Been looking for this amp for a long time. It popped up on CL nearby. Best 500.00 I ever spent on audio gear. My hard to drive Eminent Technology LFT-viii 's love it. Perfect from top to bottom. Was looking for Bryston 4bst but picked this for 1/4 the price. Can't say enough, I am very satisfied.

My 400 replaced an Electrocompaniet A100 and has been used with a Conrad-Johnson PFR solid state and now with a C-J CT 5 tube preamp and pushes Dunlavy SC IVs which are relatively efficient but require substantial current at two places in the audio spectrum.
Read REGreen's review in TAS. It is accurate. This amp is dead neutral, startlingly clear and crisp from top to bottom. Treble is clear, crisp and sweet with bass that is taunt, deep and accurate. In 50 years of building a system and listening to most everything, this is a truly great bargain. My room is 15 x 17 and has the usual carpet and furniture. It runs fairly cool and hasn't given me any trouble in 10+ years. Buy two.

Very powerful, melodic, rapidly adjusts to fast paced music, midrange excellent, contrary to what some have stated.

The Panamax 5510 Pro conditioner in balanced mode really adds to this with its high microfarad capacitors.

None so far.

I noticed that i was missing out on 2 channel uncompressed music off my SACDs DSD to PR-CS885 for one step processing. My Sherbourn 5 channel monoblock constr. amps were doing OK but not great. I sold one and got the Marsh 400.

Revelational audio from my Studio 100 v.2 balanced in from the PR-SC885 processor.

As close to Class A that you will get in solid state. I have had Krell, and Bryston too.

Great buy.

Customer Service

Left message lauding the product, got long personalized response with reassurances to high level of commitment to service.

Similar Products Used:

Sherbourn 5/1500A
Adcom cannot recall
Arcam P1000

Ease of listening
No hard edges

In spite of delivering 200 watts into 8 ohms, it will not deliver huge amounts of current into difficcult loads.

I was an early adopter of this amplifier following a glowing review in The Absolute Sound. The bottom line is that this is a great amp for moderately efficient speakers and reasonably sized room, but it is not a great amp for huge rooms or difficult loads. In the right system the amp sounds great, with a little bit of a tubey forgiveness even. I would not hesitate to buy this amp for moderate loads. Pricing is reasonable.

Customer Service

Excellent response in my experience

Similar Products Used:

Edge NL-12
Parasound JC-1

Smoothness, detail, neutrality and imaging.

It's a little bright and may be a touch reticent in the upper midrange(perfect match for my speakers though)

The Marsh amp is truly a wonderful sounding amp. Very smooth and without grain. More detail than I've ever heard and bass that seems to reach lower than the monster Parasound Hca3500 that it replaced. Vocals are rich, smooth and coherent. This amplifier amazed me with it's overal sound quality. I'd read the magazine reviews and the descriptions of others but usually figure they are off the mark by at least a little bit or exagerating. In this case they positive reviews were very accurate and I'm afraid I'd have to agree. I had no idea a solid state amp could sound like this. It's worth a listen to anyone looking in the price range. Easily outclassing my Parasound from top to bottom.

Similar Products Used:

Various Haflers, Denon, Carver, Parasound.

Nice looks to go along with it's sonic qualities

Contruction is good but not excellent

This is a great sounding solid state amp. You really get everything you expect from solid state: Plenty of power XLR and RCA inputs, excellent bass control, low noise, 2 sets of speaker binding posts, and a IEC. In addition to that is an amp that provides very good imaging, soundstaging, and detail. No harshness-2 D sound with this amp. It also runs fairly cool. If you are looking for a solid state amp in this price range give the Marsh a listen. I wasn't a big fan of their preamp (P2000) but this amp is Real Good.

Similar Products Used:

Pass Labs, CJ, Muse, Krell, Plinius, Monarchy, Coda, Classe, Belles

smooth mids and highs, nice tonal balance, light, articulate, and fast.

reticent low frequency reproduction (subjective as to whether or not this is a "weakness")

nice amp, delicate, sweet, fast

Similar Products Used:

most everything else

Clean natural detailed sound

NONE!

Just to update and offset the 2 negative reviews left by the same person, I have gotten the B&W 802's and the Marsh a400s amp sounds great. The clean pure detailed sound is just fantastic. It still amazes me that they are able to sell this for the price they do, it an awesome value.

Pretty good build quality for the price, at least cosmetically.ê

Paltry 2 year warranty for the price; availability of amps such as the Aragon 8008ST or BB and Bryston at less than the Marsh's price pose some serious contenders (not to mention the Stratos, which in my system sounds more powerful than the Marsh did).

I demoed a Marsh A400 at home for a weekend in my system. In searching for an amp, after reading reviews of many amps, and asking questions online at AudioAsylum, I had a short list narrowed down. The Marsh, although not my top pick, was readily available for demo from a nearby audio store, so I decided since it was in the class of amps I was interested, to go ahead and take a listen, given it's high reviews in Stereophile, etc. This amp did not work at all in my system, and I am still not sure why. The relevant mating components (Counterpoint SA5.1 tube pre and Von Schweikert VR4 Gen II speakers) should have been well matched with this amp, but weren't. The soundstage collapsed to the point that there was a hole in the middle, the sound was thin, bass not good. After plugging the amp directly into the wall, instead of the Monster HTS2000, the soundstage filled in, but things still were not good. My existing Hafler DH220 still sounded at least as good. This was an extreme shock, as I expected the Marsh to handily trounce my old Hafler. At first, I thought it might be an impedance mismatch, with the Counterpoint pre spec'd at 1.2K. The Marsh is spec'd at a 47K input impedence (from memory), so that would seem OK. I never came to a conclusion as to what the problem was. Possible contenders would be a long biwired run of Kimber 4TC/4VS (25') possibly sending it into oscillation. The following weekend, I grabbed my brother's Counterpoint SA220 and listened to it. If sounded great, much better than the Hafler. I wound up buying an Odyssey Stratos, which sounds at least as good as my brother's Counterpoint. I know the Marsh has its fans, and I am sure that it sounds great in many systems... just not in mine! Also, the amp I demoed had plenty of hours on it, so was well broken in, and was operating fine according to the store I demoed it from. Bottom line: I would suggest listening to this amp at home before purchasing it, or at least inseure that you can return it if it doesn't work out in your system.

Similar Products Used:

Hafler DH220, Counterpoint SA220, Odyssey Stratos?

Excellent top to bottom extension, although the absolute bottom *perhaps* could be a bit stronger (this combined with a difficult speaker load). Truly neutral and very transparent. No bloat, rolloff, sibilance, etc.

none really, see above.

This amp has to be one of the best bargains in High End audio. It is one of the clearest and most neutral components in my system. I use it in conjunction with a Spectral DMC 20. I auditioned amps from Aire, Bryston, Aragon, Spectral (dma 90). Only the Marsh combined remarkable clarity and neutrality with the power I need to drive my Nautilus 802''s, although a bit more power might be good for these speakers. But for my room and listening tastes it is more than adequate. The amp is virtually artifact free and I suggest you give one a try. At $2295, it certainly can''t hurt and you may save yourself a fair bit of change to boot.