Audiophilepure

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“The Amazon Echo Link Amp is a good way to bring both music streaming and Alexa’s convenience to a pair of passive speakers. Still, Amazon could have added more features like a remote, power switch, and better input selection to make it a total winner. But if you find yourself regularly listening to music through a basic smart speaker, the Link Amp offers a compact alternative that’s big on sound quality.”

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“The first thing I noticed on powering up the M2si was the low end. A relatively low damping factor of 36 means the M2si lacks the bottom end control of some rivals, but it makes up for it by putting that heavy supply of current to good use. The low end is deep and authoritative. Musical Fidelity have always had a tendency to produce huge muscular amps capable of demonstrating unflappable composure, even at high levels with demanding source material and driving a demanding load. While the M2si doesn’t quite possess the grunt of its bigger siblings, it has the same air of confidence and can unleash thunderous quantities of low end that is quite unusual for an amp of this price and rated power. With relatively high amounts of gain on tap, it only takes a nudge of the volume knob to get sensitive speakers rocking. And the M2si can get plenty loud with a more demanding load while showing no signs of strain or distortion.

Low end aside, the sound remains pleasingly neutral across the frequency spectrum with a slight tuning towards pace and excitement rather than absolute accuracy. The sound you’ll get from the M2si depends largely on your speakers and room, rather than the character of the amp itself. There’s plenty of detail and noise levels are low, with background noise only becoming evident at the top of the volume scale which it is highly unlikely you will ever reach. Detail is excellent at the top end and through the mids, and respectable at the low end though it does become a bit vague and blurred especially if you’re pushing larger drivers.”

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“For a bigger difference, you can choose, with the touch of a button, triode mode rather than Ultralinear. In triode mode, the REF160M is very reminiscent of the sound of the ARC Classic 60 and Classic 150 (which came wired in triode). The presentation is markedly leaner, a bit more midrange-centric (and more detailed in the mids), a bit drier, less extended, and less full and powerful in the bass and the treble—a presentation that in some (not all) ways is closer to classic ARC (or classic ARC triode). Of course, you lose half of the amp’s power in triode, but 70W is still enough to drive most speakers with a relatively high sensitivity (such as the M3s) to thunderous levels. All things considered, I preferred Ultralinear with the Magicos, though triode had (and has) its appeal, as did that 4-ohm tap”

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“High-end audio is so often about compromises, trading one quality for another. What sets the Soulution 330 integrated apart is its ability to strike just the right balance of musical and technical elements within a winning feature set, and to manage to deliver the sonic goods beautifully across so many recordings and styles. Moreover, the company has succeeded in keeping so many of its best sonic characteristics while paring down parts and pricing. The integrated gets out of the way of the music in the right ways but delivers the right stuff. This exquisite Swiss integrated might still cost a pretty penny but if you have the coin, I’d highly recommend auditioning it. For those yearning for Soulution’s Swiss sound and tech built-to-last, with the 3 series there’s never been a better time to invest in some of the finest solid-state around.”

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“To test out using the Ragnarok 2 as a preamp, I hooked up the Schiit Aegir power amp, and at first I couldn’t get any sound out of the Aegir. I checked and rechecked the connections. They were correct. The owner’s manual was no help, so I just fiddled about trying things, and when I switched off the Ragnarok 2’s speaker output and turned on the headphone output, the Aegir started playing! So in other words you need to turn on the headphone output to use the Ragnarok 2 as a preamp! That’s very strange, but easy to do once you know how to do it.

Teamed with the Aegir the sound was even more see-through, and the soundstage took on a more three-dimensional quality. The ‘2 was no slouch on its own, but the Aegir conjured more space and depth between instruments, and individual voices in choral recordings were easier to hear with the Ragnarok 2/Aegir combination.”

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“Wanting to hear how the Element 118s would handle more lively music, I played some pop. Here more than anywhere else, the 118s made obvious the fact that if the quality of the recording itself was sub-par, so was the sound it reproduced. But find a decent recording, such as Beck’s Sea Change (16/44.1 FLAC, Universal) or Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. (16/44.1 FLAC, Columbia), and you’ll be rewarded with a musically engaging sound as replete with inner detail as with ambience. I have both albums on standard “Red Book” CDs and in high-resolution formats: Sea Change as a 24/88.2 FLAC file from HD tracks, and Born in the U.S.A. as a 24/96 DVD-A ripped to FLAC.”

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“My other concerns are pretty well documented above, but if you’re the type to skip straight to the criticism, here’s a brief recap: Although the K-300i is positioned as an AV device, not merely an audio one, its utility on the video side is somewhat limited by the fact that it doesn’t decode Dolby or DTS audio, nor does it have any internal bass management. You’ll need to use your subwoofer for that, although thankfully there are still plenty of subwoofers with internal crossover capabilities and speaker-level outputs.

The Krell K-300i also lacks any form of room correction. Even a basic parametric EQ would have been welcomed, as there are room modes to be overcome in my bedroom AV system that cannot be ameliorated by subwoofer positioning alone. My recommendation: if you’re planning on using the K-300i in a 2.1 AV setup, make sure your subwoofer not only has speaker-level outputs and crossover capabilities, but also some form of auto room EQ or parametric EQ.”

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“I can summarize the sonic performance of the McIntosh performance rather easily. The descriptors that come to mind are effortless, spacious, transparent, and utterly grain free. I could not hope for more from a high class, well-engineered solid state amplifier. The sense of effortlessness really does make a difference in musical enjoyment. It ties into dynamics, which were reproduced naturally. Tonally, the MC312 was spot on; the whole spectrum of sonic colors was wonderfully presented, like a perfectly balanced photograph taken in natural light.

Ergonomically, the MC312 was mechanically dead quiet, ran cool, and provided trouble free performance over the course of the review period. One would expect nothing less than this for an amplifier in this price range, and considering its pedigree. Also, for those not enamored by the blue meter lights, they can be turned off. For me they are a mark of distinction, and added to the ambiance.”

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“One other thing that may be worth considering for readers who employ their stereo systems as the foundation pf a multi-channel system: While the Kaya brochure lists center channel and surround models, they are not yet in production. I suspect the smaller, stand-mount models from Vivid may be a viable option, but it would be nice to have the full Kaya line available for those who want to build a multi-channel system.

Lastly, the aesthetics of the Vivid Audio Kaya line are appealing to my eye, but perhaps not for everyone, especially someone with more traditional design tastes. The Kaya line is understated for Vivid Audio, but these speakers are hardly ordinary looking, with their somewhat unusual, organic shapes.”