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Frankly speaking I kind of thankfully drifting away from observing what is going on in the industry and particularly in amplifiers. Since 1998-99 I was using explicitly Lamm amplifiers that were heads and shoulder more interesting then anything else out there (particularly in SET word), and since 2005 I switched to Melquiades. From time to time I bring home some other amps but even the damn older Lamm’s ML2.0 taught me that usually juts waste of time…

Still, I had a change to recently to bring home a “reputed”, industry well-received SET (Cary single monoblock) around 211 tube and to play in on my “new” Macondo. The listening of that SET in my room was extremely gratifying. The gratifying in this listening was the ease and brutality with which the Melquiades Sound literally was destroying my interest in listening that Cary amp.

I played on CD: Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 by Rafael Kubelik with Berlin (what a play!!!) and few Beethoven’s sonatas by the brilliant Erica Morini and Rudolph Furkusny. Then switched to analog: Vladimir Vlasov’s Cello concerto #1 by Rostropovich and Moscow Radio Orchestra under baton of Gennady Rozhdestvensky and a fist record of original "Tales of Hoffmann" by Beecham and Royal Philharmonic…

I do not know… perhaps I am too use to what Milq does but the Cary sound was beyond all acceptable norms. It did very stupid Sound. Cary literally did not know what to do with sound. Milq usually is intelligent, it sets the dynamic assents, it is articulate, communicative, pronounced and playful, it can play very soft and it knows when to be gentile and where to be vicious. Cary has no consciousness and it amplifies everything dreary, equally and assent-flat. The sound coming after Cary had way less distinctions between the shadows of tones and nuances of phonetics and as the result - the entire presentation was tedious like hell. Interesting that usually playing Milq there are always some thoughts in my head popping up regarding the music I play. With Cary I was sitting in front of my speakers, looking ad them, without knowing what the hell I was doing there…

Yes, defiantly my audio mind in some addiction to that Milq’s driver stage does and to the 6E5P’s dynamic intelligence. I am not in a market for amps but it was very nice from time to time to encourage own ego. It was very much not my intention to “compare” the amps, not my intention to bitch about the Cary’s211 or to glorify the Milq but it is what it is. So, the Melq’s 6E5P deserved to be kissed into each of its 9 pins…

Yep, sometimes dealing with audio people is it useful to learn what the hell they are listening in their listening rooms…

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