Musical Fidelity X-ray V3

[tboooe]

Hi, I am considering getting this Cd player. Can any owners or those with experience with this player please provide your feedback?

In particular I would love to hear people's feelings about its sound quality, build quality, and how it compares to other players in its price range (Rotel 1072, Cary 308, Marantz sa8260, etc.).

I have never heard of the Musical Fidelity company before. Do they make good gear in general? Are they going to go out of business anytime soon? Does anyone else their other products?

Thanks for the feedback.

[David Meek]

Tommy, I haven't heard that CD unit of theirs, so I can't help with that, but MF is a very well established company based in England. They've been around since the early '80s - trust me, they aren't going anywhere. Stereophile magazine has tons of reviews of their stuff - almost all of it very positive (and all of them available on-line at Stereophile's site). I have their A3.24CR DAC and X-LPS phono stage and am extremely happy with both. If you do a search on it here, you'll find some threads on some of their equipment. Here's a link to their site:

Musical Fidelity

P. S. Their KW750 amp is on my "short list" when I go to upgrade that part of my system.

.

[audiofan]

I have Rotel rcd-1072 and Musical Fidelity X-10 v3 tube buffer. The combo sound pretty sweet to my ear.... You can place tube buffer between CD player and pre-amp or pre-amp and amp.

[Andrew M Ward]

Audio gone for $750

X-ray go for around $750 used, that's about as good as CD players get in that price range.

Cool looking too

[tboooe]

audiofan:

i am seriously considering getting the x-10 v3 buffer also, just to try out tube technology. i will probably use between the preamp and amp. do you know if the tubes are replaceable? how much? i heard that they last 100,000 hours? going try and get one used.

andrew, i agree that is a good price for mf. i think i am going to go for it!

[audiofan]

I don't know if tube buffer can be replaced, but with 100,000 hours you can enjoy it for a long time unless unexpect thing happens. If you leave it power on all the time for all year round, i think you can use it for at least 10 years... I heard the two tubes used in x-10 v3 can be replace if you know how to solder and if you can get the part.

Anyway, i'm enjoying it so much and i certainly will keep it for while.

[tboooe]

audiofan, have you tried placing the x-1o between your amp and preamp? Where do you see the most improvement (between cd and preamp or preamp and amp). I would like to do the latter so that my other sources can benefit from the tube. But I read somewhere that if placed between the preamp and amp the benefits are not as noticeable. Something to do with better balance, impedance, etc. Totally over my head.

Actually, can someone explain why and how the x-10 buffer works?