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Integrated Amp Curiosity

This is triggered by a recent post by someone who is reportedly perpetually curious about amps, in general.

In the last several years, while shopping and auditioning integrated amps, speakers and TTs, I spent a fair amount of serious seat-time with several integrated amps in relatively well-controlled demoing conditions.  There were four in the price range I was looking at that really stood out and impressed the heck out of me:  Musical Fidelity M6si + McIntosh MA 5200 + Luxman (can't remember model but competitor to the MAC) + Simaudio Moon Neo 340 IX.  I actually bought one of these, but I won't say which one in order to encourage honest feedback, if there is any.  After that purchase, I spent a lot of serious seat time with one of these others auditioning speakers.  That one keeps haunting me and making me wonder if I would have purchased it, instead, had heard it before buying the one I did.  I'm sure you audiophiles out there will know exactly what I mean.  So, I guess my question for the peanut gallery is this:  Have any of you been able to do fair A/B comparisons of any of these amps and, if so, what did you think?

oldaudiophile
hgeifman
2,445 posts
 

@oldaudiophile 

Click on Upscale Audio M6Si amp review

Scroll down several pages for Kevin’s video review.  

oldaudiophile OP
384 posts
 

Thanks, folks!  The MF and Simaudio are, indeed, absolutely wonderful!  The time I spent with the MF was with a pair of Paradigm (forget model number but somewhere around 4K or 5K retail at the time), the same Marantz CD player I have but currently using as a transport and an outstanding Marantz TT-15S1 turntable.

The Simaudio I spent time with involved the same CD player, a pair of Martin Logan Motion 60XTi and then a pair of GoldenEar Triton 2.

Gano, when you say the Simaudio is "hard to match" what do you mean, exactly?  That puppy has such a massive current supply, it had no difficulty driving the ML to their fullest capabilities.  However, I was wondering how well it would do with speakers that live in the 4 Ohm zone most of the time.  Even though the ML are rated as a 4 Ohm design, some reviewers think it's really a 6 Ohm speaker.

gano
750 posts
 

@oldaudiophile I heard the 340i with 3 different speakers, with B&W, they sounded almost unbearable to my ears.  With ATC, they sounded good, and with Dynaudio Contours they sounded fantastic. But it's subjective of course...

lordmelton's avatar
lordmelton
1,181 posts
 

I'm a big fan of Anthony Michaelson whom created Musical Fidelity. Now the Chinks own it, but much of the gear was being made in China anyway.

For me reliabilty is very high on my list and MF will always deliver.

They are a very underated company.

2psyop's avatar
2psyop
1,941 posts
 

I have the older Musical Fidelity M6i500 (which is the older version of the M6si500. It’s a beast and I would not part with it. I am a huge fan of both integrated amps and the brand Musical Fidelity (now owned by Audio Tuning). The Nu Vista amps are very, very good IMO.

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