First listen: Air Tight ATM2
 

This saturday I had a lunch near my audio dealer so I took the opportunity to stop by to say hello.

I took a look at what was playing in the auditorium and he was finishing a session with a customer. The system was composed of an Accuphase DP550+Aurender as source and preamp, Air Tight ATM2 and a pair of Magnepan 1.7.

I've been lusting after the Air Tight when I first saw them. They are one of the most beautiful amp I've encountered. So I took the opportunity to sit down and have a go at them.

Since I knew the guy pretty well, he said let's make it memorable. We replaced the Magnepan with a pair of Amati Futura, added the C2820 for preamp and put the DP700 as source.

From the first few notes, I was impressed by the system. Two things stroke me immediately, the sound stage and the bass. The precision in soundstage was perfect, you could pinpoint with great accuracy where each instrument was coming from. The bass was simply impeccable, it was sharp and well delineated.

We played Ahmad Jamal The Line from his latest album and I was stroke by the bass section. I listened to it before but I was never so amazed by the bass.

It went on for nearly 3 hours ! I wanted to end things on a high note so we played what may be my favorite track : Love for Sale played by Chet Baker on his live album Chet's Choice. I must have listened to this track over a 100 times. There is not much bass nor voices so it felt close to what I hear at home EXCEPT for soundstage and instrument separation. I was able to pinpoint where everyone was and I could Chet being between the center and right speaker, guitar to the left and bass somewhere between the left and center.

We ended with Bach: Toccata And Fugue In D Minor which is the same as I've heard at Ivan's. I was impressed again by the cleanliness of the sound and the precision. Though I didn't feel the same punch in the gut as the one I had with the Aida. Ivan system has a sense of power you can only get when you get into the very high end.

What started as a simple 15 minutes hello turned into a memorable session of almost 3 hours. At the end, I was happy to be cash strapped or it would have been very expensive.

Have you had any experience with Air Tight ? How would you compared it to other brands ?

PS: he had a pair a A200 sitting there, ready to play but I was so taken by the ATM2 that I didn't even ask him to power them up.

Hum...
Not much to say about this Air Tight that I do not know but I 'm a bit disappointed.
Not a single word for the stunning preamp I let you to try ! :D

Haha this is another thread in the making but I want to sit down and listen to it.

I was only able to briefly listen to it saturday morning but I was not alone so I could not focus on the music as much as I wanted to. I wanted to listen to it in the afternoon but this happened.

What I heard was almost too good that I don't want to believe there is such a gap with my current preamp. :thumbsup:

The two main drawbacks are the lack of phono input and balance control (I use it to control the dissymetry of my room). Sound wise I have nothing bad to say so far.

Georges... thanks for sharing your great experience with us. The Air Tight ATM2 sure looks nice.

http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/589480ATM201.jpg

By the way, some pictures of the ATM2
http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/589480ATM201.jpg

http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/76...AILLESatm2.jpg

The ATM3 monoblock look interesting and they are only a bit more expensive than the ATM2
http://cgim.audiogon.com/i/vs/i/f/1313018969.jpg

I will post pics of the system I listened to later.

Georges.... I see.
Lack of balance control may be a big problem.
Affordable and very good separate phonostages are numerous so that is not really a problem.
With this preamp you would need power amp(s) with an adjustable gain(s).

Georges...the monoblocks are only a bit more expensive ??? Easy choice then. I would go for them if I was in your shoes.

They are still expensive ! The MSRP of the ATM2 is 11.5k€ and the ATM3 is 17k€.

But the difference makes you wonder if you should save a bit more and get the 3 altogether. Those are amps that you keep for a lifetime.

The design of the ATM2 hasn't changed in 25 years and it is one of the oldest amp still in production. The ATM1 was recently updated to the 1S version.

I see Georges.
If you are shopping for high end tube monoblocks, you should try to listen to the Wavacs 805. They are SET amps and deliver 2 x 55W. 14500 euros for the pair.
Stephen ( Puma Cat ) listened to them and considers them as the best amps he ever heard.
They got rave reviews.

Some pictures of the system I listened to. Sorry for the quality it was taken with my iPhone.

http://www.audioaficionado.org/attac...2-img_1579.jpg

http://www.audioaficionado.org/attac...2-img_1580.jpg

http://www.audioaficionado.org/attac...2-img_1582.jpg

PS: I dont understand all the people raving about the image quality of the iPhone. I find mine crappy all the time.