Hey guys - I'm hoping the core of the issue here is tonality, which imo, is really a matter of personal preference and not the arena where one piece of gear is 'better' than another. We can talk about tonal preferences (light/dark, cool/warm) all day and never disagree - imo, its impossible to 'disagree' on *that* attribute - we just have different preferences.
A component's facility with dynamics we can assess. A component's facility with temporal accuracy we can assess. With soundstage, imaging, dimensionality/palpability, coherency, continuity we can assess. By 'assess' I mean judge the merits one component relative to another. And with enough specific examples across a mix of musical genre's I believe we can arrive at both a claim of one piece of gear doing better than another *and* arrive at a package of personal preferences that each of us can live with. Since there is no 'perfect' component, by the latter I the set of positives and tradeoffs a piece of gear brings to the table that we personally can live with. That's my take, anyway.
I like to think myself a follower of the evolution of CJ gear over the past say 10 years or so. (I've had earlier, but sonic memory fades quickly into generalities.) I agree with Downunder that CJ tonality has moved toward neutral relative to where they were with, say, the Premier 8s. I like the old HP yin/yang analogy. If Yin is Warm/Dark and Yang is Cool/Bright and Neutral is Zero smack in the middle, then CJ tonality has moved along the Yin scale towards Zero, but they have not hit Zero nor gone beyond it. In my opinion. ARC has always been on the Yang side of Zero as have many (but not all) SS gears.
I'm also coming to the notion that 'sweet' as a descriptive word is not the same as 'warm' although they often go together. I tend to think of 'sweetness' as a product of a musician's facility with an instrument, where that is possible. Felix Pappalardi can't play his Hammond B3 sweetly because he's not controlling the instrument's tonal character (though he can use different stops), whereas Robin Trower can play his Fender Stratocaster with savage sweetness, his fingers directly on the strings. Jascha Heifetz (Mr. Cool) doesn't have the tonal warmth of Francescatti but both can play sweetly.
Tonality is very much a part of what each of us likes - we have our preferences. And if a component is not tonally "right" for us, then perhaps no other combination of component attribute goodness can "make up" for that "not rightness". And so it goes.
HOWEVER, CJ has also made great strides in other areas. I'm gonna guess (tell if I'm off base here) that we don't disagree about the value of those improvements. One area is overall resolution, or lowering of the noise floor. CJ has become increasingly more resolving. Another area is their handling of timing - this may be a product of better resolution, but I'm not certain about that yet. Newer CJ amps and preamps do a much better job capturing and presenting the differences between the start and stop of individual notes. Take that built up from individual notes and you have part of what timing is all about - the absence of smearing of notes one into another, each getting its temporal due and no more and no less. I would say this progress is also a move toward neutrality - perhaps 'accuracy' is a better term here. The accurate 'management' of an electronic charge that portrays the sound wave from which it was created. So neutrality of accuracy here is in comparison to the live event.
Timing is part of dynamics as amplitude goes up and down over time and here likewise CJ gear has progressively moved toward the neutral or 'more accurate'. And so it goes too with soundstaging. Imaging, dimensionality, 'blackness' - these characteristics I haven't come to an evaluation yet as they, imo, are the most dynamic, the most fleeting.
Now in the case of the amps, warmth may be as much a product of tube characteristic as anything else. I find it *very* interesting that CJ has gone to a 6922 as the phase splitters in the new LP70/140 models and not re-used the 6H30 they adopted in the Prem 140. There is no off-the-shelf drop-in alternative for the 6H30, but there are many many ways to change tonal character with a 6DJ8/6922/7308 and the LP series uses 3 of 'em. Same for the 6550 - swap those stock SEDs for NOS GEs and bingo - more warmth. (While I haven't heard the LP-series yet I can assure you that - for these ears anyway - there are lots of amps that are tonally 'less warm' than the Prem 140.)
The tendancy is for components with a warm tonal character to also be a bit more laid back, a bit looser in the area of dynamics, timing, and perhaps also to be a bit less resolving, (but less of a tendancy wrt resolution). I can't say this is anything more than an association of attributes - who knows all the causal factors in play. Look at Koetsu cartridges or EL34 power tubes. What comes to mind? Warm, Lush, Opulent tonality. But also looser transients, a tad less snap and verve. (You won't find ARC using EL34s. What are they using? 6550s, 6N1Ps, 6H30s.)
What are the alternatives for Downunder - an amp in a similar family vein - ie, to the proper side of Zero on the Yin/Yang line, but further from Zero than 'modern' CJ. AND still closer than farther in terms of an equally modern adeptness with dynamics, timing, and resolution. Quicksilver? Definitely Thor - I've only heard their 30 Watter and it is certainly sweeter than the Prem140, but I don't know if I'd say warmer. Their bigger amps would certainly be worth a listen if there is an Aussie distributor - kinda pricey, but excellent build quality. Any others to suggest? Neither are the CJ sound, but likewise neither is that far from it.
Ok - sorry for the ramble. Thanks for the write-up Brent! I'm enjoying being a voyeuer to your process of discovery with the LP140M. :)
Tim
