Lamm ML2.1 monos with MBL 101E, OPINIONS

Well guys I had a pair of ML2.1's in my system the other day, I was fortunate to have a friend who brought over his pair. I had the mono's paired up with my current ARC REF3 pre and tried RCA and Balanced connection. Well my suspicions and others opinions here that they would not be the ideal match for my current speakers was correct. What I did hear was very nice though, I guess I could always look at bi-amping but unfortunately won't happen in this set-up.

Hi Husk01, yes the new DarTZeel mono blocks look very interesting indeed. I had started a thread prior about these amps but for what ever reason did not get much feed back as it seemed to be all hush hush and then they showed up at the show. Do you know what the power rating is on these.

Karan 1200's have peaked my interest, have you heard.

The secret in each speaker is the crossover. Some can be a very tough load - even with 92dB and 8 ohms -, when you have such a speaker, the only way to make them jump is: POWER.
There are loads of them out there.
A speaker with some low sensitivity AND a simple x-over, no problem to run it with SET...
BTW, never thought about those pics with MBL's and their connected power houses?

Hi Syntax, if you don't try you won't know and in the end trying these didn't cost me anything but some time and patience of a friend but I can say what they did was very nice, POWER isn't everything. There is another member who has the same speakers and actually using MasterSound tube amps so go figure.

You've got great speakers, but Lamm ML 2.1 is poor combination. Its too low powered.

An additional way to get more information would be doing a MBL 101e "search" on Audigon and Audio Ayslum to find fellow system owners. Look at their virtual systems for what they are using. Email them to see what they say.

IMHO, all MBL speakers need lots of power to sound good as they can. A generalization is that 101E's sound their best at loud spl levels rather than at low spl levels. IMHO, avoid bright amps, as the 101e's can lean to the bright side, and really look for amps that have a slight "darkish character" in their sound. Finding that match can produce a wonderful music presentation. The SS amps that should work well are Lamm, MBL, Accuphase, Gryphon, maybe Levinson and others. Bi-amping should be your final goal, but first start out with single great amps.

my 2 cents