MF A308 or baby Naim pre power?

Yes - but with the bryston 4b-st and the avi preamp in an all naim top of the range system at two seperate dealers (one of which used atc speakers and not naim). The 4b sounds identical to the 3b just with double the power and would cost about £300 more second hand bringing the price to £1500. The naim pre / power was blown away, using naim cdp and speakers and swapping out the 552 / 500. The naim dealer had the bryston provided along with the pmcs he was stocking - unsurprisingly he chose not to stock the bryston after that dem!

 

Uh huh.

 

Wow, thanks for the great response guys! Lots of top tips. The thing that lures me towards that MF isnt the name but the absolutely gorgeous looks! It looks like its worth more than even its high original £2k asking price. Ive heard the past super amps and some old mf monoblocks and really liked the seemingly unburstable smooth, sweet and tidy sound. Maybe its just an initial impression. I have booked a dem for sat so will listen long and hard.As for the Nait 5i, I have just read great things about it in both mags and on the net from ordinary people who own one.
I will dem and try as many alternatives as i can extensively before parting with my hard earned as from this upgrade the next 1 wont be for a very long time or til im very rich lol.

Ultra

 

Rog, yhpm m8

 

be careful to buy with your ears, I've always found MF flatters to deceive. The nuvista was beaten in most peoples opinion by a Ming-da valve amp when we had a bake-off at my house. It sounds great and does all the hi-fi things, but somehow it isn't cohesive to me. It spends too long sounding nice, and takes all the edges away. I haven't heard the top end Naim, but I have spent hours listening to the 5, and to a 62/140. The Ming-da wee's on their ones strawberries too. It's a tough decision, but try and get yourself to Icon audio, they're in Leicester, and listen to some of their gear, they sell their version of my amp, and some other gear. I'm sure you will prefer their view of music to either of the two options you're looking at. They look fantastic as well!!!

 

Ming-Da and Bryston are both very good. I have a Ming-Da MC-7R preamp into active PMC's (active bi-amped with Bryston 3b-sst and 2b-sst). Sounds fantastic to my ears.

 

Does any own/heard the MF A5 integrated? Been offered to me by shadow audio for a VERY tempting price but i cant actually travel that far to hear it! I might listen to it in 7oaks 2moz aswell Problem is they dont have a very big range and only stock a handful of manufacturers. Heard the new audiolab 8000 with the matching power amp today-very fast and exciting sound with quite abit of kick. Too bad they are dead ugly though...and casewrok feels worse than my marantz(!) I plan to hit emporium with Rory at some point too before i make my final decision but will keep you posted about tommorows amp demo's...
How about this? A icon audio stereo 60 with 4 KT88s for £1299?

Ultra

 

Do you really mean bi-amped or do you have an active crossover?

 

ultra!! - did you check out the PM? - this is a seriously good amp for £1,000.

It will hold its value for many years too.

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?intatube&1137287705

 

Bottleneck - I had my eye on that Canary amp as well - best sound I ever heard came from one of them at Definitive Audio about 4 years ago.
There is also a 110v one on ebay (it's near London) which might go quite cheap - whats the story with getting the voltage converted?

 

Im sorry to say I dont know unclepuncle.

I'd fire off an email to Canary Audio if I were you. I'm sure they will tell you.

Incidentally, are you aware that Definitive Audio used to tinker with them and release the amp in three guises?

1. basic
2. with replaced caps etc
3. with replaced caps and a border patrol power supply.

I have a copy of hifi + somewhere that talks about the three models. If you haven't read it, it would be worth buying a back copy of the magazine (I dont mind giving you it if I can find it, but Im not an organised person and I wouldnt count on it!)

Im sure you could perform the tinkering yourself as a cheaper option if you wanted?

 

Thanks for the advice

I think the version I heard was the basic version (I remember Kevin telling me at the start of the demo it was £1900 and he never mentioned any mods). I actually went to audition a Sugden Masterclass CD player and he used the Canary with some OBX's. To say i was impressed would be an understatement. I'd never heard a valve amp before and had never heard of Living Voice speakers either. I bought the Sugden (later upgraded to a Wadia) and then went straight home and sold my Ruark Solstice speakers and MF and Rotel amps and eventually bought a pair of standard Avatars and some Audion 300B monoblocs from Nick at the emporium. Later added an EAR 864 preamp as well - those were the days

Sadly all that has gone now, though I'm 2/3 of the way to a nice new system - Wadia 6i bought from wadiameister and Revel M22 speakers. I'm really looking for a higher powered valve amp with balanced inputs if possible. I'd love an EAR 534 power amp but just can't fiind one unless I pay rrp which I definitely wont. Do you have any other valve recommendations which have decent power (40-50w minimum) and preferably balanced inputs. Budget upto £1500.

 

I wouldnt go with the Canary if you need loads of power. At 25w p/ch its not a powerhouse.

You might want to look at an import from Audiogon (I did). Apart from EAR, Audio Research also will give you the watts and balanced inputs. The VT range sound good (Ive heard a couple of them).

This would come in about a grand (plus import and VAT) http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstube&1136435382
CJ amps are usually just a jumper lead for voltage changes. I have a similar amp to this myself and like it very much.

Cheers
Chris

 

Remember that valve power and solid state power appear to be completely different beasties... In fact, I've got reasonably awkward speakers (big floorstanders, 89dB but 4 ohm nominal with a couple of dips to 3 ohms) and in my moderate sized room (18'x16'x11') the 8 watts of the Minimax drives everything beautifully and without any strain (to volume levels at which sustained listening would do my ears no good at all).

So, it's often a red-herring. Don't discount an amp just based on a paper spec alone - in the same way you wouldn't buy a car without at least test driving a similar one...

 

I fully accept your point about the power ratings. I had an EAR 869 (13w I think) about 6 months ago and that drove some relatively inefficient Red Rose stand mounts with no difficulties - at least not at the sort of volume levels I listen at.

Having said all that I've now taken the plunge and ordered a new amp from Nick at the Emporium. I've had my eye on it for a while as it seemed like a very good price and a very interesting and unusual amp. I won't say what it is just yet (for fear of ridicule ) except to say it's a very long way removed from the valve amps that I had discussed earlier.

I've never seen or heard one of these amps in the flesh so it's a real shot in the dark - but from what I can find out about it on the internet (which is all from oversaes websites) I'm hopeful it will work well with my system and sound bloody good. If it's exactly the model I think it is, it should also look pretty damn cool as well (which is a nice bonus) - Nicks not exactly the most talkative chap on the phone so other than the fact that it's in good conditon and it has the balanced input for my Wadia I don't know quite what to expect. It'll be like opening a surprise early Christmas present when it gets here - I just hope I'm not dissapointed when I unwrap it

I'm hoping it arrives tomorrow so I can play with it at the weekend.

I'll reveal all next week

 

Perish the thought! .

Go on, tell us. Pleeeeeeeeeease?

 

Did you get shot, or something? I thought you were going away for years... strange things happen on hi-fi forums.

 

the BAT VK60?
the Graaf GM100?
the Rogue Audio Tempest?


I have my money on one of those three.

 

I'll be upset if it's the Rogue since I tried to buy it from Nick and it was lost in transit.

 

Well guys the mystery amp arrived at my workplace safe and well before 9.00am this morning - great service from Nick as usual.

Upon opening the box I held my breath hoping that it was exactly the model I wanted - and to my great relief it is. It is in mint condition and looks absolutley fantastic with build quailty to die for. I wish I'd ordered it months ago when I first saw it on the emporium website - but it seemed so cheap that I just assumed it must be a different model or something.

If I stuck it on ebay today I reckon I'd make a 25-50% profit no problem at all. However as long as it sounds half as good as the reviews state then this is a definite keeper. Should make an awesome spectacle with my black Wadia monolith.

I cant try it out yet as I'm at work but I can't wait to plug this baby in.

As I said before it is a million miles removed from the valve amps I had mentioned before (no tubes in sight I'm afraid bottleneck) - but it should make my Revel speakers sing.

If I can work out how to download a picture I'll post one so you can all drool over it or take the p**s if you think I've bought a pile of ****