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Introduction

Of all the companies out there manufacturing hi-ﬁ it was

probably Lehmann who was the ﬁrst to really make a

reputation, and ultimately a business by becoming well

known almost entirely through the internet. Lehmann‘s

ﬁrst product, the ‚Black-Cube‘ phono-stage swept to pro

minence because of the buzz on the net and Norbert

Lehmann‘s willingness to provide samples for internet

magazines like TNT at a time when the ‚big-boys‘ saw us

as insigniﬁcant. The success was entirely justiﬁed as the

‚Black-Cube‘ proved to be an excellent phono-stage, and

that by cutting visual frills and losing the normal publicity

budget, managed to be good value too.

To begin with the company stuck to what it was good at -

a range of phono-stages - that is until launch of the Black

Cube Linear pre/headphone amp about three years ago,

and more recently the Stamp power amp.

Casework is identical for these two products - sort of

extended black boxes with a silver (or black) alloy face-

plate. As with the ﬁrst Black-Cube aesthetics are simple,

but in this case I ﬁnd them attractive, and certainly the

build quality is hard to fault. They are compact and Leh

mann even offer a rack mount kit which allows the pair

to be bolted to the underside of a desk or shelf - more

on this later. Both are also single box designs - a ﬁrst for

Lehmann who usually use off board power supplies and

this too adds to their convenience.

The Linear sports two headphone jacks on the front pa

nel - one cuts the main speakers the other not - round

the back are two pairs of phonos - in and out, plus the

standard IEC mains cable socket. The only other control

is the volume knob controlling an Alps pot, though there

is a variable gain DIP switch (0, 10 or 20 dbl) under the

unit.

Internally we ﬁnd a typically neat Lehmann layout on

double-sided boards and a decent shielded power supply

- 30VA in this case, and it appears to be pretty much

dual-mono. Custom caps by Vishay and good quality

parts throughout give an impression of a class produce.

The Stamp is even simpler with just two phono for ‚in‘

and two pairs of 4mm speaker sockets (note - not bin

ding posts so banana plugs of one sort or another are ob

ligatory and they‘ll need to be thin). The amp does have

a couple of DIP switches underneath in order to turn the

amp into a bi-amping monoblock (speakers need to be

bi-wirable), but add the IEC socket and that‘s it.

The Stamp is a ‚digital‘ amp using Tripath‘s TA 2020 chip

set and produces a claimed 20 watts into 4 ohms, so

efﬁcient (87 dbl+) speakers are strongly advised. Once

again you‘re struck by the immaculate layout and care in

placing components, with a 60VA transformer and 15000

of Vishay power-supply caps dominating the board.

In Use

The Linear is an oddball. It features one line input and

one output and so functions as a single input pre-amp. It

is also obviously a headphone amp. To be honest I was a

little confused by this - what is the market? Do many au

Lehmannaudio

Stamp power amp and

Linear headphone/preamp

Tiny boxes...nice sounds

Author: Geoff Husband

September 2007

Summary of content (3 pages)

PAGE 1
September 2007 Lehmannaudio Stamp power amp and Linear headphone/preamp Tiny boxes...nice sounds Author: Geoff Husband Introduction Of all the companies out there manufacturing hi-ﬁ it was probably Lehmann who was the ﬁrst to really make a reputation, and ultimately a business by becoming well known almost entirely through the internet.
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diophiles have just one source? Why then not produce a being clever doesn‘t guarantee success, but in this case dedicated headphone amp only, so that people can con- the effort is richly rewarded. Personally, though totally nect it to their normal preamp? It just didn‘t make sense, awed by the T-amp‘s abilities at the price I just wouldn‘t it seemed a terribly niche produce aimed at people with be able to live with it long term in the kind of highly re- one source and who also used headphones.
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one would expect. However some amps can sound pushy true hi-ﬁ sound and because it can be conﬁgured for bi- with such speakers and it‘s to the Lehmann‘s credit that wiring it allows upgrades and increased power/ﬂexibility they managed to remain smooth through orchestral cli- as well. It‘s small, neat, unobtrusive but well made. It‘s maxes and the like. Brieﬂy trying my own Transmissi- also not expensive for the quality you get.