New Toys for Metralla

Just a little fun. See how many slides it takes before you know what I have bought.

http://s632.photobucket.com/albums/uu43/ghtoz/Lamm_ML2_1_Arrives/?albumview=slideshow

I'll be back in a little while to comment.

 

Nice amps! congrats.

 

Nice Lamms! congrats.

 

Have you heard them yet?

 

Sweeeet!!! How cool it must be to open wooden crates to get your gear out of..

 

Very nice, enjoy!

 

I don't know Geoff. This is pretty Lamm.

 

Beautiful!! Congrats, I'm sure it will combine well with your BAT!! Did you consider BAT VK-75SE's??

 

Sensational!

 

Very nice!!! Congrats.

 

Very nice !!! I bet you are too 'busy' to come back here and comment!

 

Thanks, guys.

Yes, I did think about the BAT VK-75SE, but the stereo one would not work with my arrangement, and I felt that the 150 monos were too much power for me. I love SETs so I wanted to get another SET with more power than the 8w 300Bs.

I was very tempted to get the VSE dpa-300B, which are not single-ended triodes, but a different and unique design. I heard them several times at Allen Wright's business in Schaffhausen, and they really impressed me. They rarely come up for sale and the one time I saw them on AudiogoN for around $11.5k, I could not get up the nerve. With Allen passing away, I decided to not look for them any more.

Now that Lamm has come out with the ML2.2, we are seeing a rash of ML2.1s for sale on AudiogoN.

There is one from a guy in Southern California, one from someone in Hawaii who is getting the ML3s, and Mike and Nellie from Audio Federation have three for sale - but they are priced too high. A friend in Chicago told me about a surgeon who was getting on in years and wanted to sell his pair, so I bought those and my friend shipped them to me by road on the pallet shown in the photos.

I realized I was going to have a problem with the interconnects - mine are 1m and work fine with jacks on the back of the amps. But the Lamms have the input on the side.

Fortunately I had another pair of balanced interconnects (also from Grover) in the cupboard, so I plugged those into the BAT preamp and the XLR-RCA leads into the other end. A nice thing about XLR interconnects is that you can do this.

Obviously, this is a temporary situation and I'll have to ask Grover to make me a 2m pair like the 1m he made previously - XLR on one end for the balanced outputs of the BAT, going to single-ended RCAs for the SETs.

The Lamms actually have pseudo-balanced inputs (XLRs) as well as the RCAs (only one input can be used at the one time), and it may be worth getting the XLRs on the far end too - better connectors than RCAs. I'l have to see.

I thought I was going to be struggling to get these 100lb amps out of the boxes and into position, but it wasn't too bad. The power cords into the Running Springs Maxim were easy to tidy up for the small difference in location. The silver foil speaker cables were no problem - and I took the time to clean off the tarnish and polish up the ends before connecting them.

I put the tubes into one amp, thinking I carefully followed the labels and the writing on the tube boxes. But when I did the second one, I realized I had ****-about the two small voltage regulators (in the wrong positions) on the first one I did. Thank goodness I was taking things slow and double checking - so I fixed that.

When I finally got the courage up to turn them on, the first one did not seem to light up. I tried the second one and it immediately started flashing the red light on the front - part of the power on sequence. Oh, that's what it should look like.

I went back to the first one, turned it off, checked that the power cord was engaged. Nothing seemed amiss. I pushed the rocker switch again - and this time it started. Whew!

Then I thought that one of the small gas voltage regs on this amp was no good, because it was not glowing at all like the one in the amp that was running. But it was just a matter of waiting for the full 2m start up cycle to complete - and then it lit up correctly. The red light on the front stops flashing and the relay clicks in.

I have a Fluke 87-V True RMS multimeter, so I'll have to check the operating voltages after a bit.

I have them sitting on the floor (carpet) on the 6 little feet each amp has, and as a committed audiophile I'll eventually have to get some amp stands (Silent Running, probably) but that's a ways down the track.

If I put my ear to the speaker I can hear a bit of a hum, which I did not expect - the Laurels were extremely quiet, almost silent, especially with the addition of the Maxim, which removed the last tiny bit of hum I was getting previously. So that could be something I'll look into. Maybe try not putting them through the Maxim.

It's all working fine, making music. It certainly sounds richer and fuller with more dynamic contrast than the Laurels, but I haven't put on any real test discs yet. I just played what I was next going to play anyway. I've been working my way through my complete collection since I bought the Sony 5400 almost two years ago - and I've finished the Z's and am into "various". So it was a good time to get a new piece of kit. I have owned the same amps - the Welborne Lab Laurel IIx Ultimate - for almost 10 years, and they have been great. But 18w instead of 8w is a bit of a power jump.

I'll get out some of my favourites tomorrow and come up with some more impressions.

 

Those look great! Thanks for the photos.

 

Congrats, looking forward to your observation as you listen to some of your favorites.

 

Nice rig Geoff.

 

Left and right overhead views so you don't need to go to Photobucket.

 

OOOHHH!

Nice score Geoff! I was entranced by the Lamms I heard at CES.

Enjoy em!

 

I knew they were mono blocks when the picture of the two crates came up. Fun slide show! Those amps look great in your system. I am sure they sound great.

 

Congratulations Metralla, very sweet amps.

 

Very nice Geoff! Thanks for sharing the pics, I enjoy the captions as well.

How do they sound?

 

Am I missing the post where you invited us over for a listen? LOL.

Congrats, Jeff!