On a rainy New Year’s Day, I auditioned the new Lohengrin mono-blocs at the home of VTL’s Luke Manley and Bea Lam. Normally, listening to a new product in an alien system has limited value, but this isn’t that. Not only is Luke and Bea’s system pretty familiar from earlier visits, most of the components themselves are more familiar than that! Their system features the same Wilson Audio Alexia V speakers and Spiral Groove SP1.2 turntable and Centroid arm that I listen to every day. Luke and Bea use a Lyra Etna Lambda SL, so I spent the weeks leading up to the visit listening to music through my Lyra Atlas Lambda. Both their system and mine use Nordost cabling – they have Odin 2 while I slum it with Valhalla 2: there are certainly differences (all in favor of the Odin), but they are differences I’m familiar with.
With the entire VTL line to choose from, it’s not surprising that Luke and Bea are listening to their TL-7.5 Series III Reference line-stage and TP-6.5 Series II Signature phono-stage along with the Lohengrins and an S-400 Series II for purposes of comparison. Although my own electronics are (whisper it quietly) from ARC, I’ve recently had both the TL-6.5 line-stage and the S-200 amplifier at home. Both our systems are set up in smaller areas, opening onto open-plan spaces. But perhaps the most telling similarity of all is that both my system and Luke and Bea’s have been set up by Stirling Trayle of Audio Systems Optimized. In terms of a familiar if different context, this is about as level as playing-fields ever get… Certainly, the familiar context and the performance on offer meant that it wasn’t hard to get a handle on the amplifiers’ contribution.
I took along a selection of records that have been in heavy rotation over the last month. Knowing that much of my favorite classical vinyl is duplicated in Bea’s record collection, I selected discs that I suspected she would not have. I listened to each record first at my home the evening before my visit, with the Audio Research Reference 160S standing in for the dual mono and much more expensive Lohengrin. Then at Luke and Beas’ house, I listened to selections of several records on the S400 Series II, before we swapped to Lohengrin mono-blocs.
I started with Intervention Records’ recent re-issue of Dance Album Of Carl Perkins originally released on Sun LP-1225. Yes, it’s 1957 mono rockabilly, perhaps not the first choice of most listeners to evaluate audio equipment. The recording doesn’t have the frequency extension of a great classical record, but I chose it for a reason: within its range this fabulous re-issue tells you a lot about how faithfully an amplifier reproduces rhythmic patterns and how the texture and density of the sound fares. RG is a long-time S-400 owner, preferring (he says) the mid-band life, immediacy and articulation of the stereo amp over the absolute stability and control of the Siegfried monos. Seeing whether the Lohengrins could match or better the S-400’s pace, urgency and harmonic textures seemed like a pretty good place to start…
