advertisement


Bye bye Naim amplification, hello Musical Fidelity

M

Michael L

pfm Member
Groovers

For many years I had naim amps; like many, I started with the lower levels (62/140) and gradually moved up, peaking at 252 / 300, which sounded fab to my ears.

For various reasons I've ditched the Naim amplification and took a bit of a punt on MF. I did some research and bought the M6si, a one-box combo.

I also moved house and now have a tiled floor to put the kit on, as against carpeted / concrete before.

I am astonished at how good this amp is.

I'm also worried about how small the differences between the Naim rig and this little box. In fact, and I fully accept the room may impact, in some areas I think the MF is better - microdetail, for example, which flies in the face of... umm.. something.

It takes a wee while to warm up, but nothing too bad. It runs warm, but so did my old Marantz PM94. Its detailed, has real grip on the bass and I love the sound it produces.

I'm slightly concerned about how good the bigger MF amps will be, although MF regard this integrated as a "destination" amplifier. I paid c£1600 for this, cost (new) of my Naim stuff would I suspect breach 20k.

Blimey.

I'm convinced.
 
The Audionet DNA 1 (which I'm selling ATM since upgrading to a DNA 2.0 ;-) beat a 272/250DR combo hands down.... in sound quality, build and functionality.

I recently tried the BelCanto ACI-600 against my DNA 2.0 ... no comparison. The DNA 2.0 made ACI-600 sound weak flat and gutless.

Point being, if we broaden our spectrum beyond what the UK market forces on us we can find some truly amazing kit.
 
M6si owner here. It developed a fault at the end of last year (internal PSU failed) so I handed over to John Sampson (he of JS Audio) for a repair and stage 2 upgrade. Very pleased and satisfied with the end result.

Although I’d love to try the Nu Vista 600 or 800, the M6si will remain here for a little while yet.
 
Good remins...

I had an issue with the treble going soft, which I put down to blown tweeters on my SBLs. (Hifi Henry replaced them with new Scanspeak tweets...)
Turns out it wasn't the speakers but a PSU issue; to their credit, even though I'd purchased second hand, MF repaired it and only charged me labour, not parts.

I didn't think the M6 si could have the upgrade? Thats interesting.. If you don't mind me asking - how much?
 
The differences between decent amplifiers is not huge, so unless you have an amplifier that is genuinely bad, differences will be subtle at relatively normal levels, driving relatively normal speakers. All an amplifier should do is make the signal bigger, and not do anything else to it. No amplifier has yet achieved this, but many get close. We have been sold two concepts by the hifi press (for perfectly understandable reasons) - one is that our musical enjoyment can be transformed by buying new kit, and to get 'better' you need to spend more, i.e. a more expensive amplifier will be better than a cheaper one. I achieved one of my best upgrades by replacing a pre-amplifier that cost maybe £3000 with its power supplies (this may give you a clue...) and £2000 DAC with a DAC with volume control that cost me £600.
 
Cereal Killer said:
The Audionet DNA 1 (which I'm selling ATM since upgrading to a DNA 2.0 ;-) beat a 272/250DR combo hands down.... in sound quality, build and functionality.

I recently tried the BelCanto ACI-600 against my DNA 2.0 ... no comparison. The DNA 2.0 made ACI-600 sound weak flat and gutless.

Point being, if we broaden our spectrum beyond what the UK market forces on us we can find some truly amazing kit.
Click to expand...

wow is that the 25k bel canto amp !!!
 
Cereal Killer said:
Sure is !
Click to expand...

they are crazy producing stuff like that for that price , i am the worlds great fan of bel canto but 25k !!! i am listening now to a modest bel canto pre 3 vbs into a lovely class A amp and it sounds sublime . very very good infact . the pre 3 cost 650 pounds

and heaven knows why MF stopped making the AMS series
 
I heard a MF Nu Vista 800 amp with new Yamaha NS-5000 speakers and it sounded gorgeous. Very textured and an easier listen than Naim amps (although admittedly a few years since I've heard Naim)
 
I still have my Sony TA-DA 9000 series ES Class D amp, clone of a Tact Millennium, which sonically, and on component and build quality, comfortably supplanted my then much more expensive Naim 72/HiCap/180 combo into SBL's, and have yet to hear any stand alone amplifier, separate power supplies or no, that I would deem better. Naim is certainly very good, but it is also not the only game in town, and nor is it the be all and end all of HiFi kit in my experience.

Cheers
 
reminds of m.s class A1 amp ran hot sounded great. project who now own whats left of musical fidelity have promised to put it back in production . very close to buying the encore ,glad I didn't
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top