Line Magnetic quality


Here we go again…

 

Hej!

I have had my eyes on Line Magnetic Audio for some time, but a friend of mine says that I should stay away from hi-fi and hi-end made in china because they have bad luck when it comes to quality and that they sound bad.

I tell him that I have heard otherwise and that people really like the sound of the LM amplifiers.


So Line Magnetic owners, what do you say? Is he right or is he wrong?

 

By the way; has anyone been listening to LM34AI?

simna
Simna,
Years ago, all Line Magnetic amplifiers were equipped with tubes from Shuguang and although these tubes were cheap and not the best thing in the market, the truth is they sounded really good right out of the box. Usually the advice was (and still is) to replace the input stage tubes first, because these are the ones that impact the most of the sound. 
I only replaced the small 12AU7 and 12AX7 for Gold Lions and the improvement was noticeable.
Nowadays I don't know if they still carry the Shuguangs from factory or if they use other brands. 

As as for the difference between those two amplifiers - 34 and 88 - I'm afraid I don't know. They belong to the new breed of amplifiers that I haven't experienced yet.  
OMG I have owned Lamm ML2.1, M1.1, M2.1, Music reference RM200/RM9, CJ and ARC tube amps.. the Line Magnetic  518IA i bought is amazing!!! built quality is crazy good, zero hum, and I'm still running stock tubes on my 37k speakers.  I am considering upgrading to the latest 30watt SET 2 chassis amp as my Rockports are pretty hard to drive.   The quality of the LM or Auralic are just amazing.. Huge value!
I’ll take my chances and buy the LM34IA and hope that new tubes, (gonna replace them all; EL34, ECC82 and ECC83) helps. If this don’t do the trick I’ll try other capacitors or... something else...😀
That looks like a great amp. I would be very surprised if you don’t really, really like it. Mine just got better with time. Replaced output tubes with Genelax Gold Lion KT88 and preamp tubes with NOS Sylvania and GE tubes. Best sound I have had..

I've ordered some tubes for the LM34IA;

4 Tung-Sol EL34B

2 Genalex Gold Lion ECC82
2 Mullard ECC82,1960 (not new)
2 Siemens NOS/NIB (1984-86)

1 Philips ECC83,1967 (not new)
1 Genalex Gold Lion ECC83
1 Elektro Harmonix ECC83

I hope I'll get them all the coming weekend and yes I'm a bit crazy:)