Musical Fidelity M8 series

[alebonau]

I dont know about others, but I do at times lust after the m8 series. looks like an amazing pre amp and some stunning mono blocs there. the kind of thing musical fidelity excel over the years with. lovely amps. would be great if they made a source ie disc player or dac in the m8 series. but anyways still some awesome pieces.

yet to see or hear in person but have noticed some pretty awesome reviews on this gear...

from absolute sound,

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/musical-fidelity-m8-preamplifier-and-m8700m-amplifier/

and also this review from hifi news

http://www.audiomarketing.com.au/cmsAdmin/uploads/MF-M8PRE-M8700m-May-2013.pdf

anyone else lusting after these ? :B

[alebonau]

a chasm appeared...


as did something very quickly to fill the spot...







and here the musical fidelity m8 pre amplifier is taking pride of place as centre piece to all things 2ch

[alebonau]

Some pics inside this beauty,





can definitely see attributes there that ring true to the musical fidelities m8 pre amplifiers fully balanced design

[r100gs]

Nice! What are your first impressions?

[alebonau]

Nice! What are your first impressions?

so far have been quite impressed with the quality of the piece, and will pull together my impressions over the next few days of my impressions over the last week. have been playing plenty of discs through, vinyl, cds and sacds so should have quite a bit of quality time with it before reporting back

[Audio_ElF]

Can I ask... What are you using for power amps and what speakers?

[alebonau]

Hi AIF am using the musical fidelity A5CR power amp to drive my mains which are the Focal Utopia Divas

[alebonau]

Musical Fidelity M8Pre Fully Balanced Pre Amplifier - some impressions...

Musical Fidelity M8Pre Fully Balanced Pre Amplifier - some impressions...

Some impressions of mine of the musical fidelity m8 pre amp over the last couple of weeks.

http://www.musicalfidelity.com/products/m8series/m8pre/

Coming off my musical fidelity a5cr pre amp which is something have owned near on 9 years, wanted to give myself a good bit of time with the new musical fidelity m8 pre before posting any thoughts...


Unpacking the musical fidelity m8 pre found it packed very well - packaged the shipped weight is 5.5kg more than unit itself giving indication of packaging involved to get to you safely. It comes double boxed with foam protection and then in a velvet bag for additional protection. It comes with a pair of white gloves while handling and standard accessories it comes with are the m8 remote control, manual and power lead. For those wanting to watch an unboxing, someone has done that already on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xP3NW8D0aU

some pics of it unpacked...







Its quite a heavy piece at 17kg, and quite large in footprint being both tall and deep.

A quick peak inside





shows that musical fidelity hasn't scrimped on power supplies with twin torroidals looking more like a dual mono integrated than what would expect to find in a pre amp. Very solid casing and given whats inside explains the weight and physical bulk of the unit. Very neatly put together inside too with what looks like a well thought through circuitry given its fully balanced design and the flexibility and connectivity it provides.

and here it is in the system,





Hook up was pretty simple going from one musical fidelity design to another.



I have a fair few components both analog and digital and a complex system since integrates into a ht/av system and head fi system as well. From the A5cr pre, the M8 pre amp adds another RCA to a total of 5 plus adds 2 XLR inputs, the ht bypass is switchable over either RCA or XLR, and there are also both RCA and XLR as pre outs and either useable at the same time which is handy giving me an additional way to run my sub. For hook up I kept to what was doing the a5cr for starters utilising just RCA hookup and leaving the XLRs and spare RCA to play with down the track. reasoning here was once fired up would be listening to just the change brought with the new pre than different hook up as well

To fire up, rather than the hard switching of the a5cr pre this one comes with a standby. Also the vol has a digital indicator rather than the more conventional motorised knob that was used to. The indicator correlates to db loudness. So no suprise on switch on selecting my cd as input got nothing till levels lifted 40 db and upwards leaving me listening around 60db. Did some quick checks to make sure all components hooked up correctly. And also checked my sub integration and also connection to av system all of which showed levels were as per prior.

From first switch on, the musical fidelity traits are all there...reminding me why I continued on from the musical fidelity A5cr pre to the m8 pre in the first place. I think in sound within about the first 20 minutes or so it settled down, with sharpening up detail and clarity hinting to either initial run in or warm up.

But yes listening to some of my favourite CDs/sacds/vinyl and other sources (digital radio, AppleTV) over the last couple of weeks, there a touch of mid range warm, a robust bass and a spritely vibrant top end....giving a sound stage thats not laid back but throws vocals forward and fills the room with sound.

So whats different to the a5cr pre ?, the m8 pre seems to have a very smooth nature to its sound...where the a5cr by comparison had a touch of graininess by comparison. Yet somehow with the M8 there seems to be more clearly defined details though with the sound coming off a cleaner background. Making the details more starkly placed. So leaves you in the conundrum of how while having the ability to explicitly portray detail as the a5cr does, the m8 is smoother sounding and yet seems to portray those details with extra definition !.

In sound stage the M8 goes up a notch as well, now again not sure if this is related to its better portrayal of detail, but details are more focused and more obviously placed in the sound stage, which in typically musical fidelity fashion is room filling and holographic in presentation.

Listening to vocals eg on some of the Nitin Sawhney tracks or Katie Melua,



vocals are simply deliciously presented. They have a fullness, richness and warmth and image really well the speakers. Supremely pleased with this as vocals are pretty important aspect to me in music.

Giving a few LPs a spin e.g. stockfish closer to music vinyl collection. Found the details and the lovely music here are rendered just beautifully & delicately. Start spinning vinyl I couldn't stop ! with some other LPs in natalie merchants tiger lilly, eva casidy's songbird and Karrin Alyson footprints that followed...




Checking out the bass side of things with “Hey Kandi” - Kandi SACD there is track 4 with a really funky bass that goes ultra low ...that you can only feel ! . Well hehe its there in all its glory and very impressed with not only the bass line on this disc but the way top end and details are portrayed.




Listening to nitin sawhney “anthem without nation” from beyond skin has clouds of thunder going off around ceiling height of the room. Also checking out meshell ndegeocello the bass there is very clean, tight and with some punch. All up very happy with the way bass is portrayed and levels for integration between my speakers and sub.



Switching to Beth Orton central reservation on CD, the music has a lovely flowing quality, her voice is never strident but beautifully springs forth supported with the instrumentations.



Explored the headfi side fed off the tape monitor out of the m8, with the pre muted can listen to selection of any of the sources got going into the m8.



also exploring the av side with the ht bypass utilising RCA and it all works as should. Watching an old classic in officer and gentleman the vocals and audio in that was really a standout. Also like that cleary shows "ht" on its display in htbypass mode, saves on any confusion with a quick glance showing the mode its in !



So overall the m8 pre has settled in nicely in the system over the last couple of weeks I feel...very very pleased. As a pre amp still a few more things to explore...playing with the balanced side of things ... and mucking around with power amps...but more of that later in months to come

[r100gs]

Nice write up. Glad to hear your soundstage opened up. Having A5Cr preamp I could only image the improvement the m8 could bring. Maybe a M8-500S in your future? :W

[alebonau]

Nice write up. Glad to hear your soundstage opened up. Having A5Cr preamp I could only image the improvement the m8 could bring. Maybe a M8-500S in your future? :W

thankyou R100gs, hehe the m8-500s would sure be a beauty

[John Holmes]

Nicely done, Sir!

[alebonau]

Nicely done, Sir!

thankyou John

[toyotaman]

I nearly treated my self to an M8 Pre + 2 x M8 700 but I treated myself to a new car and a M6500i instead after reading your post I can feel myself having a home dem of them and maybe not eating out for the next decade