is how we all mean it [or, at least, that is how we mean it]. And I can’t call him just ‘Mike’ because, you know, like, *I* am Mike. Ergo: Mr. Fremer.

Links: Some notes about our impressions of the ML3. Some photos Lamm ML3 photos, our impressions of the Wilson Alexandria X2 speakers, and our impressions of the almost exact same system as reviewed by Mr. Fremer: Lamm ML3 on Wilson Alexandria XLF speakers (some differences are that our system was completely outfitted with HRS racks and platforms and it had a different source: a Basis turntable instead of the Continuum).

The Review

This seems to be an extremely positive review on the one hand – and on the other a prejudiced [and unfair and unbalanced, like most prejudices are] indictment of all tube gear, implicitly labeling the ML3 as the best of a bad (fatally flawed) bunch.

In my opinion the ML3 is a breakthrough product and not just another slightly better statement product with an exorbitant price tag.

But lets talk about statement products for a bit. The politics of the last 30 years have resulted in a small number of people becoming extremely rich. This has resulted in the increasing validity of a business model that has small high-end audio businesses selling just a very few, but extremely expensive, products per year. So the ‘statement product’ boom is born. But the problem with being too cynical about this is that these products ARE actually better than everything else in a brand’s product line. And in fact, they are often quite good on a competitive and historical basis.

So people can complain about reviewers loving each new yet ever more expensive thing they review – but in the vast majority of cases these outrageously expensive things are indeed actually quite good. Better to complain about such wonderful gear being wasted on the generally unappreciative rich [are Russian robber barons REALLY that much more into high-end audio than the ordinary guy on the street?]. Or perhaps you might even complain about the growing economic disparities in the world. But people should give reviewers a break… at least in this case; there is plenty of other things to spank their fat listening-chair-shaped behinds about – but I think this isn’t one of those things.

With all these statement-level products being created for the 1%, this is a kind of golden age for high-end audio research. Manufacturers get to try all sorts of what was before prohibitively expensive and/or laborious approaches to getting the most from their designs.

This was epitomized for me a few years ago when I heard a new statement level amp from a popular tube amp manufacturer at CES. It was an expensive [for them!] tube amp at something like $10K. They are known for inexpensive, and to my ears very congested and dull sounding, tube amps. But this new amp, which was apparently not built to a price point [or to a more relaxed one in any case] actually sounded quite excellent. I interpreted this to mean that manufacturers not known for their excellence can indeed make excellent products when some of their constraints are relaxed [and, you know, choices made decades ago about HOW to build to a price point really should be revisited periodically. Yes this is harder than designing and building a statement product [and not as much fun!]. Not as hard as making a breakthrough product though :-)].

There are also many new high-end audio companies – started by people with expert skills who have nowhere else to go; having been laid off because of the Great Recession, rampant ageism, and/or replaced by cheap-skill-challenged wage slaves because they look better in the bean counter comic-books. We can eventually expect some great things from some of these new companies, I think.

To my mind, a break-through product usually has a new, very simple, very obvious [once you see it!] design. It is typically not just a successive refinement of a previous statement product. Like other industries [software and auto come to mind] the breakthrough product is not always successful in the marketplace – but it does often cause a shift in the industry [although our industry is strangely pig-headed, so we will see].

The problem is that a lot of these reviews of spectacular, and sometimes breakthrough, gear just do not seem to identify the actual character of the gear and what makes it spectacular. In fact, it appears that many just do not or cannot understand what they are reviewing. They really ignore what makes it unique and what makes it great. They are just doing things as they always did – going through the motions – in some ways buying into their detractors case that everything sounds the same with just slight refinements here and there or with perhaps a different flavor thrown in once in awhile. This makes the reviews just a mass of sad, boring, worthless bytes wasting everyone’s time and energy. There is a revolution going on [many in fact…] and they [journalists] are sleep-walking during one of the most exciting times in [audiophile] history.

So WAKE UP, already! Jeez…

It does seem that one of the problems of Golden Ages is recognizing when you are living in one. BEFORE they are over, I mean. And they DO end.

It is like we are reviewing things in some kind of commoditized supermarket, pulling something off a shelf, measuring it, weighing it, figuring out its color and what the ingredients are, and then declaring its value to the reader to be the asking price. Next. This method purposely minimizes the difference between the GREAT things and the things that, you know, are kinda average. That great thing, the Mona Lisa say, is, by golly look at that: using an inferior paint and that flea market item is using really high quality framing using reclaimed mahogany from a now extinct rain forest. This works well for a magazine [or website] who needs to present a level playing field to the industry, but it does a disservice to those who want to, you know, enjoy the Golden Age before it is, you know, like… over?


(our review of a very, very similar system)

OK. So on to Mr. Fremer’s review of the ML3.

Good that we can start out the review review with something that we can agree with: the gulf is indeed narrowing between high-quality tube amplifiers and high-quality solid-state amplifiers.

OK. Whew! Got that over with. Now to the rest of the review.

1. Too much harmonics and your expensive box suddenly becomes a tone control and you a tone control lover

“… in a power amplifier, a relative lack of coloration is preferable…” in comparison to amps which JA characterizes “as ‘tone controls’ usually of the tubed variety”

Hmmmm? That is a strong statement. How about:

“… in a power amplifier, a relative ability to render harmonics is preferable…” in comparison to amps which Mike [me 🙂 and a few other million listeners] characterizes “as ‘cold and analytical, soulless’ usually of the solid-state variety”

or even:

“… in a power amplifier, a relative ability to render something well besides large square-waves is preferable…” in comparison to amps which Mike [me again 🙂 and I bet a lot of you all too] characterizes “as ‘bright, hard sounding’ almost exclusively of the solid-state variety”

2. Measurements are the ultimate determinant of how good a component is

Mr. Fremer then writes about how he has “positively reviewed” tube amps in the past, but when they performed poorly on JA’s test bench, he felt it was like

“having my pants pulled down in front of a large crowd of people”.

First [no, we are not going THERE!], it should be JA who should feel embarrassed, and pantless, not Mr. Fremer. JA’s measurements are just not reflecting the qualities that an experienced listener is able to hear. Mr. Fremer should have the courage of his ear’s convictions – he hears what he hears. And in reality, even JA should not feel too embarrassed [pull those pants back up!], he does quite well given his limited resources and funds [same thing these days] to explore new ways to measure things. However, we are relying almost completely on 50+ year old models of what the important things are to measure and how much [little] each of these affect listener suspension of disbelief and enjoyment.

Remember: if reality does not fit the model, change the model, don’t deny reality.

3. [My Niggles]

Vladimir Lamm was a Soviet scientist but not of the rocket variety, contrary to what was reported in the review.

Yes, the feedback switches on the ML3 do, as Lamm says, just serve the degrade the sound – at least in our experience to date. Not sure we needed these switches on the amp to tell us this, however… they just could have told us in the manual and we would have believed them… 🙂

In JA’s technical section of the review, it is incorrectly stated that the ML3 is not inverting, whereas they in fact ARE inverting [as is the Lamm LL1 (ne: L3) preamp designed to go with it – their inversions cancelling each other out when used as a pair in a system].

4. Whining about the price

“considering the price, this [a number of transformers and electronic parts etc.] is the LEAST you should expect”

I know this is nit-picking, and it is a common heuristic used by a lot of people but it really makes little sense, and not just in high-end audio land. I think all one really [should] care about is the ultimate performance and utility of something. Neli says she doesn’t care if there are a bunch of hamsters on a wheel in the thing, as long as it sounds good. Do you really care about how many resistors are in a Mercedes?

Mentioning the relatively high price every paragraph or two is a little… bizarre? They are expensive but so are the speakers, the rack, and as they should be, the cables. The number of amps at this price range has been growing steadily for many years: WAVAC, Audio Power Labs, Audio Note, …most tube amp brands have a statement amp in this price range, as well as solid-state amps: Soulution, Kharma, etc.

As for the voltmeter, and whether or not it should come with the amps… Some people do indeed want the voltmeter to just ‘come with the amps’, and we can provide them one free of charge. However most are delighted as heck to have an excuse for buying (online for $300 or so), what is one of the classic boy toys of all time. And then to have a valid reason for periodically actually getting to use it? How awesome is that!

[Neli points out that a lot of ML3 owners are ex-ML2 owners, in which case they already have a voltmeter]

[to be continued]

in Featured Lamm Posts / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Lamm / Reviews 5 comments