LAMM M1.2 - Feedback - Advice - Please - anyone heard these?

I have owned the 1.2 Reference monos, 1.1 monos, and LL2 Deluxe preamp.
IMO, Lamm makes very good sounding gear.  However, also IMO, their hybrid amplifiers (M1.2s and M2.2s) do not provide a classic tube sound although they do seem to add a dimensionality that is sometimes missing with purely SS amplifiers.  At the time, I also owned a pair of Clayton M300 monos and I thought the 1.2s leaned more to the bloomy side of bass (bigger and fuller) than did the M300s (better controlled but not overly damped, and better drive).  The Lamm 1.2s had a nice tonal density that makes you mostly forget you are listening to an electronic music system.  The Clayton M300s provided their own version of this dimensionality.

Since I needed to make a decision between the two at the time, my ultimate decision to keep the Claytons over the Lamms came down to the Lamms sounding a little harder/rougher than the Claytons, particularly in the upper frequencies, and the Claytons being able to better drive my power hungry speakers.  However, I can say the Lamms will give you everything you can get from 110 wpc and when they max out they simply stop providing more power without sounding ugly first.  In fairness, the things I heard may have been due to the difference in power between the two amplifiers (M300s are 300/600 wpc into 8/4 ohms) and that the Lamms were a little underpowered for the speakers.  I did have a variety of tubes on hand that I tried, including several pretty good NOS tubes. 

I always wanted to hear the more powerful 2.2s but I believe the main difference between the 1.2s and 2.2s may be that the 2.2s switch over from Class A to AB at a lower power level.  Finally, I thought both the 1.1s and 1.2s sounded better from the low impedance (4 ohm) setting, at least with my speakers.  If they are powerful enough for your speakers, it would be hard to go wrong with the 1.2s.

@fsmithjack - you might consider calling The Music Room (TMR) to check inventory or to find out if they have heard of any amplifiers coming up for sale soon from Lamm or Ypsilon.   You may not get rock bottom pricing but they are usually in the ballpark, they are very good with packing and shipping, and they do/did offer a return policy.  I did deal with them on at least one set of big heavy amplifiers and they were excellent to work with.  They are located in Colorado and are active on Audiogon.

I can only speak to the Lamm gear I have owned and played in my system for extended periods. The two amps were used and the LL2 Deluxe preamp was purchased new.
Both the M1.1s and M1.2 Ref displayed nice body and dimensionality compared to most SS offerings. Both displayed a very big, full bass, which some would argue is closer to what you might hear live than the overly damped bass you get from some SS and from the NC1200 Class D amps I owned. The M1.1s were dark, dark, but smooth like syrup up through the midrange, and rolled off in the high frequencies. They made most music sound good and as my first venture into Class A, after a pair of Cary CAD500MB (500wpc) monos, my impression was that of comfortable music that sounded better than any stereo system I had owned previously. Eventually, I felt something was missing in the high frequencies and tired of the darkness so I moved on to a series of Clayton Class A amps.

I ended up owning the M1.2s at the same time as a pair of upgraded (power supply upgrade) Clayton M300s. I would only keep one or the other so it was a tough decision. I wanted to like the M1.2s better, because so many said the M1.2s were at/near the pinnacle of SS or hybrid amplifiers. I tried Amperex 6922 PQ, Electro-Harmonix 6922 EH Gold Pin, Mullard ECC88 / 6DJ8, and Amperex 7308 USA Gold Pin tubes I had sitting around from some preamps I used to own. While the tubes changed the flavor slightly, the basic sound remained the same. The M1.2s were not as dark as the M1.1s, and they did better in the high end. The bass was similar but maybe tightened up a bit. However, the Claytons were smoother throughout the entire frequency range and had just a bit better combination of fullness and grunt in the bass. To the points made earlier, I wouldn’t call the M1.2s hard or etched, but they did have a touch of graininess in the upper frequencies that was not present with the Claytons (maybe MOSFET vs. Bipolar transistors?). OTOH, the Claytons could not quite match that bit of magic in the midrange, but they came close. The Lamms were also a bit more dynamic than the Claytons from the midrange up, until they would run out of gas, which they did when pushing the Aerial Model 9s I owned at the time. That power discrepancy is the main reason I kept the Claytons and sold the Lamms, because otherwise IMO they were on par with each other, just different strengths.

The LL2 Deluxe preamp while being a fully tubed design did not display the stereotypical sounding warm tubed preamp signature. In my system it sounded clean, powerful, and properly extended at the frequency extremes, with very nice dimensionality. I stupidly sold it because it did not have balanced outputs (the Claytons only accepted balanced inputs) and I do miss what it was capable of in my system. I wouldn’t go back because of the absence of a remote/display and because my SMc pre does what I need, but I do miss the sound - highly recommended. If I had easier to drive speakers at the time, and didn’t mind the absence of a volume display and remote, the M1.2s along with an LL2 Deluxe would have made a great sounding system, IMO.

From Stereophile:

The Thiel CS3.7's voltage sensitivity is specified as 90dB/2.83V/m. My B-weighted estimate on its tweeter axis, assessed with DRA Labs' MLSSA system, was slightly above that figure, at 90.7dB(B)/2.83V/m. This may well have been affected by the Thiel's frequency response (see below). The sensitivity is usefully higher than average, which is a good thing considering that the CS3.7's impedance remains between 2 and 3 ohms over much of the audioband (fig.1), and that there is a demanding combination of 3.8 ohms and –40° capacitive phase angle at 60Hz. Thiel specifies the impedance being nominally 4 ohms, with a minimum of 2.8 ohms. I actually found the minimum impedance to be 2.4 ohms at 125Hz. The difference between 2.8 and 2.4 ohms is academic, either mandating use of an amplifier that has no problem delivering high currents.

Depending on which impedance setting you use on the M1.2 (I found the low impedance setting to sound the best) your maximum output current at 4 ohms will only be between about 7-10 amps. 

Comparatively, my Aerial speakers have a similarly difficult impedance between 3-4 ohms (however, with a lower sensitivity of 86 dB at 2.83 Vrms and 1.0 meter on axis), and while the M1.2 reference amplifiers sounded good on those speakers, they ran out of steam too early.   One thing I liked about the M1.2s is that I could essentially hear no strain right up to the point when they simply fell off the cliff and would not play louder, or more dynamic.  I could have lived with them and been perfectly happy 90 percent of the time but instead I found that moving to a pair of very powerful (650wpc @ 8 ohms) monoblocks with bipolar output transistors provided much better control and overall sound with my speakers.  

Regarding the sound, I am not convinced the hybrid design provides any more of a "tube-like sound" than would having a tubed preamp and SS power amp.  I owned both the M1.2 Reference amps you are looking at and the older M1.1s and, while they displayed a nice organic, musical sound in my systems, there were other (solid-state) amplifiers I liked better.  If you want a tubed sound, I suggest getting a tubed amplifier but you would need a pretty big one.  Other opinions may vary.