Which MF upgrade.

I am now considering my next upgrade and as I am happy with the MF sound,I am unsure if I should opt for the A5 pre/pwr Amps. would the extra expense justify the lift in performance. Has any member any experience of these?

 

I think Nando is probably your best bet. Try PMing him. I must point out though that he is a dealer for MF.

 

usually moving to a pre/power combo of the same group from an integrated is a bit of a mixed bag. the pre/power usually does some things better and some worse. usually the integrated is a bit woolier but a lot more together whereas the pre/power is punchier and cleaner but can pull the musical strands apart.
if i were you i'd be thinking of moving up to the next level of mf kit (if you are dead set on mf kit i'd be looking at the nu-vista integrated or that one with the flashy feet).

 

Thanks Dev, I Have As You Know A Good Deal Going On The Pre-power A5 Conbo, Thanks.nando.

 

Have you considered biamping the integrated rather than pre/power?

 

As long as the amp does not lack power (and modern solid-state should not), bi-amping does very little to improve the sound if the "matching" power amp is used. I sold my Rotel RB-971mkII within a week because it offered nothing whatsoever over the RA-971mkII on its own. Biamping is rather overplayed by magazines I feel.

 

Good point Isaac.

I used to have MF XA/2 (75WPC) driving HF and XA200 (200WPC) driving bass units and it worked very well.

I also took advantage of using different cables for bass and treble. Before anyone jumps in here I'd like to point out that the cables had very different LCR properties. This perhaps explained why using the XA200s to drive both HF and bass wasn't as good.

 

Dev

Either I've misunderstood Isaacs point or you have, I think ISAAC doesn't rate biamping

 

I think Isaac is saying that as long as the amp can drive the speakers properly there is no point in biamping. I agreed with this statement.

However, my speakers DO need a lot of drive and biamping did help my setup (IMO). A case of horses for courses if you like.

As an added bonus I was able to use cables for "tone control" with biamping which doesn't really work with biwiring. I've been told that the cables driving the bass drivers are very high capacitance compared to the QED SA I was using for treble.

 

Dev's setup was a sensible way of doing things... The X series integrateds were not hugely powerful (small case size linear amp... ultimately it will have limitations in power), and Dev used a much more powerful amplifier for the more current-heavy requirement of the bass.

My point was that bi-amping with a "matching" power amp (which is the same power stage and power supply as the integrated, just no pre-amp section) is fairly pointless because the load is so unevenly split (tweeter might take 1W at high volumes, bass will take tens of watts with huge transient current demands) that you don't have any more power or quality to give the main driver. You'd be better off spending the money on one better amplifier than two mediocre ones (as an example. I'm not suggesting your amp is mediocre).

Where bi-amping makes a lot of sense is if you find a big, powerful amp that you like the bass and midrange but the treble is harsh (maybe a krell?), and put that with something that is sweeter at the top (maybe even a valve amp?). It might take some work to match gains and get things to sound right, but the point is that you use each amp to play to its strengths to get a better overall sound, rather than just replicate the same amp circuit and basically get it to do the same job while the other virtually idles.

 

Thanks and apologies gents - it was me wot was confuzed!

 

I've got the A5 pre/power and upgraded from the A3 pre/power about 18 months ago. I have no regrets as the A5 combo IMO is much superior to the A3. The overall sound is much tighter and the imaging is excellent. I mainly listen to blues, rock, folk and pop.

Sources - A3 CDP, MF M1 T/T with Ortofon Rondo Bronze & MF T1 tuner (analogue from the mid 80s), OK I like the MF sound
Speakers - Vandersteens 2CEs.

Gordon

 

Have you considered monoblocks? One power amp per channel.

 

sorted.nando.