Hi all: Up here I’ve been having adventures chasing the Kundalini Effect across a variety of components, thanks for the moment to the Lenco/SME V/Denon DL-103 matching. Now I realize the SME V is a pricey component, so for the foreseeable while, after I return the SME to its rightful owner, I will see if I can extract the same effect from my Rega tonearm (only re-wired, no other tweaks) with the Denon with the addition of after-market tweaks and Twl’s lateral weights, or from some other tonearm/cartridge combo (the Grados likely have the potential too, already come very close).
I’ve been playing with the Glass Epoxy Mod too, and learned in the process just how much like a violin the Lenco is!!: tighten the bolts – either the woodscrews used for direct coupling or the bolts which insert in the threaded insets on the Lenco top-plate – and the sound hardens and bass and PraT go away, loosen so it’s snug and it re-appears. And I would say the Lenco threaded bolts are even more critical than the direct coupling screws, though it goes without saying that you must be very careful not to distort the top-plate by too much pressure on the woodscrews. Get it right and everything comes into focus, and the Glass Mod is the most natural-sounding iteration of the Lenco I’ve heard so far, preserving the Mighty dynamics and transient speed, but with an added Grado-like richness (NATURAL richness music actually has), and with a Grado-like sense of ebullient drive and rhythm and bass (any wonder I love the Grados?!?), and all the improvements in detail-retrieval and soundstage.
Now, I had been using the Sony 3130F/AR combo to test for the Kundalini Effect, as these do it better than any speaker I’ve heard so far, except for the Athenas. Now the ARs were designed with tube amps in mind, and so don’t sound good (especially in the bass) with modern SS amps due to their elevated damping factor. Older SS amps had very low damping factor, and consequently extract much better/more exciting bass from the ARs. Henry Kloss, who worked on these speakers (as well as Vilchur and others) recommended wiring resistors in series with the speaker cables to emulate a tube amp, I’ll have to look this up for more details.
Which brings me to the 100-watt solid-state Class AB amp I had written about way back, built by a follower of Da Thread from its beginning, which I had heard and likened to a 100-watt Class A SET in sound. Well, I finally went and picked it up and it is everything I had hoped it would be and more. Actually, when I hooked it up to my ARs, the Kundalini Effect went away, but in its stead I was left with a HUGE walk-through soundstage, incredible and filigree dainty detail, endless and perfect high frequencies which appear rolled-off but aren't, being due to the UTTER and TOTAL absence of any grain or distortions. Makes my little Sony amp sound quite barbaric in fact. But. The Kundalini Effect is gone, those fascinating wrecking-ball slamming percussion instruments are gone, that Super Energy is gone, because the 100-watt heavy monster (three times the size and weight of my little Sony amp), sounds just like a very loud 3-watt single-ended tube amp, all Supreme Refinement (how does he do it?!?), Ultra Detail with HUGE space between all the clearly audible instruments. WHAT transparency. Sitting there, it struck me that this amp needed my easy-to-drive perfect-midrange-to-high-frequency ESS speakers, so in they went.
NOW we are talking PERFECTION. The detail is absolutely astounding (and this from my humble Denon DL-103"E", but the ESS are incredible in this sense...as well), the energy and speed is back, the bass fast and slamming, the image incredible and HUGE and yet at the same time specific, and all without any audible distortions at all, just like reviewspeak: it offers a clear window (and I mean CLEAR, nothing there; just the grooves, then the sound in the room with nothing in-between) onto the event. I have never heard anything like it. And the Kundalini Effect is back, but with an added very beguilingly beautiful sound from those fantastic delicate/dynamic Heil tweeter/midranges, it will be my Reference System to amaze and astound. Many of my older Lenco converts became converts when they heard my Lenco played through the ESS back in the old home days. They STILL talk about that experience. But they ain't heard nuthin' yet.
Now this is important: I got the Kundalini Effect (in addition to the tingle/hair-raising effect one only too rarely gets in high-end audio, this is the experience of actual intense physical shivers, which I have seen with my own eyes affect others too) from both the Sony/AR combo and from the Pierre Amp/ESS combo, which means it is independently attributable specifically to the Lenco/SME V/Denon combo, and not some freak of synergy having to do solely with the totality of my system. Strike another blow for the Mighty Lenco, but also for the Denon DL-103 (and variants), which truly does have something unique to it and it alone (you don't see cult followings of the Denon DL-304, or DL-S1, do you?): a musical INTENSITY which no other moving-coil can match (unless it is a direct-scanning type, I may find out some day), even remotely. I hook up the superb Koetsu Rosewood, and though the sound improves in every audiophile sense (detail, speed, bass, highs, imaging), the Kundalini Effect goes away, like hitting the OFF switch (this doesn't mean the tingle factor/hair-raising experience is gone, it remains and is still musically-intense). Re-inserting the Denon brings back the effect immediately, like hitting the ON switch. The Denon has more PLUCK in its pluck (string-plucks LEAPING out with HEFT), and more SLAM in its slam, hitting like a heavyweight, with style, like Ali, vs every other MC's Sugar Ray Leonard impression. Now not everyone prefers the Denon to the Koetsu: some prefer the Koetsu's greater audiophile abilities. But, significantly, among those who prefer the Denon is a drummer. This highlights what is going on: those who are more sensitive to timing and rhythm prefer the Denon; those who are less sensitive to this prefer the Koetsu, which goes some ways to explaining the arguments over which equipment is better, simple sensitivity (or lack thereof) to various musical issues. I believe, anyway, that prolonged exposure to the Lencos and other large idler-wheel drives leads to greater and greater sensitivity to PRaT and gestalt/coherence.
I have to say more about the image from Pierre's amp. I didn't know my records sounded anything like this!!!! I have a whole new record collection!!! Now this a "regular" class AB stereo amp, one transformer, two channels, solid state. But I have NEVER heard imaging like this, and I have owned a variety of tube monoblocks in my time, which excelled at imaging. Not only is the soundstage HUGE and walk-through-and-around, but this is also due to the fact that all the musicians and instruments are their actual size: here you have a human with a human-sized head, and WAY over there behind and to the right is a regular-sized guitar, and off to the left about twenty feet down some small percussion instrument doing its thing. This is tied to the enormous detail (and did I mention perfect and with no distortions whatsoever?...I mean, is this even possible?!?), which is so audible because of the incredible transparency (there's no amp there!!!). In fact, the sound is SO PERFECT, the detail presented with SUCH a total lack of strain (100-watt single-ended tube amp-like) that I think it's a coloration. Then again maybe not. I don't know what to think, but I know this: I have been taking out many of my albums to learn just exactly what's on them!!!
Now this amp isn’t available commercially (but perhaps, if you ask nice, you might get Pierre to make you one, that’s his decision) but I write about it to highlight an aspect of this hobby of ours and commercially-available products. To wit, this just goes to show you amps too are like instruments: Pierre took a normal Class AB circuit, and tuned it by the judicious application of this resistor here and that capacitor there, even listening to different solders, and by designing the circuit boards for maximal musicality (issues of capacitance, inductance and noise in the design) and by using a frame (C-core I believe) transformer, which he says sounds much better than toroidals. I mean, who does this in commercially-avaliable products? They come up with a good circuit design with good components and good sound, and then wreck it by either downgrading the quality of the components to increase profit, or by inserting audiophile-darling caps and resistors without testing for their actual effect (i.e. a gain in detail at the expense of musicality/gestalt/magic). I've heard Pierre's other designs (true dual monos and some monoblocks), which were actually even more detailed with better imaging and firmer bass. But they didn't have this smooth silky vice-free/SET-like sound (sounding more typically solid-state) and sense of illimitable dynamics (clear skies above, no hardening or distortions) and gestalt this amp has. And Pierre was entirely aware of this, and already knew in advance from my writings that I would prefer the 100-watt SET-mimicker. I'll have to get more details from him, but the idea is, that what is considered a pretty low circuit on the Totem Pole (Class AB solid-state vs tubes and Class A) can be turned into a silk purse by doing it right. I’ll say more on this as I know more, but for the moment, my Giant Direct Coupled Glass-Reinforced Lenco (getting long ;-))/ARC SP-8/Pierre Amp/ESS AMT4 is producing ludicrously good sound up here (no one hears this unaffected, some even literally shake in their seats!), and I can’t wait to hear what my Grado sounds like on this rig!!
Hi again Peter, it's good to know your new plate will incorporate speed changes, which makes it all the tastier!! For the moment, I'm off to try to extract the Kundalini Effect from other combos, starting with my beloved Grado Woody, and of course my Decca! Have fun all!
