With that, he sent me a sample of the Lehmannaudio Decade ($2099), a solid-state phono preamplifier from the same German company that made a splash, over 15 years ago, with a phono stage called the Lehmannaudio Black Cube. I don't recall his precise words, but it was something along the lines of: No tubes, no transformersand you'll love the stuff anyway.
So it was when Louis Dorio, of Ortofon USA, wrote to tell me about the Lehmannaudio phono preamplifiers that his company now distributes in the States. Put another way: Please don't send something that's doomed to fail in my systemand don't expect me to change my system merely to keep that from happening.Īn unexpected consequence of this informal policy: When a supplier who really knows my system persists in offering something that's outside my comfort zone, I can't help wondering about the product that could motivate such confidence. My own, second reason is almost as compelling: Since both my approach to the hobby and my playback system differ somewhat from the norms for high-end audio, the supplier with an interest in sending me something to review would do well, for everyone's health and happiness, to note those differences before committing to a review. First is the usual one, shared by everyone on staff: Only by knowing the context in which a product was tested can the reader fully understand the observations made by the reviewer.
LEHMANN AUDIO DECADE MANUAL ARTS FULL
Both are crazy cheap and silly good.Īs hinted in recent columns, I have two good reasons for listing, alongside every full review I write, all of the reference gear I own and use. The K&K Basic can be assembled by anyone with at least one eye and a soldering iron everyone else can buy the assembled version for just $385. The K&K Basic kit, which I wrote about in the September 2007 issue, sells for just $325the price of a Kiton necktie at Barney's. One of my favorites comes from K&K Audio, the US distributor of various products from Lundahl, Sweden's maker of ultra-high-quality audio transformers. That said, $1250 is still a hell of a stretch for most peopleespecially newcomers to the field of good phonography, whom I would remind that there exist cheaper recommendable transformers. In all, the CineMag Sky 30 is downright amazing for less than a quarter of the price of the reference to which I compared it. That's a pretty wide range of sounds and specs, even if my EMT OFD-series pickups are not the most exemplary of things. In the second tableau of Act V of Berlioz's Les Troyens (Philips 6709 002, with the late Colin Davis conducting the Royal Opera House Orchestra), the combination of the Sky 30 and EMT TSD15 allowed the bass clarinet to sound beautifula rich, colorful, purring sort of thingin a manner that the Hommage T2 didn't nail quite as well the Hommage, for its part, spread the extremes of the dramatic range a bit wider, and allowed such things as plucked double-bass notes to stand out in a manner that eluded the Sky 30.īy the way, Bob Sattin lists the Denon DL103, the Miyajima Shilabe, the Accuphase AC-2, and the Koetsu Rosewood Signature among the cartridges with which he tests his devices.
If the CineMag Sky 30 didn't match the very best in terms of ultimate impact, it bowed to no device in its expression of tonal colors. And throughout that Stones album, the Sky 30 reminded me that Bill Wyman's bass playing, in its timing and its tone, was often the element that made their sound as exciting and propulsive as it was. With the texturally complex recording, by Atrium Musicae de Madrid, of the music of the 13th-century trouvere Thibaut de Navarre (Harmonia Mundi HM 1016)this time using my EMT TSD15 stereo pickup headthe new trannie provided considerably greater-than-average physical presence and richly textured tone to cromornes, vielles, psalteries, castanets, and all manner of other crazy medieval instruments. The Sky 30's ultimate forcefulness was a notch or two below that of my more expensive reference step-up device, the Hommage T2 ($4995), yet in every other respect the more affordable transformer punched well above its weight. Without the slightest hint of brightness, the combination delivered detail with power, texture with touch. And so it was with the EMT OFD 25 mono pickup head and CineMag Sky 30 transformer.