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Topic: Lamm ML2.1 "No longer available"?

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Posted by Paul S on 04-09-2008
OK , so I looked at the April 2008 Stereophile.

I noticed a while back that Art Dudley stopped listing his ML2.1s as "assocoated equipment" along with his reviews, listing instead the Shindo Montele and Cortese stereo SETs, and then just the Cortese.
 
I asumed he just finally cashed out - like most reviewers generally do -  that he'd sold the ML2.1s, kept the money and gotten a Shindo either for an "extended review" or for a song; but then I saw the note on the ML2.1's demise at the end of the "Tube" part of the "Amp" part of the "Recommended Components" listings.

I always thought these listings were a big deal, worth paying for, to manufacturers, distributors, etc.

So did someone slip up, or is the ML2.1 really a goner?

It ain't "Recommended" by Stereophile anymore, that's for sure.

Paul S

Posted by Romy the Cat on 04-09-2008

I do now Art Dudley and I generally have difficult time to read about the reviewers "associated equipment". Surely it helps to understand what they use in order to project this views but those morons have dose dozens lines to enumerate the multiple brands and models of cable elevators, disks conditioners and rubber feet. Anyhow, the reviewers generally have no associated equipment but they have the residue of what they manage to extort from manufacture of the products that they reviewed. Pay attention – no one reviewer ever build own playback based upon own objectives, actual or conceptualized. In contrary, they sit like dogs during the drought, sticking nose to sly and waiting what god send them rain – or another UPS delivered accidental “messiah” that they obtain under duress.

I do not know what is the Art Dudley’s story. He might move on because he found something better. The ML2.1 is not really good amp and Art Dudley was wrong to use it.  It mish be any other reason why he got rid of it – but who cares why he did it? I feel that if person was damn enough to buy ML2.1 after the ML2.0 then any further observation of this person should not be considered. The same goes to the "Recommended" by Stereophile – those recommendations serve completely different and very much not serious purpose.

I would very much doubt that Lamm would discontinue producing ML2 in near future, unless he would replace it with some ML2.2. The ML2.0 was introduced in 90s for $30K and at 2000 it was 45kEuro. After 7 years of the Lamm’s boyfriend in White House the ML2.1 costs 20kEuro - so Lamm might wish to raise the price to $50K-$60K. Considering that ML2.1 has no good reputation among the people with ears Vladimir might introduce and new revision ML2.2 or perhaps a simplified and cheap to make version, something like ML2-Nano, for $15K-$20K. I realy do not know what happened in there nowadays – I left the Lamm’s camp in 2002.

I care less about Lamm amps noondays – I know that Vladimir will not be doing the amos in the way how I would like them to be. The ML3, since I learned today that it runs with the proper 1200V in plate and will be able to stay in A1, should be fine amp.  However, even if I have it I would not have any use from it. To drive the woofer towers with ML3? I am sure it might be much more interesting solutions for bass then ML3 if to make the amp LF dedicated only amp. There is one Lamm product that I am very optimistic and would like to hear it with a great enthusiasm. I ma talking about the Lamm L3 preamp. It should be very interesting… if it will be done with the “things”

Rgs, Romy the Cat

Posted by Amir on 12-06-2010
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ML2.2 single-ended power amplifier

http://audiofederation.com/blog/archives/746

I never heard Lamm products but maybe i listen to this model in iran.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 12-06-2010
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 Amir wrote:
ML2.2 single-ended power amplifier

http://audiofederation.com/blog/archives/746

An interesting as a very a smart move for Lamm: to kill the ML2.1 and to introduce the new Lamm 2.2. I wonder that fact that his did not raise the price – was it cathartic move foe him as an excuse for horrible ML2.1?  The question that still remains opened:  if the Lamm ML2.2 and Lamm ML3 are compatible in Sound with ML2.0? From this answers all other answers would derive.  The fact that Lamm decided to kill very fast the crappy ML2.1 is a very good sign. But his true motivations no one knows. The only answer is to listen the things Lamm did after ML2.1. There are people do listen the new  Lamms, they like it, but they are all with no exceptions are the idiots who were drumming the “magnificent sound of ML2.1”.  So, no one knows where the new ML2.2 will stay in the sonic hierarchy. Lamm is trying to sell ML2.2 from under the ML3 umbrella, it is understandable from hype perspective but from sonic perspective no one said that ML3 is more capable amp then ML2.0 (with obvious exemption of power). So, even I see the Lamm ML2.2 as a good move foe Vladimir but still there are too many uncommitted variables in there...

The Cat

Posted by Paul S on 12-06-2010
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Yes, it all sounds good, and not such a price jump for all the ML3-based promise!

If you read carefully, it just barely "disses" the earlier ML2 and ML2.1...

Naturally, it's an "improvement", but they want to be sure previous clients feel perhaps like the times and technology are passing by them by rather than making them feel like they were sold a bill of goods.

Very nice!

Too bad no one actually knows anything about the ML3...

Paul S

Posted by Romy the Cat on 12-06-2010
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 Paul S wrote:
…. they want to be sure previous clients feel perhaps like the times and technology are passing by them by rather than making them feel like they were sold a bill of goods.

Actually a good point. It presented as “technology change” BS. In reality the more filter chokes is very much irrelevant in THAT design. New power transformer is also irrelevant. Relocation of the fuses is a good thing of cause. The higher quality pc-board I think is BS as it means less costly pc-board to produce. It is very possible that there are new technologies to do the pc-boards, better technologies were available even 20 years back, but it was not what was necessary for the amp. The old technology that Lamm use on ML2.0 was perfectly fine, in fact it was phenomenally fine assembled, as usually Lamm meals was at that time. My interests in ML2.2 are not in the artificial changes but Lamm advertise but in the silent changes that Vladimir might perfume on this amp. I do not know why ML2.1 sounded some much worse that ML2.0 but I presume that Vladimir does. Let for instance that it was a wrong OPT transformer. Vladimir might get for ML2.2 a new better OP transformer but do not publicize it. The reason why I think it might be the case is the price tag. The new amp is just a few $K more expensive then ML2.1 and it very atypical for Vladimir and it juts cover the cost of inflection for the last few years. If ML2.2 would sound reasonably better then $30K worth ML2.0 then the cost of ML2.2 shall be $50K-$70K and Lamm knows it. So, that is why I feel that this new ML2.2 might be a bit cathartic… Or might not be….

Posted by Paul S on 12-06-2010
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So, finally, here is the answer to my speculative question, up at the top of the page.  It certainly looks like Stereophile got the news quite a while ago, all right, in time to drop the ML2.1 from and incorporate the first public news of its discontinuance in their April, 2008 "Recomended Components" listings, albeit there was just a short blip under the "K" header.  Perhaps this plan, or something like it, has been in the works for quite some time?

In fact, it has been so long a time since then that I now wonder if either Lamm or Stereophile made a mistake back in April 2008?  Otherwise, why have we gone so long with no further word about this matter, and why did Lamm take so long to issue a replacement?  Was the ML2.2 release date perhaps set back so dealers could have a chance to clear out their "inventory" of ML2.1s?  It does not seem to make marketing sense, anyway.

I'm not sure when the next Stereophile Recommended Components list comes out, but I think it might be in April, 2011.  I also don't know what the lead time for reviews is; but I would not be surprized if The Review pops up in time for next April, and, in that case, betcha the ML2.2 is back among the Class A Recommendations...

On the one hand, it makes very good sense to position the ML2.2 as the "Little Brother" to the ML3, even to the point of saying it's damn near as good, there's just less power. HOWEVER: Unless I'm mistaken about the prices, this would mean that someone could damn near get 4 pairs of ML2.2s for the price of a single pair of ML3s.  Sure, the single pair of ML3s involves 4 chasses, but...

Paul S


Posted by Romy the Cat on 12-06-2010
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Well, let agree that it is very good for Lamm and for everyone that Lamm has killed his ML2.1. I do not know what was the true reasons – that fact that he is not deaf (and he is not) and that he hated that sound or that fact that the amp has begun develop a bad reputation even among the hearing-impaired idiots who bought and love it. It is possible that ML2.2 will be better amp but it will be a twist in the ML2.2.

The first round of the ML2.2 reviews will be the ordinary suspects – the industry pipms that patronize Lamm for years. There is nothing particularly bad in that with an exception that all of them were accepted ML2.1 and promoted it as a universal God-send remedy to redeem the human’s sins. It is like going to a fine restaurant and to see the restaurant’s patrons enjoying themselves by eating the dead rats on the stick…

You will see that as soon the ML2.2 hit the journals the will promote it as a “huge advancement” over ML2.1. That is the unfortunate fate of the people in the stupid industry: fart collected in perfume bottle and resold as cologne, resold by idiots and for idiots. The true quietly of the food that created the fart is very much not known and not even subject of anybody interest.

The Cat

Posted by Romy the Cat on 01-07-2011
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I think I need to make some commentary in here as BS will be swallowed as usually and somebody shall take stand on it. Before is a small prelude. Sometimes back in his comments about RMAF 2010 Show Report the Federated Mike wrote in his blog:

“I just came here after reading Romy’s ‘critique’ of yet another idiot review of the Lamm ML3. I differ from Romy in that I do not despise the people involved, but I do indeed despise the shallow level of discourse that passes for detailed analysis of the sound of high-end audio equipment these days.”

I am sure that his “position” helps him to sell the “alternative” brands but it is not the point. Where Federated Mike was factually wrong is sensing my animosity to the people involved. Yes, I am hard on Lamm products but it is absolutely not from some kind proverbial despise but from my respect to Truth. I was in quite friendly relationship with Lamm Company and with Vladimir personally up to 2001-2002 until I begun to feel that many things that Vladimir did were a deviation from what I perceive was Truth. The fact that I was a buddy did not make my blind and I did not feel comfortable. In the end I sent to Lamm a long letter explaining my position and fired him from the circle of people I would like to be befriended. Sure, he is a talented and capable man but demands to talented people are higher. After all it is my choice to what kind BS I would like to be exposed dally.

Now is the subject. I went to Lamm page today and saw the announcement of Lamm ML2.2 SET. The line that picked my attention was the following:

“The ML2.2 is an amplifier that sonically is much closer to the ML3 Signature while pricewise is closer to the ML2.1.“

That is exactly the BS that that I very much found annoying in Vladimir, interesting that the same BS (I would say in much larger scale) Lamm deploys at personal level to the people who patronize him.

Let drop all sentiments and look at the facts. There is no single person I know off who credibly would be able to testify that ML3 is better sounding amp then ML2.0. In fact I did have some opposite reposts from people deserve credit but I do not trust to those reports ether. The enthusiastic and over-exuberant reports that did show up about ML3 were too primitive and were written by low rank listeners. Still, juts for sake of illustration let presume that ML3 has some sonic advantages over ML2.0, then let see what Lamm does with it.

He introduces another amp with alleged “change of input stage” and he claims that this change made “ML2.2 sonically is much closer to the ML3”. I am sure that it will help Vladimir to sell many amps to idiots (and good for him, why not) but unfortunately it is also a deviation from Truth. There are many difference between ML2.0 and ML3, design and I presume sonic but to presume that the differences come from input stage is simply a presumption that anyone who would read it are idiots. ML3 use direct heating output tube that absolutely different by sound and by topology then 6C33C. The GM70 not only much more powerful tube but it is the tube that as many other DHT might work fine driven into class A2, that is why Lamm made that powerful 4 tubes buffer in the second stage of ML3 – to deal with grid currents of GM70. There is nothing wrong with it, what is wrong is to claim that by changing a basing schema of the input stage would make the ML2.2 sound similar to ML3. Ridicules! It is like saying that if a man would have an earring in his ear then it would make him be able to conceive and to bare children like women can do.

Anyhow, I do not make any judgments about nether ML3 or ML2.2 but I would like to note that this type of comment that I hear from Lamm very much remind me why I stay away from his operation and have high mistrust to whatever he did for the last 10 years.

Rsg, Romy the Cat

Posted by Romy the Cat on 03-21-2013
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I got a .pdf file with April  Stereophile where Art Dudley writes up about new Lamm 2.2 amp. I am long off the Lamm camp but I do observe what is going on with Lamm equipment as I feel I do have a good grip about it.

I have no idea why Art Dudley stuck with Lamm’s 6C33C SETs as with his speaker I do not think it was a reasonable choice and Lamms did not do even fraction what they are able to do with Art’s acoustic systems. To drive with ML2 full frequency range electrostatics and large polyester films drivers like QUADs is truly foolish, but anyhow...

The Dudley’s review generally good. He pretty much describes what he experienced. I can’t estimate how accurate he was as I never heard the new Lamm 2.2 but I did not detect in Dudley’s review too much contrived thinking  or unadulterated stupidity. He, like any other reviewers is unfortunately forced to make writing that would encourage people to buy but with that exception it was a reasonable observation.

With absence of typical reviewing stupidity an interesting question arises: was it an interesting review? Well, it was not. Art invested no thinking into the sound of the amp and he pretty much just plugged it in, listed it and described what he heard. Was it a review? Not in my estimation. It was a review for the people who look forward to buy something but this type review was not an event for the people who have deeper interest in sound. I am sure that no one pays to Mr. Dudley to write anything deeper then what he did but this justification does not make the Art’s review to be too great. The observation that he did in the end about sound coming from ML2 become non-ignorable  was very good one but that was made 12 years back and Art just duplicates it.

The Cat

Posted by Paul S on 03-21-2013
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He did note that the ML2.2 uses a different OPT, and also that it uses "less feedback" than the ML2.1 (which AD owned for several years).  I wonder what this means, "less feedback"?  Why would Lamm mess with that very effective scheme?  Does he just shunt some voltage, or did he really change the circuit?  I see the 2.2 uses all the same tubes...

Of course, no talk about plate loading, with bias or output taps, with his various "mid" and low efficiency speakers, all running FR.  It is no surprise, he says he prefers his PP (pentode, I think) Shindo amps driving his own speakers (FR).  I was somewhat surprised at his "comparisons" of the 2.2 to the 2.1, and most surprised that he does not say outright that everyone should immediately chuck their "old-news" 2.1s and run out to buy the "newer-and-therefore-better" 2.2s.  I don't remember if he said anything about the "limits" of SETs in general, but it has been my observation that, for some unknown reason, they seem to expect "more" from expensive SETs...


Paul S

Posted by Romy the Cat on 03-21-2013
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 Paul S wrote:
He did note that the ML2.2 uses a different OPT, and also that it uses "less feedback" than the ML2.1 …  I wonder what this means, "less feedback"?  Why would Lamm mess with that very effective scheme?  Does he just shunt some voltage, or did he really change the circuit?  I see the 2.2 uses all the same tubes...

It completely makes sense that Lamm changed the amount of feedback. ML2 used if I am not mistaken around 12dB of global feedback that was injected back to the cathode of input stage. The ML2.2 reportedly uses the inputs stage from ML3. It is the same paralleled tube, perhaps with slightly different operational point and consequentially with different amount of feedback. I presume that sine Lamm did ML3 with more power he wanted to have input stage to be able to care more swing without going to clipping. So, he reset operation point of that 12AX7. I do not think that he modified anything topologically in input stage and it most likely the same tube with the same biasing schema.

The Cat

Posted by Paul S on 03-21-2013
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If this is the case, then the Morons will effectively have less rather than more power unless they are more careful than usual to match the loads, which seems like the opposite of "what the Market demands".  Cranking up the NOS 12AX7 ought to make a nice guitar amp!  Does the 6C33C need a corresponding tweak to handle the increased signal?  No wonder it finally gets "un-ignorable".

Paul S

Posted by Romy the Cat on 03-21-2013
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 Paul S wrote:
If this is the case, then the Morons will effectively have less rather than more power unless they are more careful than usual to match the loads, which seems like the opposite of "what the Market demands".  Cranking up the NOS 12AX7 ought to make a nice guitar amp!  Does the 6C33C need a corresponding tweak to handle the increased signal?  No wonder it finally gets "un-ignorable".

I do not see any reason for criticism of the design, not mention that what I suggested above was just my proposal. I do not think that Lamm got more gain from12AX7 but rather I mean that he just kept it further from entering A2. I do not know what clips in ML2 first: input stage, driver, output stage or transformer. I am pretty sure that Lamm know what he does. It kind of puzzled me however that by razing the output impedance of the amp Lamm scoped down the park of the speakers that might be used with the amp. If he did it voluntary then what was gain by this? I wish Art Dudley would gig into it deeper but he did not do…

Posted by Romy the Cat on 03-22-2013
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http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/lamm-ml22-single-ended-triode-amplifier


Posted by Paul S on 03-22-2013
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Yep, he heard and talked about some of the right things, down to problems when he needed "more" but more was not available.  But can one really "hear these at their best" with any 94 dB speaker, let alone Magicos?  Odd that neither of these reviews seemed particularly "pre-buttered".  I thought all that was generally taken care of ahead of time.

As ever, too bad there is no discussion of "developing" the sound at any time.  Of course there is no discussion of use with large drivers, since reviewers seldom use them.

Sure, Lamm knows what he is doing (and I don't).  Still, here come the reviewers with their stupid-for-this-amp "FR" speakers, just as anyone might have supposed, and here are their mostly-predictable "reviews", for all to see.  If anything, I think these two reviews might be "worse" than usual for Lamm, because these guys actually talked limitations, for a change.  So, if only from a "marketing standpoint", I still wonder what Lamm was/is thinking with this latest change.


Paul S

Posted by Stitch on 03-22-2013
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Money makes the world go round 

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