Power, finesse, outstanding build quality, exceptional value for money.

Remote feels a bit cheap, use of gold is a little OTT

A truely outstanding product. I'd owned a Primare 30.1 for some time and was looking to upgrade and the M3 was suggested to me by my dealer, what a fantastic recomendation!

It really does have it all, tremendous resolution without any harshness, a delecate touch with subtle details and huge reserves of power when needed. It drives my Sonus Faber Extreamas very effectivly, without ever showing any signs of strain.

Compared to the M3 I found the Meridian amps to be rather soft and 'wooley' sounding, while the Krell and Mark Levinson seemed to want to take the sound to pieces rather than just letting the music flow. I wanted an amp that could reveal all the good things my collection has to offer without rendering any less than perfect recordings unlistenable, the M3 does it perfectly.

Overall then, an exceptional piece of equipment, one which is very much 'fit and forget', it just gets on with it's job and lets you enjoy the music and stop worrying about the 'Hi-Fi'

System is:
Musical Fidelity 3D cd
Musical Fidelity M3 amp
Sonus Faber Extreama speakers
Kimbre Select 5021 interconnect
Kimbre Bi-Focal XL speaker cable
Townshend Seismic Sink stand and platform
Moth Pure Power mains conditioner

Similar Products Used:

Primare, Meridian 557 & 558, Krell KAV300i, Mark Levinson 383

Power, breath, stamina, detail, soundstaging

Useless speaker terminals, way too big. Remote contol is absolutely the laughing stock of the remote controller's world.

In one word, breathtaking. Although the A3 and A300 already lifted the tip of the veil, the M3 completely blew my prior reference frame to smithereens. 100% clarity, presence, detail, transparency.

Delicacy, performance and control in one box. Already the A300 immediately and very cruelly showed the colouring of my B&W 603 S2's. The wider and more elaborate one's musical tastes are, the more it becomes important to find combinations that deliver uncoloured, natural, balanced reproduction. Although excelling in highs and lows, the mids and therefore the transparency and sound staging of the B&W’s just did not convince, and for the first time in my life I actually started suffering from listening fatigue.

When the B&W's were replaced by KEF RDM3's, the situation inverted 180 degrees. The KEF's showed the A300 lack of breath and control in very complex music parts. Mind you, this is very relative. By all means, the A300 is a very accomplished, powerful and musical amplifier, and offers one of the best values for money I ever encountered. The M3, however, went ahead where the A300 stopped, and even went way past. The M3's looks, the M3’s hybrid character in the reproduction of a musical image that can be characterised as being somewhere in the middle between valve (tube) amplifiers and regular amplifiers, combined with the fact that there will only be 500 built, just made it an irresistible buy, worth every single penny.

Similar Products Used:

Musical Fidelity A3, A300, Duson pre/power

If you're thinking about upgrading your system, you've got to listen to the new MF M3. Check out the reviews, or better yet, take a listen for yourself.

This amp is truly exceptional. Power, detail, soundstage..you name it, this is as good as it gets.

System
MF M3
MF A3 CD and Tuner
Red Dawn II Cables and Interconnects
Jamo Concert 11 Loudspeakers

I have got the M3 for a week. After 100 hrs burn-in, my impression of this amp is good but not outstanding. But when I replaced the two pairs of internal interconnect cables with consume-made Tara-Lab RSC 8N (cost only about US$100 in total), the sound stage that it give is much more musical and clear. If you are using good interconnect cable from CD player to M3, I really recommend M3 users to replace the internal cables. I will rate M3 4 stars with original cables, but 5 stars with replaced cables.

Excellent neutral amplifier. Solid build. Has good phono stage included.

Weaknesses are minor, none that stand out in my system.

Auditioned this speaker against Rotel, and Ar 100.2 with Ar pre amp. The M3 is definitely in a class above Rotel, and bettered the Audio Research in most areas including musicality. Voices especially good. Percussion instruments noticeably better than the others. Something I can not explain, is that cd playback impproved considerably. Several recordings where I had both vinyl and cd, the vinyl always bettered the cd by far. On many of these recordings, the M3 seemed to bring out the best of cd playback to where the differences are much less. Is it the wide bandwith??

If I had had $15,000 to spend, I would have looked at an all tube amplification such as Wolcott & Hovland. However, for $4,500 including a good phono stage for backup, I don't think I could have done much better.

I have the Sony 777 super audio cd player, and the build on it is superb. The build on the M3 is comparable, if not even better.

The phono stage is good....you would probably have to spend almost $1,000 to better it. With an integrated of course, you are spared the expense of interconnects.

Compared to other SS integrated amps in this price range, I rate the M3 a definite 5 for value & overall.

Similar Products Used:

Rotel (several models), Audio Research 100.2

Sounds like music; effortless dynamics; instrumental textures shine out; an all-rounder.

Less slam than 600w monoblocs would deliver, I suppose. In the real world, nothing serious.

This review may be a little late - according to my dealer the last M3, in the UK at least, has now been sold.

This is a superb amplifier. I did not audition it against cost-no-object designs, but it far outshone the competition in its own price bracket.

The M3 takes some time to run in, but once it is 'on song' there is little to criticise, to my ears. Across all types of music, it gets close to the event. It has great bass control and articulation, creates a very solid soundstage, reproduces transients like they ought to be (i.e. transient), and sounds open and clear right through the midrange and treble. Michael Fremer's Stereophile review noted a "bubble of smoothness" in the upper mid. Personally I haven't found this to the case - in my experience, with gritty recordings the M3 gives you grit. Maybe cables are relevant to this question.

In summary, I don't intend to buy another amplifier (at least until the world Nuvistor supply runs out...).

Partnering equipment:
Nu-Vista 3D CD Player
Duevel Bella Luna speakers
PHY cables and interconnects

Similar Products Used:

Various from McIntosh, Naim, Pass Labs etc

soundstage, air, realistic imaging, sweeeeeet highs

you got me (ok, the remote's chincy but who cares)

This is an amazing amp. It didn't just tweak my system to a higher level; it gave me a new sound world, and made me love it. I compared it to the Magnum Dynalab 208 receiver through Triangle Titus w/sub, and then with MF A3CR/Rogue 99 with M&K satellite/sub (c. 1986). It had a radical and similar effect on those two set-ups. Huge soundstages, but the sound images within were unrealistically large and often overlapped, reducing their impact. They were like photographs blown up to grainy resolution, while the M3 kept them realistically sized and absolutely SATURATED with sound, while keeping all that air and huge soundstage. And the highs...I listened to Yo-Yo-Ma's recording of Barber's cello concerto, 1st movement where Ma first enters and the cello soars some high notes. The other amps (Magnum Dynalab 208 & A3CR/Rogue 99) were quite nice, but Ma's high notes lacked ultimate resolution except through the M3, where the sound cohered exquisitely long after the other two amps had called it a day.

This is one of those components that has changed my conception of what good sound is (yes, you can read that either way...). I say it's absolutely worth hunting down on the used market. It's that good.

BTW, anyone who doesn't run out and buy a pair of these Triangle Titus $500 gems is an idiot!

Similar Products Used:

MF A3CR Amp/Rogue 99 Magnum Dynalab 208

so impressed I bought two of them (see below)

none

Following my review below I decided to buy a second one (both $3100 demos). That gave me the chance to test a second one and also to correct a major lack of proofreading in my posting immediately below. The 1st paragraph, 5th sentence of the Review Summary should read: "Both the A3CR and MD208 threw up huge soundstages, but the sound images within..."

One curious thing I noticed is that the M3 is quite sensitive to speaker grills/covers. I attribute this to its non-forward soundstage (I hesitate to say recessed). Neither the A3Cr nor the MD208 were affected by speaker covers (or, more accurately, the wood which frames the covers), but the M3 soundstage became a bit vertically challenged with covers in place. Just a curious phenomenon I attribute to its somewhat recessed soundstage (there I said it!), which does not imply a lack of 3-dimensionality, which it has in spades. Maybe 15th row back rather than 2nd row.

Highly recommend Tom Meyer (x667) at Audio Advisor. Especially since he bought one too!

Similar Products Used:

lots

Lots of Power, Solid,

Not really Dynamic, lacks of bass-control compared with other amps, speed, air.

Sorry for all the other reviewers, but when I tested this amplifier after seen all the great reviews, I was a little bit disappointed about the sound of it during testing.
On my set, Wadia 23 CD-player, Magnepan 3.5 loudspeakers, several interlinks used, it's not a good match.
The sound was a little bit cold (for this Tube Preamp ??), speed was not really great, basscontrol was not perfect.
Human voices were better (less rough) than on the "Maestro" which I compared directly during of this amp.
It's very neutral amplifier, no surprises at this point.
The phonestage is very good (good sound, very little noise).
But compared with the "Maestro", the match of the amp with the Magnepans is not perfect.
As well known, the Maggies needs a lot of power, and are not aggressive, and easy to control (minimum 3.5 and maximum about 4.5 ohms, average 4 ohms).
The "Maestro" is better at most points, except the little bit roughness with for example Rebecca Pigeon. I"m testing several interlinks and speakercables, room-acoustics to improve this. During testing I also invited a friend of mine, to check the results, and his conclusion was the same.
The M3 looks solid and nice, and I'm sure it will give much satisfaction to the other 500 customers worldwide, but this is not the amp I'm after.
So really check out other amps, and compare them A to B to notice the difference
between them.

Similar Products Used:

Audio Analoque "Maestro", Conrad Johnson Tube amplifier, Krell 300i (intergrated amp), Musical Fidelity A2 etc.

Sound Quality, Power, Looks,

Size

I was in the market for a high end system. The system I had was the X-ray CD with MF amplification and B&W 604 s2 speakers with Ecosse cabling. I had intended to start with changing the CD for possibly a Marantz CD7 or a Mark Levinson 39. Then I would change the amplifier and then the speakers. Unfortunately I had missed out on listening to the original NuVista pre and power originally. I then got word that MF were launching a super integrated amplifier based on the NuVista triodes so I decided to wait and listen to it rather than spend my money on the CD as I was also told that the amp would be a limited run again. I have to say that decision turned out to be a very smart move.
I have owned this amp for one month now and it is the best amplifier I have ever heard. I have listened to the new ML 383 which does not sound as good as the M3 and is twice the price. I have also listened to Krell. It has 250 wpc and can is reported to be able to drive any load. I highly recommend this amplifier and would urge anyone who is thinking of buying it to move quickly as there is a maximum run of 500 units. This is one of the best sounding amplifiers in the world
The looks may not be everyones taste as it looks very flash in silver and gold. It also will not fit into a standard rack as it is wider than normal amplifiers.
MF plan to bring out a CD / SACD player based on the NuVista later in the year so I will wait until that is out before deciding on my next CD player purchase. In the meantime I am going to purchase a set of Nautilus 802's.

Similar Products Used:

MF XP100 & 2x X-AS100 biamped.