Audio Federation

January 31, 2006 by Michael

Where No Low Powered Amps Have Gone Before

I really like the low-powered Lamm ML2.1 18 watt SET amps on the Marten Design Coltrane 89dB sensitive full-range speakers.

Coltrane speakers, ML2.1 amps, Lamm L2 preamp, Audio Note CDT2 and DAC 4.1x Balanced, Nordost Thor and Valhalla cables, Shunyata power cords

I really liked the Audio Aero Prestige 40 watt amps and the Audio Note Kegon 22 watt amps on the Coltranes before that.

No, they don’t generate that adrenaline rush of a really loud presentation with chest thumping bass.

The Coltranes can do this with the right amplification. And it is really fun. In a Homeresque Whoo Hoo! kind of way.

But the little tube amps on these speakers can hold me…..

SPELLBOUNDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

The little amps are able to grip the speakers pretty darn well. They also show off immense amounts of harmonic detail. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

But it is not about all this analytical crap at all.

It is all, everything, completely, about the fact that the …Sound… Grips… Me.

Yeah, It helps that the speaker has a very high resolution, a speaker with all ceramic drivers and diamond tweeters has a tendency to do this. It helps that the speakers are full range, so that whatever bass the amps put out, the listener gets to hear. And they put out a lot of bass – make no mistake – but it is analog bass, like bass in the real world, and not electronic bass (which some ever larger percentage of our music these days likes to use and here is where the little tube amps on hard to drive speakers really do take a back seat to solidstate amps).

But this is not about how the speaker or system sounds.

It is not.

This is about how the sounds affects the listener.

In the end why should I care about the sound, beyond a certain minimum standard, any more than I care about the minute contruction details of the chair I sit in, or the the type of weaving and glue the carpet underneath my feat uses? What we CARE about REALLY is how comfortable the chair is; about how pleasant the carpet is to look at and feel underneath our feet.

What if all reviews and all show reports paid attention to nothing except how the sounds …made …them …feel.

I bet the Stereophile list of Class A components would look a lot different than they do now.

January 29, 2006 by Michael

El Capitan of 6MOONS to Move to Europe

Yes, head honcho Srajan Ebaen says [last paragraph. No I don’t understand exactly what he is saying in the rest of the piece, either – though some of it seems to refer to our machine-like behavior patterns, ala the Fourth Way, and how this affects our audio equipment acquisition habits. Other parts… are, uh, not so clear to me, sorry]….but he is moving himself and the 6Moon HQ to Europe, while still keeping the American staff here going on all cylinders.

We always got a nice warm and fuzzy feeling knowing that Srajan was close by, down in Boulder’s sister city of Taos, New Mexico (some people think Santa Fe is our sister city… but they would be mistaken 🙂 ). Taos is a scenic 7 hour drive (or 6 if Neli is driving,… 5 if Neli is driving and Mike is asleep) from Boulder, which is where we hang our hats.

Not that either of us has visited the other, or anything, lazy bastards that we are. Yeah, yeah, we are every one of us so busy these days – but when does being so busy all the time translate into just being too lazy to spend the time to better organize our lives? Uh, a very long time ago for me, but this isn’t Oprah’ s blog, so we will …just….move….on…. Thank you.

Anyway, hopefully we’ll still see Srajan zooming through the hallways at high-end audio shows here in the U.S., intensely talking to someone or another, with this pleasant expression of extreme focus that always seems to result in one of the best show reports in the world.

Keep raising that bar, Srajan!

And thanks.

-Mike & Neli

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo 0 comments

January 28, 2006 by Michael

Revamping the Speakers Page in the Audiophile's Guide to the Galaxy

A lot of the Audiophile’s Guide needs a facelift – most especially the equipment racks and turntables, not to mention the categories that are still empty.

But the Speaker category is now down to 8 speaker manufacturers, and if it continues in the current direction it will be down to 6 the next time I get near it with the delete key…And one can forsee a future in which the last standing manufacturer gets the axe – all because the current approach is flawed in a number of ways:

It does not take into acount the different goals for a system, each separate goal possibly arriving at a different ‘best’ speaker.

It does not take into account room size and other possible constraints that affect the choice of ‘best speaker’

The new format will try to take these things into account by:

Adding categories to represent the different goals systems (people) have like ‘Impressive’, ‘Emotional’ etc.

Taking into account small, medium and large room sizes

Not sure how we are going to organize all this data yet. But we are working on it.

Then we can add manufacturers like Sonus Faber and MBL to the list of best speakers – as they do have privilaged places in the speaker world – with respect to very specific sonic goals – just not at the top of best of the ultimate.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / News 17 comments