Thoughts about Jadis and Harbeth

It wasn’t just the richness and depth of the bass, but the incredible level of detail—such as hearing the sound of the pick hitting the strings just before I heard the note of the string itself, not to mention the lovely high-frequency response: sweet, airy, extended… and more gorgeous than I’ve ever heard it sound on CD. After seriously surprising myself that I was so happy with the M-100’s performance with black vinyl, I then slowly worked through listening to all its digital inputs, a process which necessarily including evaluating everything from various streaming services right up to the latest high-res formats, and found that the longer I listened to the M-100, and the more inputs I evaluated, the more impressed I became by its performance: This is one seriously cool component! (Well not totally cool, the case could become warm despite the fan… which I could hear up close when no music was playing, but not from my listening position, and never when the music was playing.) And speaking of streaming, that process seemed to continue even when I switched to listen to a different input, so make sure you stop it when you’re not listening if you don’t want to consume bandwidth.

Listening to Takatukas’ ‘Red Blood’, which seemed appropriate given the M-100’s heritage, the M-100 delivered the wild roller-coaster-ride of sound for which the band is famous, from the trademark machine-gun drumming of Bruno Mellier to the screaming, almost ear-piercing lead guitar shredding of Gerald Ozga. It kicks in from the opener Paranoiaque/hypochondriaque and keeps the excitement through all 15 tracks to Ras Kouyon. The slam and tone of Nicolas Vitry’s bass is a constant delight as well.

I was able to confirm that the M-100’s performance was totally consistent across all the inputs using my library of cuts that are identical except for format, many of which are sourced from Soundkeeper Recordings. The M-100 delivered consistently silent backgrounds, extraordinary dynamics and excelled at maintaining ruthlessly accurate tonality irrespective of music genre.

Conclusion

As ‘all in one’ components become increasingly common, manufacturers are pulling out all the stops to make sure their products stand out. Micromega has pulled out so many stops building the M-100 that you have to peer upwards to see it (literally, if you wall-mount it). Brilliantly designed, lovely-sounding, able to be optioned-up and/or upgraded and, thanks to the MCF customisation on offer, it can be as beautiful as your heart’s desire. Magnifique! # Jules Larkin