Lamm 1.2 or Ayre MXR's

The Salons may be over kill for ( home theater ) Raquel , but have you heard a Blueray music video played back thru your Fi . Its equal to or better than what i'm getting from my SACD's . And i bought into Blueray with an inexpensive spinner . Have a great evening . MAX

Salons are very impressive for home theater because of the 4th-order crossovers, multiple proprietary drivers, and copious deep bass (i.e., they go loud as hell, cleanly). I just think their best use is with high resolution, two-channel audio, particularly when used for symphonic music, especially what it costs at retail to obtain a speaker that can do symphonic.

I would definitely go with the lamms 1.2, if not M2.2
Tried and proven amps.

Do the Lamm's run hot ? I leave my equipment on 24 7 52 , so the last few decades i've tried to stay away from hot running gear . I loved my A.R.C. Ref 3 pre amp , but even turning off the gear between listing sessions I was still logging over 5000 hours per year . ( old retired fart ) . Meaning new tubes every 10 months , $550. per set , plus a 3 to 4 hundred hour run in time , 45 minute warm up time , and the air conditioner had to run more in the summer , that you could here slightly in the music room .

Yes, the Lamms run from very warm, (Lamm M2.2s), which will raise the room temperature a few degrees, to hot, (Lamm M1.2s), which will raise the temperature several degrees.

I put up with this because:

1. I live in a moderate climate, (coastal region of California), where the summer temperatures rarely climb into the 90's. (And I can live with temperatures into the low 80's, especially since that is an excellent reason for pouring myself a nice glass of wine or beer.)

But on those few really hot days, I run the air conditioner to cool off the room, then shut it down once my amps have warmed up, and I can get in a few hours of listening.

And in the winter, I just love my Lamm space heaters! ;-)

2. The sound is excellent from the Lamms, and very little can touch their sonics.

3. The Lamms add that touch of tube sound to the music, but with only having one tube in each amp, means tube rolling is easy and (relatively) cheap.

And as long as we are talking about the tubes, I should point out that while the stock tubes are okay, (Sovtek 6922's), getting a couple of nice NOS tubes will definitely upgrade the sonics. (I use the Amperex Pinched Waist 6922's, which are some of the best, and are of course expensive @ $400/pair), which give excellent results. But even going with my previous tubes, (Amperex Orange Globe 6DJ8's, which were fairly moderately priced @ $50/pair), gave very, very good results.

As far as running the amps 24/7, it really is not necessary for the Lamms, based upon my, and my friend's, experience. (I have two other friends who currently run the Lamm M2.2s, and I have another who also ran the M2.1s.) We have found that after half an hour or so of warmup, that the sound is very good. After a full hour or so, the sound is excellent, and does not change much more even with more extended warmup time. (But if you insist about running the amps 24/7, at least you'll know that replacing the tubes will not be too expensive, as there is only one in each monoblock.)

I've lived with the Lamm M2.1s for about five years now, and except for wanting to upgrade to their successor, the M2.2s, I have no desire to upgrade to anything else. (And neither do either of my friends, with the M2.2s, who have tried many amps over the years, but have stuck with Lamm for many years too.)

My two cents worth.