Hi all,
This is a brief report of a mini meet we had in Pratim's place on 1 May 2013.
Members present: Pratim (pratimbayal), Vasu (myriad), Vasu's firend Krishnendu (has a system similar to Vasu's), Manoj (mksharan) and myself
Equipments: source - Ayon CD1, speakers - Tannoy Turnberrys with super tweeters (part of Pratim's system)
Amps:
1) Promitheus Audio TVC passive pre + Odyssey Kismet stereo (both belonging to Pratim)
2) Transcendent Sound tube pre + Odyssey Kismet stereo (Manoj bought the kit for this pre from http://www.transcendentsound.com/Transcendent/Home.html , Manoj also got the OTL tube power amp kit which soon will be ready for listening)
3) Line Magnetic Audio LM216IA integrated amp using 2 of 12AX7, 2 of 12BH7 and 4 of KT88 power tubes. The 12AX7 and 12BH7 were stock power tubes, but the KT88s were borrowed from Vasu's Ayon Spirit2 amp and they were the new release Gold Lions. This amp produces 18 wpc in the triode mode and 38 wpc in the ultra linear mode. We listened to the ultralinear mode. The speaker load is switchable between 4 and 8 Ohms. Pratim is currently considering this amp and that was the primary reason we gathered.
4) My Leben CS300 with Telefunken 12AX7 and Reflector EL84 equivalents (on special request from Pratim, because he wanted to compare the LM Audio amp with Leben in his system.
Prelude:
This was the 3rd time I brought my amp to Pratim's place. Last time Sangram and his friend was also there and we checked out Pratim's new Tuenberrys. That time the Kismet was primarily played with a DIY resistor based pre, but the Leben clearly did a better job - music was smoother and overall more enjoyable. Some time in between, I believe, Pratim also got Vasu's Spirit 2 amp and had them paired with his Turnberrys. Pratim is now convinced that those speakers are crying out for tube amplification, and hence the current meet.
Some time ago, when the LM Audio gears arrived at Vasu's place, Sangram, Pratim and Suman (Suman Jana, member smnjn, who has built those beautiful Scanspeak driver based speakers, look for his thread http://www.hifivision.com/diy/10883-scanspeak-rediscovery-tower-4.html) visited Vasu's place to have a first listen. At that time, the report on the LM-216IA amp (with stock tubes) was not very positive and the Spirit amp sounded much better in comparison. However, apparently the stock tubes are rather cheap chinese tubes, and in US for example these amps are marketed with better tubes. So the idea was to swap the Gold Lions from the Spirit amp and listen now with the Turnberrys.
Music listened to:
We made a routine of listening to more-or-less the same music portions on all amps -
1) "Keith don't go", by Nils Lofgren (this has beefed up bass especially on the guitar, music is very good though)
2) 1st song of the CD album "Lisa" (Lisa Kelly: prime member of the group Celtic women - probably the best female voice I have ever heard)
3) Chhandadhara CD album by Ravishankar - Raga Bairagi Tori (alap portion) and Gaud Sarang Tabla portion by Swapan Chaudhuri)
4) The piece by Koushiki Chakraborty from the music CD of the recent Bengali movie "Goynar Baksho"
5) And some assorted pieces
Obviously the choice of music was dominated by vocals, and melody. However, we were quite fussy on the tonality of all instruments present, especially the sitar and the tabla.
The sound:
1) Kismet played with the TVC pre produced muddy sound, with reduced highs than desired and floaty bass. In fact, I stuck my neck out and declared this in the middle of that part. We then adjusted the toe-ins a bit (it was too much both in Vasu's and my opinion), that cleared up the sound a bit, but still was far from satisfactory. Given the respect I have for Kismet, we blamed the TVC pre. Either the TVC is still not fully burnt in (people say these take 400 hours, and Pratim perhaps is not even halfway thru), or somehow the impedances are not matching, or the TVC is simply not working to their reputation for whatever other reason.
2) Kismet became more musical and clean with the absolutely new Transcendent Sound tube pre. The pre had at most a couple of hours on them and already one can see it's a good tube pre. There was more control on the bass, the highs opened up and the overall presentation became smooth and musical.
3) Then came the main attraction of the meet - LM 216IA. This is the first time I am hearing this amp, that too with the Tannoys. First thing I must say - it's a very musical amp with full of harmonic content - everything sounded so much in tune. The highs were to die for - there was a lot of thump in the bass and the mids smooth. It may not be the most neutral amp (being called a poor man's Shindo on the net by quite a few people), but there is a charming element to the sound it produces. It is reasonably clean too. However, one doubt kept lingering in my mind - the stock tubes were so bad that the amp did not stand a chance with the Spirit and just change of 4 power tubes to better ones makes such a whole lot of difference? What could have gone wrong with the audition of Sangram. Suman and Pratim? Well, I see 5 changes - the amp was not burnt in at all then, the tubes were stock tubes, the power cable was also a stock cable then, the amp was not placed under the magic hexa feet to reduce micro phonics, and they were paired up with Vasu's Usher Mini Dancers (the newer Diamond series). BTW, I personally like the new mini dancers more than the older ones (which Sangram has). Well, the bottom line is - I liked the amp, especially for the price it's a big VFM.
4) At the end, we tried the Leben CS300 for a very short time (the Leben needs at least an hour to properly warm up, is it because it's an auto-biasing amp? Experts please tell me). We did not have time for it to warm up. The same pieces were played but for shorter times. The immediate conclusion was that this is perhaps the cleanest amp, but a few things like the bass slam and the extension at the top and the mid range bloom was less than the LM amp. However, it seemed to have better control of the bass, albeit a bit less bass than LM.
Overall my impression of the 3 tube amps (Spirit2 which was not auditioned that day, Leben and LM Audio) is as follows: The Spirit is the most SS like, the LM is most tube like and the Leben is somewhere in between. All 3 are good and would pair well with a specific speaker. The LM 216IA is priced much lower currently than the Leben and the Spirit.
BTW, I am at the moment auditioning at home the LM CD player (LM-215CD).
Regards.
This is a brief report of a mini meet we had in Pratim's place on 1 May 2013.
Members present: Pratim (pratimbayal), Vasu (myriad), Vasu's firend Krishnendu (has a system similar to Vasu's), Manoj (mksharan) and myself
Equipments: source - Ayon CD1, speakers - Tannoy Turnberrys with super tweeters (part of Pratim's system)
Amps:
1) Promitheus Audio TVC passive pre + Odyssey Kismet stereo (both belonging to Pratim)
2) Transcendent Sound tube pre + Odyssey Kismet stereo (Manoj bought the kit for this pre from http://www.transcendentsound.com/Transcendent/Home.html , Manoj also got the OTL tube power amp kit which soon will be ready for listening)
3) Line Magnetic Audio LM216IA integrated amp using 2 of 12AX7, 2 of 12BH7 and 4 of KT88 power tubes. The 12AX7 and 12BH7 were stock power tubes, but the KT88s were borrowed from Vasu's Ayon Spirit2 amp and they were the new release Gold Lions. This amp produces 18 wpc in the triode mode and 38 wpc in the ultra linear mode. We listened to the ultralinear mode. The speaker load is switchable between 4 and 8 Ohms. Pratim is currently considering this amp and that was the primary reason we gathered.
4) My Leben CS300 with Telefunken 12AX7 and Reflector EL84 equivalents (on special request from Pratim, because he wanted to compare the LM Audio amp with Leben in his system.
Prelude:
This was the 3rd time I brought my amp to Pratim's place. Last time Sangram and his friend was also there and we checked out Pratim's new Tuenberrys. That time the Kismet was primarily played with a DIY resistor based pre, but the Leben clearly did a better job - music was smoother and overall more enjoyable. Some time in between, I believe, Pratim also got Vasu's Spirit 2 amp and had them paired with his Turnberrys. Pratim is now convinced that those speakers are crying out for tube amplification, and hence the current meet.
Some time ago, when the LM Audio gears arrived at Vasu's place, Sangram, Pratim and Suman (Suman Jana, member smnjn, who has built those beautiful Scanspeak driver based speakers, look for his thread http://www.hifivision.com/diy/10883-scanspeak-rediscovery-tower-4.html) visited Vasu's place to have a first listen. At that time, the report on the LM-216IA amp (with stock tubes) was not very positive and the Spirit amp sounded much better in comparison. However, apparently the stock tubes are rather cheap chinese tubes, and in US for example these amps are marketed with better tubes. So the idea was to swap the Gold Lions from the Spirit amp and listen now with the Turnberrys.
Music listened to:
We made a routine of listening to more-or-less the same music portions on all amps -
1) "Keith don't go", by Nils Lofgren (this has beefed up bass especially on the guitar, music is very good though)
2) 1st song of the CD album "Lisa" (Lisa Kelly: prime member of the group Celtic women - probably the best female voice I have ever heard)
3) Chhandadhara CD album by Ravishankar - Raga Bairagi Tori (alap portion) and Gaud Sarang Tabla portion by Swapan Chaudhuri)
4) The piece by Koushiki Chakraborty from the music CD of the recent Bengali movie "Goynar Baksho"
5) And some assorted pieces
Obviously the choice of music was dominated by vocals, and melody. However, we were quite fussy on the tonality of all instruments present, especially the sitar and the tabla.
The sound:
1) Kismet played with the TVC pre produced muddy sound, with reduced highs than desired and floaty bass. In fact, I stuck my neck out and declared this in the middle of that part. We then adjusted the toe-ins a bit (it was too much both in Vasu's and my opinion), that cleared up the sound a bit, but still was far from satisfactory. Given the respect I have for Kismet, we blamed the TVC pre. Either the TVC is still not fully burnt in (people say these take 400 hours, and Pratim perhaps is not even halfway thru), or somehow the impedances are not matching, or the TVC is simply not working to their reputation for whatever other reason.
2) Kismet became more musical and clean with the absolutely new Transcendent Sound tube pre. The pre had at most a couple of hours on them and already one can see it's a good tube pre. There was more control on the bass, the highs opened up and the overall presentation became smooth and musical.
3) Then came the main attraction of the meet - LM 216IA. This is the first time I am hearing this amp, that too with the Tannoys. First thing I must say - it's a very musical amp with full of harmonic content - everything sounded so much in tune. The highs were to die for - there was a lot of thump in the bass and the mids smooth. It may not be the most neutral amp (being called a poor man's Shindo on the net by quite a few people), but there is a charming element to the sound it produces. It is reasonably clean too. However, one doubt kept lingering in my mind - the stock tubes were so bad that the amp did not stand a chance with the Spirit and just change of 4 power tubes to better ones makes such a whole lot of difference? What could have gone wrong with the audition of Sangram. Suman and Pratim? Well, I see 5 changes - the amp was not burnt in at all then, the tubes were stock tubes, the power cable was also a stock cable then, the amp was not placed under the magic hexa feet to reduce micro phonics, and they were paired up with Vasu's Usher Mini Dancers (the newer Diamond series). BTW, I personally like the new mini dancers more than the older ones (which Sangram has). Well, the bottom line is - I liked the amp, especially for the price it's a big VFM.
4) At the end, we tried the Leben CS300 for a very short time (the Leben needs at least an hour to properly warm up, is it because it's an auto-biasing amp? Experts please tell me). We did not have time for it to warm up. The same pieces were played but for shorter times. The immediate conclusion was that this is perhaps the cleanest amp, but a few things like the bass slam and the extension at the top and the mid range bloom was less than the LM amp. However, it seemed to have better control of the bass, albeit a bit less bass than LM.
Overall my impression of the 3 tube amps (Spirit2 which was not auditioned that day, Leben and LM Audio) is as follows: The Spirit is the most SS like, the LM is most tube like and the Leben is somewhere in between. All 3 are good and would pair well with a specific speaker. The LM 216IA is priced much lower currently than the Leben and the Spirit.
BTW, I am at the moment auditioning at home the LM CD player (LM-215CD).
Regards.
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. I only have two sets of speakers, otherwise I could have set up a system system in each room of our apartment:sad:
