Musical Fidelity's M3si ampflifier is an improvement on the popular M3i amplifier. It features low distortion and a 24 bit 96 kHz asynchronous USB input, a phono, a CD and a tuner input with 2 aux inputs.
From Musical Fidelity
The M3i integrated amplifier has been available for 5 years. It has done well in the market, offering great sound and value for money.
During those five years, the market has evolved; phono is resurgent and computer based music files have become much more popular. Also Musical Fidelity has been refining its circuit design and SMD PCB layout techniques.
The scene was set for a revolution of the original M3i design concept.
M3si general description
Although the M3i sold well, we always had greater ambitions for it. The decision to launch the M6si gave us the opportunity to really 'do the business' and launch the M3si. Although its internal layout is conceptually quite different to the M6si it was developed at the same time and has a lot of design commonality. In other words, it's very good.
The M3si uses Musical Fidelity's exclusive SMD layout techniques. This reduced the circuit's footprint on the large PCB and gave us greatly increased flexibility with the layout and the ability to add more inputs and, importantly, power amp power supply capacitance. Now there is a pair of big power supply capacitors for each channel. Power has increased to 90 wpc. This is a significant advance.
M3si inputs
The new M3si has the following inputs.
• Phono MM
• USB 24bit 96 kHz asynchronous
• CD
• TUNER
• 2 x Aux (1 with HT BYPASS)
Also:
PRE OUT
LINE OUT
TRIGGER IN/OUT
Performance
The new M3si now delivers a healthy 90 wpc. Distortion at 1 kHz is very low at 0.007%. Even at 10 kHz it is hovering around 0.01%. Most hi-fi amplifiers have a huge increase of distortion with rising frequency. To us this shows that the whole circuit design/layout concept is not good enough. The M3si's very low HF distortion proves that the layout circuit and circuit design are operating in perfect harmony so that there is low distortion at HF. We believe this validates the performance and integrity of the whole design.
Signal noise ratio has been improved by more than 3dB. This is a significant step which allows more music to be heard with a greater dynamic range.
Channel separation is excellent.
The MM phono stage is high performance. It has very accurate RIAA equalisation, within ± 0.5dB from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. The accuracy is maintained out to 50 kHz. Noise ratio is an outstanding 88dB down. Distortion is less than 0.3%. The M3si's phono stage offers potential of great MM performance.
The 24 bit 96 kHz asynchronous USB input uses exactly the same circuitry and technology as our highly regarded V-Links and other top quality computer interfaces. Jitter is virtually eliminated. Noise is incredibly low and distortion virtually non-existent. The M3si's USB input is capable of dredging the finest details from the computer source.
Sound quality
The M3si offers a real taste high-end sound quality. Because its power has increased significantly and it now has more than double the capacitance, it gives wide, stable and deep stereo images with a substantial dynamic range. More than that, the M3si offers a sweet musical sound with an effortless, clear, ungrainy quality. Because of the virtual mono power amp configuration with increased capacitance, the bottom end is delivered with punch and excellent speed of attack.
The M3si offers high quality sound with an extensive range of useful inputs in a compact package with reliability and a fair price.
Pricing
During the M3i's lifetime costs rose considerably. Everything from copper, freight, labour and endless component price rises. Despite these we didn't increase our prices and just absorbed them by continually lowering our profits. The new M3si surpasses the old model in every area and has extra facilities.
UK Retail price £1099.
For more information please contact Antony Michaelson Musical Fidelity on 020 8900 2866.
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