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guy sergeant wrote:

In your earlier piece about how to use the S2 'properly' you wrote "Whatever happens between the 400 and 2,5 is pretty much unnecessary for you garbage. So, get any known to you soft capacitor of 3uF and place it in series with the S2 driver. This will introduce to 15 Ohm of the S2's load a first order slop starting approximately at 3,500Hz. The beauty of this cap that is quite nicely snatched all wildness of the ugly secondary resonance." You also recommend the use of a 550 Hz horn which will really only allow the S2 to work effectively above 1000 Hz or so. There's no mention in this earlier piece of how good it can sound from as low as 500 Hz upwards. I don't think I've ever seen you mention this before.

Guy, the lower knee of S2 was always a subject of my attention and admiration, (actual this was what attracted to me this driver initially) however I never was able to use it over the “bulge” This why I experimented with running two S2 in dual configuration: one before the secondary resonance and one after it. You might look at the Vitavox forum where I bellied I have wrote about it. My problems was the I in the very beginning of my excrements I was not able to get a clean upper regions out of S2 and consequentially I disregarded the original “old” cone with metal surround. I remember I spent a lot of time fining with this problem, sparking with few flask out there, including Mike. At that time I did not know that the problem was not with the cone but with the Lamm preamp. In the end I went to the contemporary cones that are “bulgey” and make the use of the lower S2 knee impossible.

guy sergeant wrote:

Now you seem to have realised that the Lamm preamp was adding an unpleasant element of hardness (distortion) to the sound. Having removed it you now find the S2 to be both more usable and more acceptable all the way up.

Exactly, what it is.

guy sergeant wrote:

The Lamm will have been imparting this characteristic of harshness to everything you fed through it, be it the CD player, the phono stage/cartridge combination, whatever. You surely must feel the need to re-evaluate the components in your analogue playback knowing as you now do that the Line stage was introducing sufficient distortion to make the S2 unlistenable in that region. I know I would. I suppose the problem now goes back to your earlier post about finding or trying to build a totally transparent buffer.

You are not exactly correct in here. It is correct that Lamm preamp have contaminated everything I fed through it (the roughness of it changes dramatically depends of severity of some aliments) but in my playback, using the S2 with plastic surround and HF resonator the problem did not exist most of the time. It did show up sometimes but always attributed it to the external reasons and always was able to address it via managing those external reasons. Now I understand that it was a self-delusional. Well, I ma not particularly proud about it but it is what it is. Once again: when the electricity was correct and when the L2 rectifiers and regulator where no older then 2-3 weeks also the system sounded quite fine with not signs of harshness. Actually it is not juts the alleged S2 harshness. When L2 begin to die then there were some other negative qualities crawl to the picture…

guy sergeant wrote:

Based on limited exposure to the Lamm electronics a year or two back, on speakers I know well, I would say that I found the poweramps ok, if a little slow and vague. The linestage I heard then sounded, (for want of a better word) dirty and not interesting enough for me to pursue it further. Whether they were or are exactly the same models you use, I don't know. I was underwhelmed. I have had the opportunity to look inside a few of the pre-amps when they are exhibited at various shows. I don't have the schematic diagrams. As I recall they use quite a number of large electrolytic capacitors and solid state rectifiers. They're built on printed circuit boards. They use solid state regulators as I recall. You might tell me that all those items can sound ok but you're also the one telling us that the Lamm pre-amp has been the culprit hindering your efforts in getting the best from the S2's.

I understand what you are saying. Look at this: I have been using (and fighting) with Lamm preamps since 1999 and had before and after 1999 all possible preamps (regardless the price and complexity). I never heard preamps that do anything even remotely similar to what L1/L2 (not LL2) dose to sound. I described it in the following article:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=257

I still feel that only for the introduction of X-factor (intentional of not) the L1/L2 should be placed at imaginably high pedestal. What the do form point of view audiophile transparence is a totally different story and they never were an exemplary.

guy sergeant wrote:

Don't take too seriously my comments about the EAR and the Koetsu. Both have always sounded 'lush' in my experience. I was only wondering whether the Lamm linestage had made their characteristic bloated qualities (my opinion) more amenable.

I have no problems with both EAR and Koetsu with or without Lamm L2. However I do not remember that I was such a huge supporter of Koetsu. I like it and I use it (Onyx only) but I never consider it as my favorite cartridge. In my First stereo arm never was Koetsu.

guy sergeant wrote:

Of course this is a thread about the S2 but your whole re-appraisal of it is due to your pre-amp or now your lack of one, hence the comments regarding what other re-evaluations its removal/replacement might necessitate.

Ironically, I do not feel that my appraisal or re-appraisal means anything. There are a lot of people coming to this site pulled by the “Vitavox S2” keywords. I think that all comments in this thread, including my appraisals, suggestions and sometimes Moronity would paint quite divert and indicative picture about the capacity of S2 driver and the ways to deal with it. There is no further agenda within this thread then to make information available to public.

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