What makes us interested in hifi?
I’m sure there are many reasonable responses
to that question but for me it goes back to when I was in my early teen years,
that time when many of us began to listen to music that captured our
imagination or encouraged to think differently or, for some, to be
rebellious. At that time I was fortunate
enough that there was a decent stereo system in our house – nothing
particularly fancy, it was a Marconiphone branded Thorn EMI radiogram – but it
had a Garrard turntable, Goldring cartridge and separate speakers that were big
enough to stand on the floor. My brother
and I played lots of stuff on that equipment – Yes, Sabbath, Floyd, Steely Dan
and more. But I didn’t appreciate that
the record player made a difference.
Until, one day, I took an album around to my mate’s home where it was
played on a Fidelity UA4 – a plastic box with plastic speakers not much bigger
than a hardback book, a BSR turntable and probably a ceramic cart. It sounded terrible. And so, for me, there was a realization that
the kit could make a difference.
So from there, the possibilities became of
interest. There was a mate of my brother’s
who had a Sony music centre that did a better job than our Marconi, and so it
went on. In our small town there were 2
hifi shops (no, really!) and it was a simple transition from looking at Hornby
trains in toy shop windows to looking at electronics with lots of controls, VU
meters, lights etc. Then I got a
part-time job when I was 16 and the saving started. Enough to one day venture into one of the
hifi shops to see what was what. I went
for the smaller shop, which, I was to learn later, was far more focused on
music playing systems, the other being focused on the latest shiny far eastern
products. In there was playing a Linn
LP12 turntable (I forget the arm and cart, probably something like a Grace 707
and whatever was flavour of the day) feeding into a Nytech amplifier and on to
Heybrook HB3s. Wow, that was an ear opening moment when I first realized what
was possible, given the budget.
I’ll get to the point. Soon.
Ish.
But supermarket Saturday jobs don’t feed
LP12 and Heybrook habits. So the budget meant looking at Sony / Pioneer
turntables, Pioneer / JVC / Technics entry level amps and speakers at that
level seemed to be ubiquitously Wharfedale.
But there was also a thriving specialist press at the time, with lots of
black and white magazines with glossy covers seeking attention. And there I discovered a few things about
what was available from dealers and how not everything with flashy finishes,
impressive sounding technologies and lots of lights were necessarily the best
thing around. Examples from the speaker
world were the AR18s and the original Mission 700 – simple designs, but ones
with music in mind. I also began to
understand that a used decent turntable might be more worthy than a brand new plastic
model from Japan. So, cutting the long
story a little bit shorter, the first system was a used Thorens TD160 with a
Mayware arm and a pair of Mission 700s.
So what sat between source and
speakers? Many of you will probably have
worked out where this is going. In the
one shop we have JVC shiny amps with slider controls, sat alongside Technics
SUV-something-or-others with the Super Class A circuitry. Amplifiers with 0.0001% distortion, 50 watts
per channel, the ability to connect 2 pairs of speakers, lovely needle or fluorescent
VU meters. In the other shop, a dowdy
looking, drab little box with just a set of tone controls and a meagre 20 watts
per channel. Yet the magazines were
praising this little box so further investigation was necessary. Well, as it turns out, and I’m not sure that
the same can be said very often today, the magazines were right. The Japanese amplifiers sounded slow, lacking
in sparkle, flat, they played notes not music and they didn’t engage you when
you listened. Yet the little NAD 3020, for
all its build quality faults, its slightly over-warm upper bass, a mere 20W per channel and dull looks
was full of life, got you involved and created the heart of a system that I
wanted to listen to for hours. Fantastic
value for money.
And so, eventually we kind of get to the
point. In the above example, the simple,
“less is more” amplifier did a great job of playing music rather than being led
by technology claims and objective measurements. Is that relevant today? After my visit to an audio dealer in Lisburn,
NI, I decided to find out in my own system.
Might be worth a quick look at the report from Lisburn, as it’s a kind
of prelude to this post.
So where are we today, in the Musings
system?
Source is a combination of the following,
in order of where the information starts to where it ends up:
-
Dell laptop with Exact Audio
Copy creates FLAC rips of CDs OR purchased downloads from sites like
Junodownload, Qobuz, etc.
-
This data is loaded on a Melco
N1ZH which is the HDD version
-
The database and media server
is MinimServer which runs with the 24-bit WAV up conversion
-
Chord Ethernet cable
-
Linn Akurate Exakt DSM pre-amp
/ streamer (this adds internet radio and Tidal options to the data from the
Melco)
-
Meicord Ethernet cable
-
Linn Akurate Exaktbox6/1
DSP/multi-channel Katalyst equipped DAC
So that lot then sends 3 signals (treble,
mid-range and bass) per channel to a pair of Linn Akurate 4200/1 power amps –
via Linn Silver interconnects – one channel per driver in the speakers. Using 6x channels of the 8x available in
these amps, I run treble and bass in one amp and mid-range in the other – I’m
not sure if this is a general rule, or if its down to the PMCs which have the
mid-range at ear height, but I’ve found in this system that any possible
improvement should be applied to the mid-range first, hence the amp doing the
least work gets to drive the mids. The spare 2x channels then run the centre
channel speaker in passive bi-amp mode, which is only used for TV and movies. A mix of Linn and Naim speaker cables – which
will eventually all be Naim - take the signal out to PMC Twenty.26 speakers. The PMCs have been converted to work in
active mode (no passive crossovers in the speakers) and they stand on
IsoAcoustics Gaia feet. All equipment is mounted on Mission/Cyrus Isoplats on 2
flavours of Quadraspire. Linn’s SPACE is
used to deal with room modes in a mildly adjusted form, only applied after
making sure that the speakers are in their best position in the room to start
with.
A while I go I toyed with the idea of
trying 3x stereo Naim NAP250DR amps in the system – I’ve heard this amp sound
very good in systems that don’t include other Naim stuff and considered it
might be worth a try. But what else might be worth a try and would it bring
enough improvement without spending very silly money? Linn’s Klimax Twin would be worth
considering, but I’ve been there before and whilst it is a very good amplifier
– it does just sound like a more powerful Akurate amp rather than a major step
forward. Linn’s own Solo amps would also
be worth a try, but when you need 6 of them, the price and space required
becomes a VERY real issue. I suppose
there is a very long list of options, and possibly Audionet should be on that
list too. Finding dealers (or friends)
who have 3x amps on demo or available to borrow is a challenge too. One thing I
didn’t want to do is leave Exakt behind and go back to a conventional system –
I hear too many benefits to think about going in that direction.
So if you’ve read the post about the visitto Lisburn then you’ll have guessed already the path I wanted to explore
further. The Lejonklou (say Lay-on-cloo)
Tundra Stereo 2.5 impressed in a Linn Exakt system, with Kudos Titan 707s, but
that was just whetting the appetite – there’s no compensation for trying
changes in your own system, in your own room.
The room is an intrinsic part of the system, and can’t be ignored. But 3x amps?
Who was going to be able to help with a demo like that? Well,
Kantata-Audio stepped up to the mark – they already have 2x demo amps of their
own, but John put the effort in to get a third one lined up and the plan was
hatched. Great service too – amps
delivered to home in Wales from over the water in NI. I guess John would prefer to come along to
install the gear, but maybe he felt it was safe enough to let me get on with it
on my own, especially this far from base!
Remarkably, despite the best efforts of the
couriers, the amps turned up safe and sound, packaged in their very simple,
unassuming cardboard boxes. No box
branding as such, just Lejonklou branded sealing tape. One by one the amps were unboxed and in each
box we find an amp, a simple instruction leaflet, a Lejonklou branded box
containing the power lead and a multimeter – more of which later.
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| Simple cartons |
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| A smart box for the power cable |
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| Instructions on setting up using the supplied multimeter |
Once all were unboxed, I listened again for
a good hour or so to the system as-is (it had being playing quietly for at
least 30 mins beforehand), just to get a good feel for what it sounds like,
trying to keep that in my most recent memory.
It might not have helped much, but I felt I should try and make the
comparison as fair as possible. Given
that it was about to take about 1.5 to 2 hours to disconnect cabling, change
over the amps, re-cable, test etc., then this wasn’t a comparison that was
going to be of the A to B variety. In
the limitations of the amount of rack space I have, it just wasn’t possible to
do this the most ideal way, with all the amps set up ready to just change
cables – I don’t have that kind of space.
Even with this last listen, given the set-up procedure for the Tundras,
it probably made only a small difference, given it was going to be 30 hours or
so before serious listening could be undertaken - more on set-up soon.
Physically, because 2x 4200s are being
swapped out for 3x stereo amps, there was a re-shuffle on the centre rack. Previously the Exaktbox had a dedicated shelf
and sat central with the amps next to each other on the shelf below. Once done, the Exaktbox was off to one side
with a Tundra alongside and two futher Tundras side by side on the shelf
below. Another Isoplat was extracted
from the loft too, to keep changes between the systems to a minimum by making
sure all the amps were isolated equally.
I normally use ClearerAudio Copper Alpha shielded mains cables for the
Linn amps, but stuck with the supplied (very unassuming) mains cables provided
with the Tundras, as their designer has strong views on this, so I thought best
to stick with the recommendation – if there was any experimenting to be done,
that could wait a while. There’s another
significant difference between the Linn and Lejonklou amps – Linn offering 200W
per channel (into 4 ohms, but to be fair to the industry norm, most
manufacturers would call this 100W into 8 ohms) whereas the Tundra makes do
with a seemingly very modest 25W per channel – echoes of those NAD 3020
specs. In my active system, this means a
total of 75W per channel and each amp only has to deal with a direct connection
to the speaker drive units with no passive crossover to consume power.
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| The Exaktbox moved to the left to accomodate the first Tundra. Linn amps still in place on the bottom shelf |
Back to what came out of the boxes. 3x of the latest iteration of the Lejonklou
Tundra Stereo 2.5. v2.5 is probably
about the 7th or 8th iteration of the amp, the history of
which can be found here. It was Fredrik
Lejonklou’s first amplifier product.
Interestingly it reminds me, at least in the way it looks, of a
combination of Linn LK range (the Klout of that range also had twin blue LEDs
on the front panel) and the no-nonsense solid engineering of the Naim
amps. These boxes are not heavy (they
use SMPS power supplies, not big heavy transformer PSUs like many amps) but
they do feel very well built from quality materials. Everything is black with a nice matt finish
that feels like it will be robust – the front features the central company logo
flanked by the aforementioned blue LEDs.
One of my favourite non-audio features (probably the amps’ only
non-audio feature) is the ability to turn these LEDs off using a simple back
panel toggle switch – the less distractions in the room the better when
focusing on enjoying the music.
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| Unassuming, but seems to be well built |
On the underside we find a myriad of allen
bolt heads presumably holding boards, components and earth straps in
place. I don’t take a look inside for 2
reasons – first these are not my amps and that would be inappropriate, but
secondly because Lejonklou are fastidious about their fasteners – each and
every one has been adjusted to a particular torque level where it sounds best
to the designer. I find this
fascinating, have no experience of the difference a torque setting for an amp
board mounting can make, but I’m quite happy to accept that every little change
added up can make for a big change overall.
Other than that there are 4 rubber feet of everyday appearance, each mounted
on a metal washer.
Around the back the action doesn’t get any
more exciting. Functional is the
approach. The LED on-off switch, the
mains on-off switch, 4 phono socket connections, 4x 4mm speaker output sockets
and that’s almost your lot. Fredrik has
tested the amp and signed off on a small label.
The only thing here that’s somewhat unusual is a 3.5mm trim port and a
small rubber knob next door. That’s your lot.
The 4x phono connectors are in pairs – a pair for each channel – one is
the input, the other an output that can be used to pass the signal along to
another amp for passive multi-amping of speakers by duplicating the input
signal. In my system, just the input
connections are required. The top plate is even simpler – just a flat panel
with a narrow row of cooling vents running just along the back edge.
Connecting up took a while, but I did take
the opportunity to do a bit of dusting along the way J. The usual power-up sequence for an active
system was used, music was played and the bass amp powered up first. Then the mid-range, then the treble. This sequence means that if, for example,
what I expected to be the bass amp was actually outputting treble, the bass
driver would have no issue. Try that the
other way around and the tweeters would soon be smoke. And then was the patient bit. How patient?
Well, 30 hours or so. But I
managed to do it. The Tundra has a lower
gain compared to the Linn amps – over the weekend it correlated with what I’d
read – the pre-amp needs to be 9 or 10 units higher than with the Linn amps to
get the same kind of listening level. So
a very quiet 40 volume level with the Akurates is a very quiet 50 with the
Tundras. And so they played for an hour
or so before it was time to take a break and get some kip – turning the rig
down to a barely audible level 35 to keep things ticking over, but not
disturbing the household.
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| Simple rear panel with the LED toggle far left and the trim port next to that |
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| Underside |
Next morning they’re back up to 50 to play
away to themselves, apart from the essential break for a cuppa when I’d head
back into the room and listen for 30 mins or so, just to hear what was going
on. So back to that trim control and
port. That’s where the multimeter comes
in too – each amp is supplied with one which is labelled up on the back with
the correct mV reading for the amp. The
idea here is that the amp’s idling current can be adjusted to suit it’s set up
to make the best of the temperatures that arise from its working location. This has to be adjusted after the first 24
hours, then again an hour later, one month after installation and then annually
there after. Unless you re-locate the amp
to a new environment, when the 24 hour/1 hour process should be repeated. An amp for the enthusiast audience rather
than the mass-market then.
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| First amp connected up. Trim port and trim knob just this side of the speaker cables |
Well, I said I managed to be patient – but
its confession time! I actually lasted
20 hours of running before I got down to the first adjustment – I figure these
are demo amps and have probably had a good few hours running already. Turning off the Exaktbox meant there is no
signal going into the amps – they’re idling. Plugging in the multi-meter and
turning to the mV setting the trim knob is adjusted until the correct value is
showing. Very simple, very
straightforward, no specialist knowledge required. I did one amp, then ran some music again for
about 15 minutes before going silent and adjusting the next one – hopefully
this kept the temperature closest to normal operating. I repeated this for the third amp. Two amps needed just a small tweak, the third
quite a bit more – it must have been operating in a fairly different type of
rack previously. So then I put in about
2 hours of listening at a modest 50 to 55 listening level, but didn’t make the
second trim adjustment until the next morning – another 9 hours of running. So after breakfast on the Sunday, the final
adjustments were made (just one amp actually needed a tweak) and at last, some
proper listening can be done.
Sometimes, when listen to music in order to
work out what a component is doing in a system (or a complete system, as is
usually the case at hifi shows), its difficult to get the words right to
describe what’s being heard. And more often than not, they’re questioned,
mis-interpreted, inadequate, or need to describe things in terms of
characteristics when you’d rather be talking about the way the music is playing
or feeling. Whilst there are “technical”
characteristics to what’s heard, they’re a small part of what matters – its
what the music does for you rather than the way its presented that’s key. If it doesn’t stir emotions, then there seems
little point in using anything other than the basics and using music as a
background rather than a priority. I’ll
try to give a flavour of both technical and musical here, to try and cover the
bases.
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| All 3 Lejonklous in place. Here with the LEDs switched on - I prefer them off to reduce distractions |
So the technical – well, what I’ve noticed,
and I found it a little difficult to understand when reading this elsewhere,
these amps need 15 to 20 minutes warm-up time.
And by that I don’t mean switched on, that’s not enough, they need 15 to
20 minutes of actual music playing. At
the start they sound very good, but the imaging is flat and there’s nothing particularly
special about them. But then, after that time, they wake up significantly. The left to right imaging opens up enormously,
spreading across the full width of the room, and those phase effects used
extensively in electronica, where the sound seems to come from beside and
sometimes behind, are very effectively delivered. Depth front to back comes in too, but perhaps
never gets quite as deep as with the Linn amps, even after a full warm up. Bass lines are just a touch softer on the
leading edges than with the Linns, as noted in the Lisburn system, yet it has
more believable textures and timing.
Goes just as deep, is just as substantial but yet more stable on the
Tundra compared to the Akurate. Running with SPACE in my home system to deal
with room modes helps to reveal just how good the timing is on the Tundra, in
addition to opening up their mid-range clarity.
The rest of the frequency range is handled extremely well, but it’s the treble
that has a delicacy almost absent in the 4200.
Spashiness is much reduced, sibilance takes a further step back and
there’s yet another level of detail in terms of hearing how a struck cymbal’s
note changes as it decays, or the ability to differentiate between the different
areas the instrument has been struck.
In the mid-range, I find that instruments
take another step towards being clearly defined as individual sounds. Some tracks reveal multiple instruments
taking the lead where before there had been a single, less well defined, tune
line. Notes also last longer – they decay
away convincingly and add to the sense of the venue on live recordings. Vocals are easier to follow, but also carry
so much more emotion and expression. At
the end of tracks as the notes fade away, they do so into a much quieter
background.
And what about the music? After the initial
15 to 20 minute running time, this is the area that demonstrates a great deal
of superiority to the Dynamik power supplied Linns. Its also the most difficult to describe in
words. The thing that really stands out
for me is their timing. It seems
completely counter-intuitive that timing should be a “thing” that might be a
challenge for a modern amplifier. I
mentioned it when listening in Lisburn, its about the musicians playing
together. On every beat. Every time. Of
course, the Lejonklou’s probably still don’t get it completely right, but there’s
a definite sense of the removal of a layer of complexity in the music – note, I
don’t say a layer of detail, that’s something completely different. For example, the 2 guitars on Dire Straits’ “Six
Blade Knife” around 2:30 into the track and onwards – what was previously 2
different instrument lines is now an interplay making a complete tune together,
yet the 2 instruments are still clearly distinguished. Another example being the clicks and tricks
on Tunng’s “Jenny Again” – they no longer feel like add-ons, but a part of the
music. This integration of “special
effects” into the feel and flow of the music, I notice time and time again –
another example would be something that sounds like sheets of metal being
tapped on Pitch Black’s “Filtered Senses” – the way they impact into the music
and then fade away is no longer rather incongruous to the tune. This track also has some interesting bass
depth that rumbles underneath – but now with a sense of tune and flow, not just
a rumble. The complex percussion (finger
cymbals, castanets etc.) contribution to Massive Attack’s “Unfinished Sympathy”
as an integrated part, not as a seemingly unnecessary distraction. The bass line in Leftfield’s “Afro Left”
introduction kicks solid and stable, building a sense of anticipation of what
might be to come.
Kiki Dee’s live rendition of “Don’t Go
Breaking My Heart” from the “Almost Naked” album is a great track. I’ve enjoyed it on most good systems I’ve had
but now we have more emotion in her voice, a greater sense of the venue and
something that flows between her vocals and the backing track. Its easier to
hear the message Dee wants to put across. On Yello’s album “Toy”, there are 2 guest
female vocalists who have quite a different contribution to make to these
tracks. Malia’s smokey smooth jazz style
is contrasted with Fifi Rong’s lighter, mysterious vocals. Now this contrast is greater still – Malia’s
out to convince through gentle persuasion, Rong seems to be out to unsettle,
disturb and put doubts in your head. And
talking of unsettling, Mary Gauthier’s seriously unhappy on “Falling Out of
Love”, its already pretty obvious really, but here her vocals grab you and
almost force you to take notice of just how unhappy she is. Gripping stuff.
All of this got me thinking about how to
describe the effect of the Tundra 2.5s in my Exakt system. The above kind of tries to get the experience
across, but then probably not adequately enough. So how about comparing the 2 amps to learning
to drive? When you first pass your
driving test, its because you are competent and safe on the road. You know what to do, when to do it and how to
do it. But that’s all. It still takes a great deal of concentration
and it doesn’t come naturally. You have
to think through what you’re doing and you do it sequentially, as per the
instructor's directions. But then, as you
get more and more competent as a driver, things start to flow – actions gel together,
you start to anticipate traffic, you get smoother with gear changes and clutch
engagement, you gradually stop thinking about the mechanics of what you’re
doing. The stuff you have to do all the
time almost become subconscious and you can flow into the traffic and start to
enjoy the actual journey, perhaps placing the car on the road to get the best
out of a corner, to feel the way the car reacts to your inputs etc. Driving is
no longer a set of individual motions, actions and set pieces, it becomes a
continual flow and blends together as one journey. Yet you’re still controlling individual functions
such as the throttle, steering, gears etc. – they’re still distinct actions.
So that’s what I think the Tundras are
doing over and above the Linn Akurate amps.
They give that flow, that sense of an easy to follow musical experience,
rather than a set of individually processed notes and voices. Its also interesting to note, although source
first is still true because you can never recover what’s lost at source, there’s
a good deal here to learn about how much components further down the line can
lose and waste what the source is doing and prevent the musical side getting
through to the listener. A fantastic
source can be wasted by not giving it good enough support.
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| Linn DSM / Exaktbox Source, Lejonklou Amps, PMC Twenty.26 Speakers |
So after NAD, Rotel and Linn amplifier
generations, a new generation takes over the reins in the system and a
seemingly simple amp brings greater enjoyment of the music. They’re here to stay.
