Smooth without loss of detail. Powerful

Haven't seen any yet.

I upgraded from an Aragon 8008ST, and I had extremely high expectations as to what the improvement would be. The C-J met or exceeded all my expectations. In every area it is an improvement over the Aragon....imaging, base, midrange (huge difference), etc. This is a fantastic amp. It sounds great and will play as loud as I can stand without any degradation in sound quality. Music from chamber to orchestral to rock is handled equally well with an astonishingly open and detailed sound that never gets in your face (excepting certain really awful sounding CD's).

Went to the store to listen to the sunfire. When I listened to it I found it it to be a hunk of junk. I felt I had to say that because of all the hype about that amp. I know this one is a later model. Anyway, I listen to another amp that sounded a little better, but when I heard this one it absolutely blew me away. I thought the dealer was going to come back and tell me it was $7000 dollars for sure. When he told me the actual price I was in awe. How could an amplifier that sounds this good cost so little. I know the sunfire and the other amplifier, an aragon were both around $2000 dollars and this one is a nother $1000 dollars (I got it for right around $3000). But I have also auditioned mark levinson aplifiers costing twice as much +. I was set at one point on buying the mark levenson but why when this sounds so good at @1/2 the price?????!!!! I was buying this amp to drive my 802n speakers which I just got and I must admit are just about perfect sounding with this amplifier. I don't know if the amplifier would sound as good on other speakers that have similar cost or not. The sound is "tube sounding" and the bass is natural and just enough. The other three amp did not have as musical sounding base. In fact the mark levenson (far better than the two formentioned has tighter base but doesn't sound as good to me, it almost sounds too tight, in fact the whole mark levenson sound (it was to 335) was "too tight" and what a lot of people say a bit steril. The highs are very smooth and the midrange is perfect imo. This amp just sounds more like live music than all three of these amps, and it defiently sounds better than the aragon and the sunfire put together, honest. Some may prefer mark levenson but I believe this amp is truly a steal for $3500.

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I recently shopped for a new amp & preamp. I bought this one. The preamp is the Conrad Johnson PV12, a tube preamp. The combination has a very smooth presentation of the music. It's also very quiet - no hiss, no noise when the music's not there. You can listen for hours - no fatigue. Be warned though, because the music is smooth & clean, you will have a tendency to crank it. I'm playing it through Klipsch Chorus II speakers with a Sony cd player. Build quality is first class. A product you will own for a decade.

Because the amp is a bit pricey (for me), I give it 4 stars on value, but if you have the money, you won't regret it .. so 5 stars overall.

Similar Products Used:

Carver, CJ Premier 11, VTL, NAD

As close to tubes as solid state gets, incredibly musical and coherent presentation, excellent detail retrieval, powerful and tight bass. Will drive difficult loads with no sweat, never runs hot.

Break-in period (about 150 hours)

Seems like after a long search I finally found the perfect amp. MF-2500 is CJ's new high current solid state amp offering an excellent value for money. It drives to perfection my Platinum Audio Reference 1 speakers which with their 84dB sensitivity require a lot of juice and humbled many an amp. CJ and the Platinums are a match made in heaven! MF-2500 is the only amp I tried (and boy did I try many...)that reminds me about the sound of single-ended triode and at the same time offers the best of solid state; deep and very well controlled bass and excellent macrodynamics. The overall presentation is well balanced with wonderfully liquid and rich midrange (female vocals are simply heavenly), delicate and well resolved top-end which always is smooth and free of any glare so often found in solid state amps. As close to tubes as it gets! At the same time the bass can shake your room with really deep notes that never get out of control. In this respect it is way better than the older MF-2300A. I had a chance to audition the two side by side and the bottom end in the older model did not have the extension and slam of the MF-2500 and tended to sound rather mushy. Also, it definately wasn't as liquid and three-dementional as its younger brother. Overall, it was no contest - the MF-2500 was a clear winner.
Another area where it beats the competition is its ability to create a huge and open soundstage similarly to Conrad Johnson's tube designs.
This amp is a winner!

Similar Products Used:

BAT VK500, Sim Audio Moon W5, Audio Research VT100 MkII and many more...

I have owned the MF 2500 for a year now. Every day the amp plays music for meand my family. I have owned several amps but never got satisfied until now.
The MF 2500 will be in my system for a long time. Money currently used on
upgrading are now used on cd´s.