Clean, clear sound, quality bass, beautiful mids

no remote

I have auditioned a Variety of AMPs before concluding my choice will be the XA1....Beatifully constructed, extremely stiff chasis, perfect workmanship and excellent look and feel, it was love at first sight. Powered up, linked to a Marantz CD6000OSE and Dynaudio Audience 40. I was literally blown away. SUperby clear highs, smooth and tubey midrange , and strong tight bass....What else can I ask for??


GO give it a try, and prepare to be blown away!!!

Similar Products Used:

Jolidia JD1301, Marantz Pm7000, Nad 370, Exposure 20, Aura Va-50, Rotel Ra971, Krell 300i, Cyrus 7

Musicality, tube like midrange, excellent bass, very revealing

need careful cables matching to bring out the best

Got this 2nd hand from a dealer at a very good price. After getting home, I immediately plugged in to do some critical listening...what can I say, the hype about musical fidelity is true!!!! Their stuffs are truly musical. Everything juz sounds right. And one thing I noticed, this AMP is very revealing, it will bring out the slightest details in the music and present it to you. Bass is taut, midrange is excellent!!!

One thing to note, the use a good cables is critical to bring out the best from this fellow. I swapped around a few before settling on a set of VDH to do the job.

Similar Products Used:

Marantz, Nad, Talk electronics, Audiolab, Jolida, Exposure, Naim, Kenwood

After six months of hunting a replacement for my ancient (and decrepit) Quad pre/power combo I was becoming a little disheartened. Sure, I could find plenty of boxes with more boom and tizz. But nothing, it seemed, could match the Quad's midrange clarity and musicality. Well, not without spending in excess of NLG3,000 (about US$1500), and that would be out of my budget (and grossly out of synch with the rest of my system).

I had considered the Musical Fidelity but couldn't easily audition one locally. Until last week, that is. And within half an hour I'd parted with my NLG1,750 (US$875).

Installed at home all is sweetness and light. It sounds exquisite and makes me wonder how I put up with the Quad for so long.

Detail and precision are flawless, but without completely dissecting the music.
The highs are sweet and forward, but very far from overpowering. Best of all, bass extension and control are a revelation after the Quad. Tight and solid, even thorough my little (tiny!) Tannoy M1s. I wouldn't have believed that those speakers were capable of keeping up with an amp that does, after all, cost more than four times as much as they did.

But I think that's the point really, the XA1 complements all the other elements in my system perfectly, without highlighting their weaknesses too much.

It works well with dance music (techno, house, trance etc), as well as classical (though it's mostly baroque and contemporary in my collection, hardly a representative cross-section), not to mention more poppy stuff (here I include everything from 70s folk-rock to indie, punk and non-descript soul).

The little MF looks good too, quirky and different without going down the tacky/shiny or matt-black 80s look favoured by so many companies. And the XA1's build quality is as good as its sound (better than very, very good, if you hadn't worked that out yet).

Coming from Musical Fidelity, I had expected the XA1 to run very hot. However, in reality it's about as cool as a 50w amp could be. Perhaps that's something to do with the whole case being one massive heatsink.

Criticisms? Only one or two tiny niggles.

There's only a single set of binding posts, which are oriented oddly and have little space around them, so bi-wiring is going to be tricky (not an issue with the Tannoys, but maybe relevant to you).

At high volumes it does start to sound a little strident and wearing, though this could be my speakers rather than the amp.

And there's no phono stage (but MF do offer an external mm/mc stage), which is mildly annoying.

Finally, the quality of MF's documentation and packaging is lamentable. The box I can live with, but ten photocopied pages of badly written and designed (not designed at all, actually) manual, put together on an office comb-binding machine is just a pathetic joke.

Like I said though, these are minor niggles. Overall the little MF is a fabulous piece of kit. If you're in the market for a "proper" audiophile amp, and don't have bucketloads of cash to spare the XA1 should be high on your audition list.

warmth and detail
Great looks

no remote

I was wanting to upgrade my old (like 10years old) system to something new that i would be happy with for another long time and tried a few combos of reasonably priced high quality systems. I found the combination of the XA-1, an X10-D ( my HK cd player is looking to be replaced very soon) and the klipsch rf3 speakers and was out the door a very happy man. And i continue to be amazed at the performance of this system, as they continued to burn in over the next month or so. The smooth sound of the XA-1 i feel is just perfect to run the very efficient (but tending toward sharpness) of the klipsches. Whether sitting back enjoying some acoustic sounds or pumping out some dance or rock, the XA-1's sound always appears seemless.
And they look great.
There of course has been a few calls of "what the hell is that in the shelf". It's so nice not too have another bloody black box in the living room.
And it's tempting to look at the other MF stuff with longing. I think that I'll order the x-cans v2 this week.

Similar Products Used:

harmon kardon integrated amp

Grain and glare free sound, very musical

not sure, possibly underpowered

I really, I say really loved this amp (past tense). This was probably the most musical, dynamic, easy to listen to amp I have ever owned. Prior amps inlcude Carver, McIntosh, PS Audio. The McIntosh was easy to listen to, but failed in the detail and dynamics department.

Now the downside, I think. I used this amp to power a pair of Vandersteen 2CE's. These Vandies have a relatively flat impedance curve, but they are very inefficient (82db/1w or 86db/2.83v).

At low to moderate volumes, the XA-1 sounded fantastic, but it lacked the power to give louder volumes without clipping. This somewhat surprised me because my previous amp was a 60w PS Audio Model II, which, although didn't sound as nice, handled higher volumes better.

I'm not sure what else to say, the amp is very open, detailed and easy to listen to, but Musical Fidelity recommends using speakers with a 95db/2.83v, or better rating. This level of efficiency is rather rare, unless you use 4 ohm speakers.

Execellent sound, good build quality and distinctive looks.

None that matter.

I bought a second hand XA-1 about a week ago (the owner having upgraded to bigger amps from the same range) and I have been absolutely thrilled with the performance of it. My previous amplifier was a budget Rotel unit which was highly rated in reviews, but the XA-1 gave a massive leap forward in sound quality, much more than I had ever hoped for from an amplifier at this price. Bass sounded like it had been extended by an octave, dynamics were transformed and the sound-stage was focussed, deep and wide. The amplifier achieves all this while remaining totally coherent and musical at all times, not just a box of "special effects" to show off your system with!
All the positive magazine reviews I have read are totally justified in my opinion. I can only put some of the less than enthusiatic comments on this site down to poor system matching. Trying a component in your own system is, as always, important.
Oh and I love the build quality and looks too!

I purchased this wonderful little integrated about a month ago from Audioadvisor, and am really pleased. First, I like the fact that the power supply is outboard, and therefore will not mess with the sound when driven to high levels, additionally it is ment to be left on all the time which means no warm up periods. The sound is very, very Musical Fidelity, that is to say almost "Valve like" in its presentation of the music, lush, in the all important mids, certainly not the last word in deep base, but controlled, and oh so smooth in the highs, but with all that, not really lacking in detail. It was rated by Hi-Fi Choice magazine as a "Best buy" and has received rave reviews by all the other Brit."Rags." and rightly so. Its rated at 50 watts.@8 ohms, but actually measures out to over 85 watts @ 8 ohms. At $599.00 this is the budget integrated is unbeatable.

Easy to listen to, valve-like sound, warm and lively, just dandy.

Solid build, external power supply and that Classic look.

A Classic, if used as part of a basic high-end - small room system.

I love it!

NONE!

I use it with Rotel RCD 991 CD player, Jamo Concert 8 speakers, Kimber Kable KCAG interconnects, Kimber Kable 8TC speaker cable in a room 4m x 6m.

The sound is warm, soft, but detailed.

A very smooth talker...

Similar Products Used:

NONE!