jun 1997 - Une rigueur toute cartésienne, par P. Venturini

maximum of four stars award . There is not need for a long litening test to check the cogency of the designer's theories and its audible incidences. " Model IT " plays the music with a precision, a clearness and a strength which are very singular. Sound appears as if one had taken a curtain off the front of the speakers. The music, like enlightened, has a higher contrast, sharpened attack, a clearer soundstage and more visible contours. This amplifier has nothing cold, or aggressive : on the contrary it shows every subtlety and makes perceptible and animated the smallest nuances of musical interpretations even of very low amplitude. What a pleasure to hear * all * the information engraved in a disc ! Nothing escapes the sharpened circuits of the " Model IT ": neither qualities nor defects of a sound recording. Spectral balance is very neutral, and this amplifier is tremendously revealing. From one record to another, the soundstage completely changes... Uncoloured in the medium and the bottom of the spectrum, Lavardin Model IT is not the kind of amplifier which magnifies reality and stays comfortably in gummy sonorities... Recognising such or such player for its instrument touch, its musicality or his sonority becomes easier. Dynamic, refined, lucid, the realism of sound obtained through this amplifier will satisfy both discerning amateurs and professional sound engineers.