A very interesting amp audtion


My girlfriend and I were invited to a good friend and audiophile's house, because he wanted our opinion concerning a new amp he was audtioning. It's always great fun to hear a new piece and our friend has a world class system. His system is Kharma Grand Ceramiques, a Kharma sub-woofer, all enigma wires, Lamm L2 pre-amp, ML-1 mono blocks, and a Meitner digital front end. Not bad! It's really a treat to listen to music on his system. What he wanted us to listen to was Kharma's new Matrix 150 mono-blocks compared to his Lamm ML-1 mono-blocks. The Kharma amps are the size and weight of a phone book and run total cool. The Lamms of course are tubed, large, and run very hot. Well, we all agreed that the Kharma amps were more detailed, more extended on the top and bottem, more dynamic, had a larger soundstage with more air around the performers than the Lamms, but my girlfriend and audiophile friend still liked the Lamms better because of their "warmth and just a more natural/relaxing feel to the music". I was voted down, because if it was my system, I would have chosen to replace the Lamms with the new Kharmas because of the above stated virtues along with, to my ear's, a more honest rendering of timbres and fantastic transparency. I found the Lamms almost sounding somewhat congested in comparision. So no right or wrong, just personnal taste regarding these world class mono-block amps. I wanted to share this very interesting experience here on the GON with you fellow members for two reasons; 1) I believe that Kharma has come up with a real contender with their new Matrix MP 150 mono-blocks that should be considered by anyone audtioning world class reference amps. 2} They retail for $6500.00 for the pair, not chicken feed, but quite remarkable when you think they were quite competitive with a pair of $20000.00 world renowned amps.
teajay

Showing 1 response by kw6

I have to agree with Wadia150. Teejay I'm not sure if you are referring to the ML 2/2.1 or the hybrid M 1.1/1.2. But if its the the ML 2 series with the 6C33C output tubes in triode that is one of the finest amps in the world extant. That's one pricey amp which lives up to the hype.