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”

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...

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.

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

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.

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.

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...

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".

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/lamm-ml22-single-ended-triode-amplifier