Audiophilepure

Have I found ANY type of music that the Marantz doesn’t excel at? Not yet. But I’m still listening… What makes the Marantz so strait-laced in its proclivities? The bass is tight and very tuneful. The pitch of string bass and cello notes is easily followed whether the instruments are bowed or plucked. The bass extension (subwoofer driven off the Marantz’s preamplifier output jacks in my system) is prodigious. For example, try “Flight of the Cosmic Hippo” by Bela Fleck or “How Great Thou Art” by Valor. The Marantz brings it on in the bass.

The Marantz’s midrange is very dynamic without ever becoming brash (this is a very tight rope to walk). I like to test amps with complicated music like the Seekers’ and the Pentangle’s live performances. If the voices and instruments remain discreet instead of blending into mush, the amplifier is doing its job. The Marantz does. Another test for midrange is Goran Brevogić’s “Maki Maki.” The voice is somewhat recessed at times in relation to the instruments and other general musical mayhem in the background. If the lower-volume comments and asides are clearly audible in this piece, then the amplifier has got exceptional midrange definition. The Marantz does.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/rotel-michi-x5-integrated-amplifier

As on the X3 the two sets of speaker terminals are paralleled and designed to bi-wire a single pair of suitable speakers. A pair of pre-outs are provided should you wish to add an external amplifier for bi-amping your speakers, and there are two mono subwoofer outputs, plus a headphone socket on the front panel.

Also retained from the X3 is that simple fascia, with little more than source and volume controls, and a big, ultra-clear display complete with fripperies – all defeatable – such as VU meters and spectrum analyser readouts. Should you want to go for the full moody black look, the display can be dimmed or turned off from the excellent remote common to all Michi integrateds and the P5 preamp [HFN May ’20]. It’s a solid little device, and a masterpiece of clarity – you can even temporarily adjust tone and balance without leaving your listening seat.

https://www.whathifi.com/us/reviews/yamaha-rx-a2a

Watching the race from Ready Player One the movement of the motorbike zipping across the sound field feels both wide and precise as it weaves in and out of traffic. The long skids and screeches of these virtual vehicles are pleasingly broad and fizzy, while smaller features of the game such as the controller beeps and coin glissandos are neatly detailed. During big crashes, low frequency information occasionally sounds a bit blunt but there’s still plenty of drama and punch in the explosive action.

The M33’s Dirac Live is a sort of “Lite” version that measures and corrects only up to 500 Hz, which nonetheless covers most of the heavy lifting that any such system can offer. (Above the “transition frequency” where room modes cease to exert much influence— typically a few hundred Hz—equalization becomes much more of a crap- shoot that’s highly dependent on speaker radiation patterns, placement, and room surfaces and furnishings.) M33 owners can upgrade to full-bandwidth Dirac Live Full Frequency for an up-charge of $99 via a card supplied with the unit.

I ran the M33’s Dirac using the supplied “puck” micro- phone, conveniently via my iPad Mini 5 and Dirac’s relatively new iOS app, with no difficulty. It’s an elegant system, but since Dirac has been amply covered in these pages by myself and others I will not rehearse the process here fully, other than to point out that the M33’s iteration permits storage and recall of up to five different correction “runs,” for different speakers, placements, or seating positions. My measurement run for a single-listener setup required nine mic positions in concentric rings around the primary seating area, with the whole process taking 15 minutes. Unlike most receiver-bound correction systems, Dirac Live permits the user to adjust the target curve, shaping response to the listener’s room, speakers, or preference, though—unless one upgrades to Full Frequency—only over the bottom four-plus octaves

https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/2-uncategorised/1559-bryston-b135-cubed-integrated-amplifier

As quiet as the B135 SST² is—it’s still one of the quietest integrateds I’ve heard—the B135³ seemed quieter still. The difference was subtle, but with “Get Behind the Mule,” from Waits’s Mule Variations, it was as though the head of the drum was stretched more tightly across the frame, sounding a bit more taut. The sound of a foot tapping out the beat was also more readily resolved through the B135³. Similarly, with Tori Amos’s “Caught a Lite Sneeze,” I thought the stage was even better resolved through the newer Bryston, with even greater fluidity in the rhythm of the music.

These aren’t the kinds of differences that will make B135 SST² owners run out and sell their amps—the gap in performance was no gulf. However, if I had the choice of buying one or the other and sound was the only factor, I’d opt for the B135³. As I switched back and forth between them, it was sometimes hard to pinpoint exactly what difference I was hearing—yet I consistently heard an overall smoothness to the sound of the B135³ that was incredibly easy on my ears. When I reviewed my listening notes, I found the nouns ease and easiness sprinkled throughout. Evidently, that was the consistent impression I was left with.

https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/1046-spl-performer-m1000-monoblock-amplifiers

My two months of listening to SPL’s Performer m1000 monoblocks has left me impressed and a bit smitten with them. The m1000 packs one hell of a punch, in sound and in value. Not once did I feel it had to strain to produce enough output power, or that its sound was constrained in any way, even at very high playback levels. Furthermore, the Performer m1000s ran cool, look cool, and, if you’re brave enough to lift one, feel solid as a rock. But most important, the m1000s were compelling to listen to.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/pegaso-audio-p50a-integrated-amplifier

But I’m certain that if I was to own a P50A, I’d often find myself seeking out the best recorded music I had, because it deserves it. Aretha Franklin’s vocal on ‘Respect’ [I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You; 44.1kHz/16-bit FLAC] sounded as uplifting as ever, but the thin nature of the recording (I know, I’m a philistine) came to the fore.

I’ll end on that bass. Perhaps it’s a case of recency bias, but with suitable tracks I don’t think I’ve ever heard my B&Ws so competent, so fluid and so musical in the low range, outside of Pass Labs’ more expensive INT-25 [HFN Dec ’20], another Class A amp, but solid-state. It turned the unfussy three-note bass line of Chris Rea’s ‘Daytona’ [The Road To Hell; Tidal Master] into something to luxuriate in, while at the other end of the audio band, the delicate percussion rang through with spine-tingling clarity.

Switching gears to the Mountain Goat’s Jordan Lake Sessions, the acoustic and vocal heavy music really showed off the mid-range strength of the Rockwell. To be clear the Rockwell is not a one trick amp, it sounds awesome with dance, jazz, rock, classic rock, electronic, and modern pop. But, there is something special about its presentation with acoustic and vocal heavy music. This is not a surprise, DHTs are known for this, the thing that is incredible though is that Weber has created a DHT that performs universally well. Coming back to the Mountain Goat’s, when listening to “This Year” you can hear the emotional toll that this past year has taken on the band. The Rockwell provides this tight emotional coupling that once heard, is hard to forget.

And it wasn’t just Lucille that benefited from the Nextgen II treatment. So did King’s smooth, vaguely Nat Cole-like tenor, which makes such a sweet contrast with his epigrammatic style of guitar playing. (As Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker put it in a 2015 piece honoring the great bluesman’s passing, as an instrumentalist B. B. King was “not at all showily virtuosic…but no one made a guitar talk as he did, as an…instrument of human expression more than of the adolescent finger-mania [of all those young British whiz kids].”) The Nextgen II not only brought Lucille and King back to life, it also had a similar effect on the sound of his marvelous rhythmsection, which, though reduced in size, impact, and presence (due to gain-riding), I could almost see again, playing and twirling in unison from stage left to right.