A Nice Surprise

Well I ordered my Montille about three weeks ago expecting at least a two month wait, however, on Thursday a package from Japan arrived.

Super quick! I am grateful to Takashi and the crew for getting it to me so quickly. The Montille amps have always had a cool William Morris style Arts and Crafts feel to me in appearance. It could just be me but I think its a great looking amp. It has a pair of JAN/Philips 6AW8A pentode/triode tubes and a pair of JAN/Philips 12AT7 dual triodes as well as a quad of CV391s, which although unbranded are probably ITT or STC, I haven’t investigated too deeply yet. No rectifier tube in this one as it uses a solid state rectified power supply.

I connected it into the system yesterday to get some hours on it. Straight away it was clear this was a different amp to the Cortese.
For a start I have the level controllers set to about 11:30, which implies there is much more power on tap. It does sound extremely vivid and impactful. I think Art Dudley said something similar in his review a few years back, I’ll have to look it up. Early days yet though. Nice to have some contrast to the single ended magic of the F2a amp.

I gave some vinyl a spin and it did sound great, in particular My Dying Bride’s For Lies I Sire album, which is a superbly produced slab of gloomy bleakness from Yorkshire. The extra kick in the bottom end was great. I suspect the Montille will be a great amp with metal and the like.

The tubes have an awesome blue glow to them as well, so they look great in the dark. I will be curious to see how it sounds with the Falcons and the Omegas too.

Speaking of Falcon, my new stands arrived for them too, made for Falcon specifically for the LS3/5a. They’re definitely nicer than the old Chario ones I had. Bass seems a lot tighter now for sure, and they look way better. They’re really well made of a heavy steel. and they just go together nicely, unlike some other stands I’ve had the displeasure of fighting with in the past.

The Goldbadge crossovers also arrived, but one was unfortunately damaged in transit as you can see in the photo. A couple of the bigger capacitors broke from their moorings… Jerry at Falcon is sending me some replacement caps to solder in. Not a biggie, but a bit annoying.
The crossovers themselves look pretty amazing though.

It shall be interesting to hear the difference once they are installed.

Just awaiting the Acoustic Revive panels to be delivered. Good times!