General Asylum: REVIEW: Musical Fidelity A300 Integrated Amplifier (SS) by bullethead

I had a recommendation from someone here to check out the Musical Fidelity A300 after I inquired about a Bryston 4B-ST to power my Polk Audio RT16's which were definitely not getting the proper attention from my previous amp. So I bought the MF A300 and have been extremely happy with it. I don't have the most expensive system (it costs a little over $3000) my speakers are $1000, my amp is $1500, my cdplayer is $300 and my interconnects and speaker cable cost about $200. I have to say though I am really happy with the current system.

The sound from the JVC cd player the polk RT16 and the Musical Fidelity A300 is really spacious and airy like. I used the auxillary input for the cd player because I felt the warm sound that the cd input stage produces was not to my liking. I listen to a lot of ambient/ dark ambient music and that type of music uses wind and recordings from within underground caves and the music has a slow decay (am I using the proper term decay??), what I am trying to say is that the music I listen to fades from high volume to really low volume and it seems to decay and fade away, alot. The amp really gives out great power. I haven't turned the volume control past the half-way point because it gets really loud and I am more comfortable listening to music at a low volume. Plus the windows of the room where I have the system shake and rattle distorting the music presentation when I play it loud. That's dark ambient/ ambient music on the MF A300.

Rock music like Primus, or Rage Against the Machine is great and very clear and detailed. Primus for instance uses the bass guitar as the main instrument, the bass guitar sound is great, it is just "there" it doesn't seem to be in the background, it seems to be the dominant instrument (with Primus's music)and it shakes my flesh and my windows when played loud. Rage Against The Machine rock as well as do most of the heavy metal, death metal, black metal recordings. Techno is good as well, Aphex Twin is in your face, as with most of the club music I play from time to time. The bass is there, it's not distorted or muffled, everything just has this clean sound to it. The instruments can be listened to as they are, seperate instruments, the amp doesn't cluster sounds together they are seperated and all detailed. I can pick out where the instruments are within the soundstage.

The weakness of this amp is the huge binding posts for the speakers. I had to use bananna connectors, I couldn't find a spade large enough anywhere. This didn't really matter because my speakers accept bananna connectors so I didn't need an adaptor or anything. I think bare wire would work well here as well.

I am really happy with my system all that it really needs now is a DVD-A/SACD player and some good interconnects to go with that and I will be set. I am very satisfied at the moment with the music reproduction and I get into the music which is what matters.

REVIEW: Musical Fidelity A300 Integrated Amplifier (SS) Review by bullethead at Audio Asylum