Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site
In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: Initial thoughts about new/old Lamm ML2s
Post Subject: What can we draw from this?Posted by Paul S on: 9/30/2007
Some time ago Romy threw me a fish in the form of two numbers, 280 and 185, meaning mV and V, respectivly, and I finally got around to chowing down. I was getting annoyed with the sound this morning to the extent that I busted out the DMM, and I found the bias had drifted up considerably. As I dialed it back I decided to just keep going, and I am glad I did.
In my case, lower plate current and/or less power worked a treat. It cleaned things up considerably and harmonics became better as well, including bass, with no loss in "articulation", placed in quotes because IMO bass "articulation" is not really present without proper harmonics. In this case, bass was no more harmonically enriched than the rest of the spectrum, with the effect that sections were audible and interesting contributors in complex music. Another beneift of the change was less HF hash, and in no way did the DEBZs lose power or "drive". In fact, the net effect of less hash was more music and "drive" at any given volume setting.
As I understand it, lowering plate current raises output impedance, so this is another move that "makes no sense", especially since the DEBZs are nominally 8R. Still, the Lowthers certainly benefited from the change; but so did the big Audax. The ribbons were the same, except they were dealing with less noise, so in that sense they benefited, too.
Now (as usual...) I wonder how far I could go with this, at what point(s) the benefits would reverse.
A nice thing happened after the change today: This is the first time I have been able to really enjoy the Solti/CSO Mahler 5 (London ffrr), as it was finally unraveled and expanded enough to make it really interesting as opposed to somewhat oppresive. Quite a nice recording, actually.
Best regards.
Paul SRerurn to Romy the Cat's Site