Pre/Power Amplifiers

By any standards, the Noble series from Berlin-based MBL is a looker. The components aren't massive – in place of slabby high-end units wearing their audio prowess on their sleeve, as it were, both the £11,500 N11 preamplifier and the N15 mono power amplifiers, at £13,900 apiece, are relatively slender units. They are also immaculately finished in a choice of gloss black or white, with accents for the control elements available in either polished gold or palinux (silver), with black detailing also offered if you go for the white main colour.

It's not unusual to find consumer hi-fi hardware making some concessions to the custom installation (CI) space – typically connectivity, such as RS232 and Ethernet – that enables a CI professional to integrate and control the product in a wider system. Yet there are also items, such as McIntosh's MI502, that are more deliberately aimed at the CI market. A slimline two-channel power amplifier, it looks a world away from some of the Binghamton, New York-based company's heavy-hitters. Should it be given a swerve by the dedicated audiophile? Or might it be just what the doctor ordered?

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.

Time, it seems, to forget all the stereotypes of high-output power amplifiers as massive devices that dim the lights when fired up and convert even the chilliest of spaces into a listening-room sauna. Instead, the £7299 Perca stereo power amp from Dutch manufacturer Mola Mola is just 215mm wide and 110mm tall, and weighs a mere 5.25kg, yet claims a stereo output of 150W/8ohm, doubling to 300W/4ohm.

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?