Pre/Power Amplifiers

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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Meridian Prime/prime Psu (£1200 Prime/£800 Prime Psu)
Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Jan 22, 2015
Here’s a stylish new Meridian product right in the mainstream: a headphone amp/USB DAC with optional outboard PSU. It wouldn’t be a Meridian, though, without having some novel features. The cases are interlocking aluminium extrusions, double-skinned to enhance screening, and having no visible fasteners holding it together – clever. The PPS power supply is not dedicated to the PHA headphone amp but provides five 12V/500mA DC outputs on mini-DIN sockets, each incorporating dual-stage linear voltage regulation, for powering other Meridian products as well.
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HeadphonesPre/Power Amplifiers
Metaxas Marquis headphone preamp
Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Dec 01, 2017
hfncommended.pngSomething for the high-end user with a sense of fun – Metaxas' Marquis 'Memento Mori' headphone amp marries form with function and the result is rather jolly. Er, Roger.

Headphones now rule – period – and as a vivid illustration of the current profusion of cans, I was staggered to see, at a store in Tokyo, a selection of something like 1500 headphones, and with plenty of high-end brands notable by their absence.

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Outboard DACsPre/Power Amplifiers
Micromega M-150 DAC/amplifier
Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Jun 01, 2018
hfncommended.pngThis slimline amplifier from an established French brand may suggest another product from the same country, but it's a very different prospect with some unique features

So, it's a slimline amplifier, and it's French – already thinking of the 'D' word? But while it might seem that the M-One amplifiers from Micromega could be 'inspired' by the success of Devialet's range, in fact they have little in common beyond their country of origin and a passing resemblance in dimensions: under the skin they're very different animals.

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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Micromega Pa 20/pw 400 (£3288)
Ken Kessler & Paul Miller  |  Dec 16, 2009
Time to disregard all the French felonies that form my antipathy towards our neighbour across the Channel: the revived Micromega has returned to the market with a family of new products offering build quality, style, functionality and, above all, prices belying manufacture in Europe. The brand will be a cat among UK pigeons, despite arriving when the economy suggests that this is not the time to launch, or re-launch a brand. Perhaps new owner Didier Hamdi knows something we don’t. Maybe tough times are just made for bargains.
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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Modwright Ls 36.5/kwa 150s (£7995 Pre With Psu/£6795 Power)
Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Jan 20, 2015
ModWright’s owner Dan Wright argues that ‘Valves are great voltage amplifiers and solid-state devices are great current amplifiers. ’ Hence the combination here: the top of the range ‘DM’ dual-mono version of the LS 36. 5 preamp, with its separate PS 36. 5 power supply, and the KWA 150 Signature Edition power amplifier.
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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Musical Fidelity Ams100 (£13,000)
Ed Selley  |  Nov 20, 2011
The largest AMS amplifier is a true giant in all senses of the word You can read all the specs, but nothing can quite prepare you for the arrival of Musical Fidelity’s AMS100. It stands over a foot tall, a foot-and-a-half wide, and by the time it’s plugged in and connected well over three-foot deep. The circuit is a hybrid between that of the company’s smaller AMS50 and range-topping Titan. This new unit has the same topology as the Titan, but is Class A.
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Disc PlayersPre/Power Amplifiers
Musical Fidelity M2scd/M2si CD Player/Amplifier
Review: Adam Smith, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Sep 11, 2019
hfncommendedThe iconic visuals belie Musical Fidelity's recent change in ownership – so will this familiar M2 series CD/amp combination still tempt the budget-conscious enthusiast?

In these evolving days of digital music, cloud storage and online streaming, it might seem counter-intuitive for Musical Fidelity to release a line-only amplifier and 'plain vanilla' CD player. The £799 M2si integrated has no inbuilt DAC, no Bluetooth, no Wi-Fi and not even a phono stage, or indeed the option of one. And, peer round the rear of the matching £799 M2scd compact disc player, and the only connections you will find are outputs. Once again, it has no digital inputs, no antennae sticking out and no wireless wizardry up its sleeve. What's going on?

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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Musical Fidelity M6x 250.7 Multichannel Power Amp
Review: Mark Craven, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Feb 21, 2023
hfnoutstandingThe Austrian brand's first multichannel power amp is designed not just for home theatre systems but also to service bi- or even tri-amped stereo set-ups. Is this a trend?

Musical Fidelity is no stranger to big power amplifiers. Its top-of-the-range monoblock, the £3599 M8s-700m, claims a 700W/8ohm output and weighs in at 35.5kg, and the company sells a stereo model in the M8 series too, the £3999 2x500W/8ohm-rated M8s-500s. But perhaps what few expected from the brand, considering its range also consists of DACs, streaming amps, phono stages and CD players – everything a two-channel audiophile could want, in other words – is a seven-channel amplifier. Which is what we have here, in the shape of the M6x 250.7.

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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Musical Fidelity M8pre/ M8700m (m8pre, £3500; M8700m, £4000 Each)
Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Nov 13, 2014
Enter Musical Fidelity’s latest ultra-high-power creation, described as ‘a true heir to the [2008] Titan, delivering near-identical sound’. It’s a monoblock design that’s considerably more bank-balance friendly, rated at 700W/8ohm, although this transpired to be conservative. It is part of a new series of high-end components, also including the M8PRE preamplifier. The sturdy casework has a finely-textured black finish and thick aluminium fascias while the M8700m’s heatsinks are smoothly finished.
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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista PRE/PAS & PSUs Pre/Power Amplifiers
Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Apr 10, 2023
Look familiar? This new four-box pre/power stack from Musical Fidelity shares the styling of 2014's Nu-Vista 800 integrated, but is it a high-end contender? You bet it is!

Ever get the feeling we've been here before? Well, the arrival of the latest amplifier system from Musical Fidelity brings a new twist to the whole déjà vu thing as the Nu-Vista naming and macho aesthetics are familiar from the historically hefty Nu-Vista 800 integrated amplifier [HFN Nov '14]. In practice that classic nuvistor tube-equipped integrated amplifier, also rated at 300W/8ohm, has provided the inspiration for both the industrial and technical design of the PRE and PAS we see here, the hybrid nuvistor/transistor concept now evolved into a pre/power set-up, complete with separate PSUs for each. So one box is now four...

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Pre/Power AmplifiersVintage
Musical Fidelity The Preamp/Dr Thomas (Vintage)
Richard Holliss  |  Dec 22, 2014
In Tony Michaelson’s company started with one diminutive but memorable product, called simply ‘The Preamp’. He started by making them on his kitchen table… What made the product so eyecatching was the acrylic front, with the product name illuminated in red. In its original form, The Preamp had an appeal all of its own. It was so tiny, so simple, yet so businesslike.
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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Musical Fidelity Titan (£20,000)
Ed Selley  |  Nov 24, 2010
Leading from the top of this amplifier’s trump card specifi cation sheet is the £20,000 price tag, followed closely by the two-box design and claimed delivery of 1kW into an 8ohm load. Reading the spec-sheet alone does little to prepare you for the sheer size, weight and physical presence of the two-box Titan. It is massive, with a combined weight over 110kg, each unit boasting a footprint the size of a small chest of drawers. Sitting side-by-side you have two enormous works of art in milled aluminium – low, wide and deep.
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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista kWP and kW Amplifiers
Review: Ian Harris, Review and Lab: Paul Miller  |  Jul 22, 2022  |  First Published: Aug 01, 2003
hfnvintageIan Harris and Paul Miller hear the amps that crown MF's 20th anniversary

The kW and kWP are the final models in Musical Fidelity's 20th anniversary Tri-Vista series, and are intended to be the ultimate expression of the company's skills as amplifier builders. In contrast to the nominally 'real world' SACD player and integrated amp, the pre and power amps have been built on a totally cost-no-object basis – to borrow MF's own words, they're 'simply the very best we can do'.

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Pre/Power AmplifiersVintage
Myst TMA3 amplifier
Review: David Price, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Nov 01, 2018
hfnvintage.pngBack in the '80s, several British 'cottage industry' companies made integrated amps for purist customers, but this is surely the most 'mysterious'. How will it sound today?

In hi-fi as in life, the 1980s was a transformative time. From speaker stands and audiophile speaker cable, to mini monitors and expensive, minimalist integrated amps – the 'go for it' decade of Filofaxes, red braces and VW Golf GTis showed us what was to come.

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Pre/Power Amplifiers
NAD C 298 Class D Power Amp
Review: Mark Craven, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Nov 22, 2021
hfnoutstandingNAD's M33 BluOS streaming amplifier was the first to utilise Purifi's groundbreaking Eigentakt Class D modules. Now they are in a stripped-back 'purist' power amp...

We sometimes hear a hi-fi component described as 'a wolf in sheep's clothing', but the idiom seems particularly apt for NAD's C 298. From the outside, there's little to distinguish this £1700 power amp from market rivals – indeed, its general demeanour is so nondescript it would likely struggle to standout from flashier competition. But NAD, a company that's no stranger to high-tech design style elsewhere in its stable, has opted to keep the chassis simple and make the amp's story about what's going on inside.

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