Hi all,
This is an account of my experience with the Lyrita system (6c33c SET amp, Harmony 1 single driver speakers and the Lync preamp with a phono-stage) at Mahiruha's place. The sources were a CA 540D v2 and a Project Debut 3 TT and the cables were all from Lyrita, I believe. The system is placed in a fairly large room (about 12' by 20') and the speakers are placed on the shorter wall about 7' from each other and 1' away from the wall. The Harmony 1 speakers are rear ported and Mahiruha has put some socks into the opening to control bass boominess. BTW, the room was dominated by Mahiruha's huge snooker table which left not much more than walking room around the table. The listening position is across the room on the other side of this huge table. I must say I underestimated the size of the table by a large extent and as soon as I saw it I knew that there would be no reasonable imaging possible with so much diffraction around the room. In addition the room is closed with lots of hard and smooth walls with semi-glossy paint on it and very little absorbing material except for about 5% wall area covered by curtains.
I went to hear the system with no particular expectation except that I was looking forward to a pleasant evening with some good music (the same kind of mood I am usually in when I go to a concert). I carried about 10 CDs with me. Let me just say that I have never heard a full range speaker or a SET amp before.
To name a few CDs I brought along, we played: 1) Talking Timbuktu (Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder), 2) Imagine (Joan Baez), 3) Best collection (Secret Garden), 4) Live in Stuttgart (Pt Jasraj), 5) Raga Maru Bihag (Prabha Atre), 6) Raga Basant Mukhari (Ali Akbar Khan). Except for CD #5, all other CDs were recorded, mastered and pressed in abroad and with very good to excellent quality. Even the Prabha Atre CD is one of relatively better ones made in India.
At the end Mahiruha played 2 LPs: 1) Raga Tilak Shyam by Ravi Shankar, 2) Tagore songs by Hemanta Mukherjee.
Now to the sound. The system had no problem reaching deafening levels of loudness. I think Mahiruha's normal and preferred level is way louder than what I would ever use. Actually I had to ask Mahiruha to turn down volume several times.
The sound was very very full-bodied and absolutely uninhibited, very lush indeed. Perhaps a bit too warm for my taste (whether the speakers or the amp responsible for it I do not know). The sound has an addictive and euphonic character to it. The dynamics (both macro and micro) was also very very good. I guess the totality of the above is generally called the SET+full-range-speaker sound that people get emotionally attached to. It is a special sound, for sure. However, I can also see why everybody may not like it to the fullest extent because it may be a bit too overwhelming for some. Personally I may like it just a bit tamed, of course a very very personal opinion and I am absolutely far from an expert and I apologize profusely for freely expressing my views if it does not match the views of the experts. To use an analogy with photography, I found the sonic characters to be like a photograph with a bit of an over-saturation in the colours, so it can be very artistic and inviting with certain nature landscapes, however, may not suit everybody's taste perfectly.
But the system lacked considerably in clarity. The bass was still boomy and a bit uncontrolled even with the socks put inside the rear port. This is something I did not like at all. I am used to very very clear and a mountain-spring-like transparent sound with clear separation of all instruments and vocals. I knew with so much diffraction and also undamped reflections, the imaging would suffer seriously but I think the clarity also suffered. Although I cannot be 100% sure that all this is solely due to the room conditions, I am sure, judging by other people's reports on these systems and other praiseworthy qualities of the system that the room contributed very heavily to this lack of clarity.
Mahiruha had the Lyrita Pre hooked up to one of the inputs of the SET integrated amp. He held the volume knob of the integrated at a fixed position while he controlled the volume by adjusting the volume knob of the pre. Somehow, in my very ignorant view, this may beat the purpose of a SET design. Towards the end of the session, I asked Mahiruha to keep the volume of the pre at a minimum and just control the volume through the integrated. I do not know (especially because we did not do it for a considerable length of time) if it was my psychology, but the sound this way was clearer and a bit less lush, but I would take this over the other arrangement always.
There is one other strange observation I have to report. While changing CDs, once I was standing close as the tray came out, and clearly heard whispering sounds from the speakers during the tray movement. I made Mahiruha also listen to the sound. (He also made me hear a slight humming sound from the tubes, but to hear it you have lean over the tubes very close. This is also new to me. There is some electric problem, I am sure). Experts, please help Mahiruha. Not proper earthing? Something wrong with the transport? Or is it usual with some CDP transports. I may have read things like that on the net, cannot quite remember.
Mahiruha is a gentle, very humble and a soft-spoken young man and naturally a very kind host. I found out he is a grandson of a very famous Bengali literary personality (one of my favourites, actually when I was in high school I wrote a script after a short story written by his grandfather and wanted to film it, but obviously could not do it because of lack of funds with parents not obliging). I truly believe he has procured a very special system (not everybody's cup of tea though), but people who would like it would swear by it. I liked very much the overall musicality of the system, there is no doubt about it, although I 'd like some of the lushness to be tamed a bit (a personal preference only). The highs were not sparkling (probably a characteristics of a full range) but I did not mind it that much and bass was a bit boomy (definitely a lot of it caused by the room set up), but the mids were very palatable and overall I have to say I liked the openness of the sound from the speakers more than I thought I would. My speakers at home, although very clear, neutral and resolving does not have this signature of extreme openness (some of that also due to poor placement of my speakers deep inside a cabinet, hope to improve on it with stands that are being built in an adiabatic process, so do not quite know when they will be done). Although I like the whole presentation of the Lyrita system to be a bit more restrained, as I have said a few times in this report I liked very much the lack of inhibition in the sound (for the lack of a more appropriate word). BTW, I forgot to mention that all the expected signature and fluidity of a TT as a source was very much in evidence even with the stock cartridge and pin of the Debut III.
I'll post more if I find I have missed or forgotton something worth mentioning.
Regards.
.
