Analog Corner

Where appropriate, the Purpleheart's rich tonality was bolstered by its generous delivery of vivid instrumental textures and three-dimensionality. The cartridge didn't have a sonically unpleasant bone in its body, but when the recording did, the Kiseki gave me enough of it to communicate it effectively, though not with the full measure of possible unpleasantness. It didn't hold back the deliberate sonic horror that is Bruce Springsteen's The River, but a more revealing cartridge like the Lyra Atlas, which costs almost three times as much, lets you hear all of the reverberant, icy mess that invades the stage on many tracks.

The Purpleheart's moderate transient speed meant that the music's hardest edges were somewhat softened, and that its less-than-full expression of macrodynamics didn't allow it to produce the full thrust of the most explosive recordings. But more than making up for what it nips and tucks in those regards was the Purpleheart's lush yet transparent midrange. If there's a more clogged, reverberation-drenched, busy recording than "Wah Wah," from George Harrison's All Things Must Pass (3 LPs, Apple 7 98025 1), you'll have to tell me about it. The Purpleheart's ability to sort out this track's many reverb-drenched electric guitars produced a new perspective on an old favorite. A reissue of Jeff Buckley's Grace (2 45rpm LPs, Columbia/ORG 194) was particularly stirring through the Purpleheart, as was his dad, Tim Buckley's, Goodbye and Hello (LP, Elektra EKS-7318), which hearing Grace had moved me to spin after a decade's rest on the shelf.

The cartridge the Purpleheart most reminded me of was Sumiko's wood-bodied Palo Santos Presentation ($3999), which has an equally lush, pleasing midrange and, for $700 more, a somewhat more generous expression of dynamics.

Overall, the Kiseki Purpleheart N.S. is a physical and sonic beauty. It will reproduce all musical genres well, but I found it especially suited to acoustic jazz and classical. In today's world of crazy-priced cartridges, it offers a sophisticated sound well beyond what you'd expect at its $3299 price, and though it thrives on classical and jazz, it handled rock and other electronic music as well as if not better than some other, more costly cartridges that have a lush midrange but a softer sound overall.

Lamm Industries LP2.1 Deluxe MM/MC phono preamplifier
Introduced at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show, Lamm's LP2.1 Deluxe (footnote 3) replaces the original LP2 Deluxe phono preamplifier. It is a pure class-A, zero-loop-feedback, dual-mono, moving-magnet/moving-coil phono preamplifier with a 6X4 full-wave voltage-rectifier tube and pairs of Russian-made 6C3P and 6C45P-E triode tubes. (Vladimir Lamm, footnote 4, uses the latter two types in his more expensive LP1 Signature phono preamp.) The LP2.1's passive RIAA network sits between its first and second gain stages.

Two Jensen JT-44K-DX 1:10 step-up transformers provide an additional 20dB of gain for the MC input, for a total of 60dB. The LP2.1 costs $8690, or $8990 for the Deluxe version, which, Lamm told me at CES, has an upgraded power supply (greater capacitance), polystyrene bypass capacitors for the capacitors in the signal path, and a 20.5-lb damping panel to isolate its electronic components from induced resonances.

Lamm provides some of the most complete specifications of any audio company, including a full set of measurements, averaged from tests run on 10 LP2.1s. From tubed gear you can't expect the ultra-low distortion figures possible with solid-state, but Lamm's claimed phono-overload margins at 1kHz of 225mV (MM) and 22.5mV (MC) are generous. The LP2.1's output impedance of 2.3k ohms is low enough to be compatible with most preamplifiers.

The LP2.1 Deluxe is about as basic as a phono preamplifier can be. On the rear panel are an On/Off switch, mirror-imaged pairs of MM and MC inputs, toggle switches for choosing between them, and outputs jacks (all RCA). There are no MC loading options, but the LP2.1's 1:10 transformer means that an MC cartridge sees a 400 ohm load—overall, a good compromise for cartridges with internal impedances of about 40 ohms or less.

Spectacular Soundstaging, Superb Overall Sound: In MM or MC mode, the LP2.1 Deluxe was as quiet as most solid-state phono preamps, and quieter than some. Backgrounds were dead quiet, musical eruptions volcanic, and top and bottom extension apparently limitless. The sound was not at all "tubey," yet there were a liquidity and a generosity of musical flow that tubes are generally better at producing, especially in conjunction with a tube voltage rectifier.

The first cartridge I tried with the LP2.1's MM input was a Clearaudio Maestro V2. A relatively low-output (3.6mV) MM that thinks it's an MC, the fast-sounding Maestro V2 reproduces leading-edge transients with close to the speed of a moderately fast MC. I listened to Lyn Stanley's Potions: From the 50's (2 LPs, A.T. Music 3010), mostly recorded and mixed, in analog, by the great Al Schmitt, at Capitol Studios. The combo of piano, bass, and drums, augmented by horn or guitar on some tracks, sounded both well detailed and harmonically complete, nicely bridging the gap between solid-state "detail" and tube "warmth." Cymbals shimmered nicely, snares snapped, bass lines were taut and nimble. The piano attack was clean and not overly sharp, the sustain generous but not too much so (as it is through some tubed phono preamps), and decays faded naturally into "black" backgrounds.

However, most people spending nearly $10,000 on a phono preamplifier will use the LP2.1 with MC cartridges, so I focused most of my attention there. The Lyra Atlas has an internal impedance of 4.2 ohms and likes to see, at most, around 100 ohms; the Kiseki Purpleheart N.S., at 42 ohms, should be loaded with about 400 ohms.

I thought the LP2.1 Deluxe's overall sound through its MC-input transformers was not as open, airy, or, especially, as dynamic as through its MM input, and I've heard both the Lyra and the Kiseki sound more airy, extended, and, especially, dynamic through the Ypsilon VPS-100, which also uses tubed voltage rectification. Of course, the Ypsilon costs ca $34,000, more than three times as much as the Lamm.

Still, for the LP2.1 Deluxe's price or more, the sound of MCs through the LP2.1's transformers was impressively fast, detailed, open, dynamic, and resolving—all without added glare, grain, or etch. With the LP2.1, detail and speed came not with a downside, but with bonuses of liquidity and flow.

The LP2.1 Deluxe was competitive with all of the outstanding phono preamps costing around $10,000 or less that I've heard, such as the Manley Labs Steelhead and the Pass Labs XP-25 (footnote 5) (though both of those offer far more loading options), and it's better than many. It's the most neutral-sounding tubed phono preamp I've heard for under $10,000, and among the most neutral I've heard at any price. It doesn't sound tubey.

Were the LP2.1's relatively inexpensive transformers (ca $200 each at cost to Lamm; the overall product's retail price multiplies the cost of a part by around five times) holding back its greatness with MC cartridges? To find out, it was easy enough to run the Ypsilon MC-10L step-up transformer ($6000) through the LP2.1's MM input.

This combination seriously upped the sound quality along with the price. The Lyra Atlas and the Kiseki Purpleheart N.S. both now sounded far more open on top (even though the load seen was still 400 ohms), more three-dimensional, and, especially, more dynamic. Large-scale dynamic contrasts now had the full explosive quality that I know the Lyra Atlas is capable of delivering from the grooves. The differences in dynamics and high-frequency response between the Atlas and the Purpleheart, which the LP2.1 used with its internal transformers had somewhat papered over, were now fully audible.

One of the records I'd been playing through the LP2.1's MM and MC inputs was the latest outing from Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood: Juice (2 180gm LPs, Indirecto IR 16), mastered by Alan Silverman and Paul Gold. The combo of Lamm LP2.1 and Ypsilon MC-10L produced faster, more precise cymbal transients, plus more air, on a somewhat wider and, especially, deeper stage.

That got me pulling out other familiar LPs with which to compare the Lamm and Ypsilon through the MC-10L transformer. In many performance parameters—especially in terms of the musical flow and liquidity of tubes without their warm colorations—the combos were more similar than different, despite the huge difference in price: the Ypsilons cost a total of $40,000.

The MC-10L with VPS-100 still had more punch on the bottom—greater solidity, weight, and majesty—and blacker blackness between notes. But for not much more than one-fifth the price, you can get close.

You could buy the Lamm LP2.1 Deluxe now and, believe me, you'd enjoy the hell out of playing through it music of every genre. Later, when your bank balance had recovered, you could add the outboard Ypsilon MC-10L (or MC-16L or MC-20L, depending on your cartridge's output) and seriously up the sound quality.

I doubt Vladimir Lamm is happy reading about this mix'n'match approach. I understand that he designed the LP2.1 Deluxe to retail for under $10,000, and the result is fully competitive with anything at or near that price. But one of the attractive things about that price is that you can buy an LP2.1, enjoy it now and for a long time to come, and, later, take it to a much higher level of sound.

Out of the box, Vladimir Lamm's LP2.1 Deluxe is a smooth-sounding, well-detailed, impressively quiet phono preamplifier that will equally satisfy rockers, metalheads, beboppers, folkies, and enthusiasts of classical music. That's why I liked it so much.

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Footnote 3: Lamm Industries Inc., Brooklyn, NY 11235 (2015); Miami, FL (2024). Email: lammaudiolab@gmail.com. Web: www.lammindustries.com.

Footnote 4: Vladimir Lamm died in April 2022.—Ed.

Footnote 5: Reviewed in March 2011.