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Dear Romy,

Thank you for the commentary and the advice with regards to the need to have a COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION and to test with another speaker in situ first.

Given the varying degrees of how different individuals process COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION there will be differences in between how the plumber Vs a brain surgeon  handles COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION. I guess on some things the Plumber would be better and vice a versa. I take your point.

So while my COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION may seem novice like, over the years I have been looking for sound that engages me, which I like, not any other person, reviewer, million dollar system owner, and yes, even you J . It has taken me a while to be able to FIGURE out what I think I like and educate myself to be able to discern the difference. I am not at an elevated stage where I can talk proficiently about different frequencies, XO’s  and what they mean and do within a system, BUT I can quickly identify what I like and do NOT like in sound. So I TRUST MY EARS! My ears may have been trained from my days as a professional DJ listening in noise filled clubs through one head phone pad to the mixing cues and being able to zone in on the source of the entry point and fade. I also play the Congas and Bongos and believe that the beautiful bassline grounds the rest of the music. This should not be confused with bam bam SS bass please.

So my first foray into domestic horns were via AG Duo,s later upgraded to Duo Omega after visiting the AG Factory in Lautertal Reichenbach. I upgraded to the Omega drivers for better integration in the LF as the fs on the Omega midrange is lower than the stock unit. The Omega brought some smoothness to the HF as well, I also liked the increased sensitivity of the new drivers and yes they did bring with them system noise issues.  I had done much reading and experimenting with the Duo subwoofer and trying to integrate it from 120Hz – 160Hz with the stock Duo and the Omega. Finally settled on 140Hz. I then listened to a friend’s Trio and realised that the LF horn on the Trio allowed me to hear more of the tonality of the LF and had more dynamics in those frequencies, Yes the amplifier was commercially 3 X the price of mine, but I know my amplifier well and can tweak its sound to what I like, so I am of the opinion that it was more to do with the Trio’s extra horn which has an fS of probably 80Hz or lower and XO’s at100Hz and looks after bandwidth till 600Hz before the MF takes over. So the MF of the Trio does not have to work as had as in the Duo which has to tTRY and go below 100Hz at stress. I LIKED this.

I then listened to another friend’s Duo Omega driven by the Lamm ML2.1, and felt that I like the presentation and the depth that the ML2.1 added to the Duo Omega’s LF. I then contacted some current and former Duo owners (former US distributor and others included) and asked about the types of amps they had used and the perceived differences. I then specifically read about and contacted Duo Omega owners who were running with Lamm ML 2 and 2.1. Their responses together with what I hear in my friend’s system then led me to start playing with different amps in my system to see how they respond. Some of these amps were my 300B PSE, 70Watt EL34, 35W 13E1 driven by 45, Yamamoto A-08S with emission lab tubes etc. Some of these addressed the LF that I needed some didn’t. Where there was LF, it lacked the HF, where there was LF and HF it lacked the midrange etc etc.

So now what.. I keep thinking about the Lamm’s, read more about the Lamm’s read more about ML2.0 vs 2.1 vs 2.2 vs 3.0 and keep looking at the prices, think about shipping weight etc etc, and not wanting to pay for over priced commercial items which I felt needed more tweaking in my system as I am not completely happy with the ML 2.1 sound (not many ML 2 used for sale). Then a Lamm owner friend sent me a link to the Melquiades and I was interested as it was based on the 6c336 valve, had the bandwidth that I thought I required, was not as expensive as Lamm’s, and I had a good old school technician no BS amp builder who I showed the schematic to and we discussed it in great detail and we decided that we could try it.

I also liked the fact that YOU had tried many amps in your playback system and had 2 pairs of ML 2.0 and knew that they were one of the better commercial amps out there, but also knew their weakness and had decided to build the Melq to hopefully overcome those weaknesses, and knew the kind of sound you wanted and had moved away from the mass fi area of audio, and had invested a lot of thought, time, money and effort into your system approach. So I could relate to a benchmark of cognitive  thinking and concurred with your approach to your system building (even though at times I cannot agree with your approach to civility, nor do I know your subjective ‘tastes’ in sound reproduction) J

So that was the 6c336 Melquiades exploration and COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION in regards to solving the LF issue via an amplifier based approach.

So I emailed you, and based on your response, joined your forum, posted the Melq question and endured your state of mind and considered the building of the Melq Vs addressing the issue via an added LF horn based on my previous experience with the Trio and my excitement that you had previously owned both the Duo and Trio. So I was going through a COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION to evaluate YOU and realised that even though you are one of the most obnoxious beings in the audio related cyber world, you are NOT an imbecile J so I am comfortable that I am listening to someone who has addressed HIS sound from both an amplifier and speaker path, and value your advice.

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