Integrated Amp Reviews

You're right, it's quite small, tiny even.

I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't taken that closer look.

These Stereophile pictures seem overly & deceptively large. hmm

I'll bet that this cute little Integrated is aimed at someone with a tiny home and tiny loudspeakers. ( tiny Japanese people )

The darn thing is cute as a bugs ear but American Schiit is probably equally smallish with an even smaller price tag.

I've always admired Luxman and even Tanberg but never enough to actually commit to ownership because I've never figured out what problem Luxman is a solution for.

However...

I bet that I could fall in love with this thing if I had it sitting next to my relaxing Lazy-boy. I'd be tube rolling and writing all about it. what fun.

Tony in somewhere bbbbbrrrrrr land.

It is more like 'Liddle' Luxman :-) ........

They will be two good tube options around $3,000 mark.

A somewhat more expensive alternative might be to use a clean signal gain chain for the primary system backbone, and insert a Manley Mastering Version Massive Passive to provide some special sauce of tube warmth and optionally some EQ, like a more highly capable tone control. Key point would be to include the special sauce only when needed, and to dis-include the special sauce on well recorded well mastered material.

https://www.manley.com/pro/msmp#mmmsmp-mastering-header

Dude, if you only gave it an objective audition on proper speakers you will quickly learn your idea of "distortion" has kept you in the dark all your life. Time to change the road you're on as a great band once said.

These can be configured as booster amplifiers, are powerful and adequately clean. The nonlinearities of the upstream tube amplifier would dominate the resulting sound character.

https://www.stereophile.com/solidpoweramps/907mf/index.html

Read JA1's comments in the measurement section.

I would suggest that the MF-550K is better suited for use in avoiding clipping with well recorded music with high crest factor. It is not the right choice for highly compressed music into low sensitivity loudspeakers with high continuous output, rather does not have enough heat sink for that, and does not need a bigger heatsink if implemented in suitable application.

http://www.luxman.com/product/detail.php?id=28

If someone wants to build a couple of higher power lower distortion monoblock amplifiers with 6P14P-EV output tubes, I would suggest consideration of Menno van der Veen's Specialist VDV-2100-CFB-SSCR-PPS output transformer (€216/each, tax exclusive, two needed for stereo), in combination with a matched octet of 6P14P-EV output tubes ($180 per matched octet, two octets needed for stereo).

This transformer can handle the current, and has 2k Ohm primary impedance (parallel push pull pairs in the octet would see 8k per pair). It includes a separate 40% ultralinear winding rather than simple taps on a shared winding, so the screen grids can be operated at a subregulated voltage relative to the B+ anode plate voltage, perhaps 400V on the anode plates and 300V on the screen grids. That reduced voltage on the screen grids significantly reduces nonlinearity and increases tube life. The transformer also includes 10% cathode tapes for use in series with the cathodes of the output tubes which further reduces nonlinearity and increases damping factor, making the amplifier more immune to varied load impedance. Frequency range passband on this transformer between the -3_dB rolloff corners is 0.4_Hz to 234_kHz, the wide bandwith serving to reduce differential phase distortion through the transformer allowing better use of feedback. The transformer is rated for 100W of music power and crests can well exceed that.

The transformer is potted in an attractive krinkle finished can, so it should be easy to integrate in a nicely finished design, and there should be no mechanical noises from the core or windings.

In case those might be familiar to some, note that Menno van der Veen's current "Speialist" line of output transformers is closely related to the family of "Specialist" transformers that he designed for Plitron a quarter century ago, intended to be wide bandwidth, low distortion, and highly flexible in application. His preferred output tube is the 6550 in pushpull. The ultralinear with the added cathode tapes he refers to as "ultratriode", though the output tubes are not strapped to triode-like operation in the application.

You are so right,

I owned a Stereo 35, loved it's sonic performance, disliked it's chassis appearance and Sold It !

I've regretted selling that lovely little Amp for 35 years.

I'd buy one today if i found one, somewhere. I'm not looking though.

Tony in Venice

Load invariant clean gain is worthwhile, and although it is what some may desire (myself included), some others seem to desire something else, and they are not wrong in their personal subjective opinions and desires.

Setting aside unknowing victims, thoughtful buyers of this amplifier are not looking for load invariant clean gain with power output adequate for use with a majority of loudspeakers currently available in the marketplace as would be provided by something like a Benchmark Media AHB2.

Rather, knowing buyers well understand that this amplifier will provide low output power anemic on all but a thin segment of highly sensitive loudspeakers and/or at very near listening distance and/or at unrealistically low listening levels. ISO226 equal loudness contours illustrate the nonlinearity of human hearing perception, and illustrate the effects of listening at unrealistic level. The amplifier also delivers a mix of audible nonlinear distortion products, noise, and linear distortion, along with the visual effects of some glowing tubes and dancing meter needles that may distract attention from the audible aspects (Colavita visual dominance effect), seemingly desired by no small segment of audiophiles.

No audiophile is wrong in their desires and subjective opinions, regardless how much that may differ from another's desires and subjective opinions.

"is a non sequitur."

Because if I don't like it then it is stupid for anyone else to like it.

...art informed by science. Hifi as a "science" is too often just a set of assumptions about both.

To wit, on to your list, in order:

-Without a very real ranking of all distortions, claims about any few of them is unscientific handwaving and appealing to rhetoric. No such list exists.

-Re: distortion, beyond a certain point any very good loudspeaker can and will reveal different distortions all over the system feeding it. This refutes the common assumption among amateurs that meaningful clarity and authenticity are the product of speakers. They decidedly are not. Scale may be but real organic sound is not.

-Active, multi-amped systems certainly cannot be said to "outperform" the same design when it's passive without filling in #1 above. Further, as has been pointed out to you before, there absolutely is no 100%, 3dB level difference between active and passive whatsoever, nor can you show where this heat is going.

-Again referring #1 and #2 above, real listeners know that the day of the audio tube amplifier is hardly done. Not only are they not obsolete, they are now better than ever because they are faster, have lower intrinsic distortion, and can be implemented with the sorts of circuit features that listeners prefer. (There is no analogy to prosound that relates to reference sound quality.)

-Also an assertion not borne out in practice or by the science, unless you limit it to rough specifications, which I suspect amounts to your hifi ability. If, however, DSP improves the temporal characteristics of the speakers (step response and group delay) "regardless of design", then you have a more valid claim although you still have to filter all results by the list above and actually by all designs. Here again an unsupportable claim.

-The arguable pinnacle of driver development was and is the top-tier light prosound driver from half a century ago. In fact, the finest drivers made today are enhanced versions of those formative designs, and aspects of that prior work has filtered into many new drivers. Assumptions about miniature speakers that happen to make flat lines are risible.

jeffhenning

Your list makes sense given a particular person's tastes and goals. That is the desire for as low coloration and as high fidelity (to the signal) as possible.

But, that isn't everyone's goal and doesn't please everyone. So, thankfully, many products still exist to fulfill criteria other than your own. :-)

The problem with people telling other folks "what's better" is that eventually, someone may hear what you are talking about, and find they do not share your enthusiasm.

I've listened to some very low coloration speakers, and liked some of them. But I've also liked some speakers with a bit of coloration much better. (Won't go in to the reasons for now, as I'm discussing taste). I've auditioned, for instance, the active/DSP Kii Three speakers which are a combination of much of what you just advocated. They were fine. I was mostly unmoved. I much preferred some other passive speakers that I'm sure you would want to kick to the curb.

Likewise, as for tube amps being "obsolete," people have been saying that for almost 50 years. And yet they flourish. Why? They fill other people's desires, if not yours. Despite having had a variety of SS amps in and out of my system (e.g. Bryston) I always end up going back to my Conrad Johnson tube amps. My system just sounds "better" in terms of the sonic characteristics I value, with those tube amps. My pal got tired of tube amp hassles and now uses solid state amplification. Well, I guess the tube amps were obsoleted. Except, while he is happy, I find his system less enjoyable than it was with his tube amps.

So, sure, you've carved out some wisdom for a certain segment of audiophiles, but thankfully there remain many other choices for those who have different criteria and goals.

Better is a relative term.

One can easily say it will sound cleaner but better is 100% a matter of preference and no numbers or science in the world can force one person's preference on another. I don't know why people keep trying.

The Lux is a lovely product with a lovely pedigree. It recaptures the best of the breed, rare as it's become. It's allure is obvious and quite apparently, its sound is superb. Actually knowing what it is and how it works, I'd expect no less. I also know how to use it. To, as I believe the vernacular goes, use it *correctly*.

The review captures this. It's a 550 Spyder. It's obviously not a Raptor F-150.

Your telling Mr. Micallef he's deaf is therefore bullshit, but no more bullshit than having done so, your then adopting the pose of victimized objective reporter.

The person who seems to need to get a life is named Jeff Henning.

You are presenting a wild mix of narcissism and virtue signaling.

"Get a life."

:-D

There is more Jeff Alberston to you than anything else.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=jeff+albertson

Do you even know what a cymbal sounds like when it is struck a few feet from your head?

Have you ever had people high five you at the ending of a performance?

Just wondering.

I have an HH Scott LK-72 that a member of my audio club resurrected and it is lovely and cheap!!!

and the 0.45V line input sensitivity of the Scott, you should have an attenuator between the CD player output and the input of the Scott if you expect to be able to use most of the range of the volume control before the amp's output clips.
Also, the Scott's 20W maximum output would suggest that you should have relatively efficient speakers if you want to avoid peak clipping with wide dynamic range program material.