I purchased my A5 a sevenoaks hifi outlet. They were very helpful and most of their stores have a listening room. I had the advantage of trying the A5 with all sorts of combinations of speaker and I also tried other amps in the price range. The A5 comes in a ultra sleek casing which at first glance will maybe give you a little uncertainty as to how to place it. Whist the casing is futuristic in style it could also be coined as retro. Whatever way you view it the sturdy aluminium looking case will appeal to all but the most difficult to impress type. Now for the good bit. To put the picture in context I was upgrading from a amp in the £400 range so maybe it wouldnt of taken to much to impress me? Right? Wrong!! As a proffesional musician I have been used to hearing live music and hopefully have a reasonable ear. I had brought along 3 records to try with the amp and had the amp hooked up to a project turtable. The first was beethoven. As i setteled back in on the sofa with control in hand I was amazed at the sheer clarity the amplifier was giving to the music. I turned the amp up a little higher and was amazed at how the sound did not clip or distort but only became more rich the louder the music became. So far so good. Next for a track from AC/DC (downpayment blues) Now the amp seemed to perform in a new way. The subltle sounds of the Beethoven were replaced by a controlled yet driving bass line and a hot vocal range. The amp was obviously well capable of crossing that great divide between the two types of music ie Rock and Classical. I did not try the next album I wanted to pay for the amp. That was how quickly the sound grabbed me. It all so true folks.
Now for those of you that dont know..Musical Fidelity is a English firm who take pride on making their products excellent value for money. Their amps are certainly top end items but the price tag is ultimately far easier to swallow than some of the products out their. This amp has received some fab reviews from the pros and I am sure will continue to do so.
I run the amp through some Mordaunt Short Advant 908 floorstanders and the sound is fantastic. I use a old Dual CS 5000 turntable.
For those of you interested in price then let me tell you the amp is not cheap but comes at a price more than worth paying. The Musical Fidelity ethos has always been something along the lines of , "Why pay through the nose when we can create something outstanding for less than other high end products." So in short the amp will currently cost around the £1499 mark. But I have reasonable faith that this type of sound will not be able to be purchased elsewhere for maybe many times that amount.
The amp has it all in abundance. If you want power then you have 250watts per channel to play with. I personally cannot dare to take the amp higher than the twelve o clock mark for fear of waking the dead! Donot expect tone/ bass/ treble buttons on this baby it has none. Its all in the box. The amp does that for you. Dont believe me? Then why not give one a audition yourself. Go on I dare you!
A amp really really worth a listen.
Rommer
O yeah the amp is phono ready and has ports for SCD/ CD/ TUNER/ etc
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