Musical Fidelity Trivista 300 vs. kW500


A few extra $$'s appeared. Time to ditch the tweaked Hafler pre-amp/amp and go with my choice du jour: MF Trivista. Please advise...300 or the big 500 integrated amp. Driving my old but still damn good B & W 901F's, medium size room, mostly classical. Also need advice on a new (or good used) CD player to meld into this system...preferably multidisc (shudder you audiophiles). Thanks for any direction in the above quest. farmdoc
farmdoc6449
Speaking of beating up on MF stuff, I love the KW500 throught some Thiel 2.4s except for the lack of bass. Something is wrong. Other less $ equipment plays the kettle drums and other base fine with everything the same but the int amp. EVERYTHING the same save the wall outlet. MF KW500 issue or it just needs repair??? I've even brought in my amp and hooked it up to the preamp out of the MF and it plays the base (but not the wonder detail and air in the highs).

Opinions? I'd love to take it home if it will just play drums and bass guitar, etc. Shop says I'm FOS, that thier $7000 amp that they can't sell for years and years plays base fine, but it clearly doesn't. They won't sit in the room and listen with me long enough to hear the passages where the difference is so obvious (always some mega deal phone call or customer coming in by the time the cables are all moved over). I just want to know if what I'm (not) hearing is the amp's deficiency or what!
Hi Dave,

If you don't mind me side tracking here first, this store your talking of stinks! It would be easy for me to tell you to just forget that store because their treatment of you, but I also realize you can't simply go down the street to another dealer.

Your results with this amp does surprise me a bit and I can see why you'd question if the amp has something wrong. The best advice I could give is to call the U.S. distributer and relay what you have said here to them and see what they have to say.

Who knows, maybe it simply doesn't mate well with those speakers.

Brian
Sdatch,

Very good sir, you had me wondering. I suspect the answer to your question involves the ugly green monster.

Dave,

Will they let you do a home trial? If not, can you bring your speakers to them? I've listened to the kW500 on a few different speakers including the WATT/Puppies, but no Thiel's and it did not find it lacking bass on any of them. What interconnects are they using?
I can't remember the interconnects. They are using Kimber cables to the speakers and the 2.4s don't seem to be the problem. The ones at the store sound close enough to the same (on my amp) at the store and as my 2.4s sound at home on my amp. They've got plenty of detail and base short of the really deep base + LFE ranges.
Ah, I thought you were running older B&W's at home. Just a thought......I'm not a fan of Kimber cables, always found them light on bass. Do they have other cables you can demo with?