THE NEW A5 SERIES EVERYTHING THAT AUDIO SHOULD BE. The new AS Series comprises the AS CD player, a 24- bit up-sampling hybrid; the AS five-channel SACD player (May 2005); the AS 250 watts per channel integrated amplifier, the AS" preamplifier and th nplifier (March 2005). power ai The series was designed to offer true state-of-the-art sound, exquisite visuals, beautiful build quality and stunning value for money. In other words, we have designed it to embody everything that we think audio should be - qualities that have made Musical Fidelity the thinking man’s hi-fi.” Tue Musica FIDELITY PHILOS ihe Our philosophy is simple: we want our products to offer true, state-of-the-art high end sound quali excellent aesthetics and excellent build quality, all at extremely competitive prices. We achieve this, in product after product, because of a number of things wwe have leamed over the years about eircuit design, industrial design and manufacturing techniques, and because of the way we determine our retail prices. HE Musica Apa Oe EOS Toman? Tas At its simplest, an amplifier or CD player is circuitry and layout put into a box. But what is circuitry? It is an arrangement of resistors and capacitors and other components, on a printed circuit board, in a chassis. The components that make up a circuit (resistors, capacitors, transistors, etc.) are all relatively low cos The sound and technical performance of an amplifier are absolutely determined by circuitry and its layout Ail amplifiers tually the same: input stage, driver stage, output stage and power supply. All amplifiers have these elements, regardless of power rating or price, This fundamental insight is our starting point for design. Because amplifiers are fundamentally the same (except for power rating), we are able to take the circuit designs and concepts of our most expensive and, exotic pieces, and reproduce them at seemingly impossibly low prices. Let's take some examples. Our kW monster amps were he best ever ctailed for about amplifier combination. T amount of money, but in high end terms, the kWs were viewed as extremely cheap. The high-end is like a nsidered cheap ‘opsy-turvy land, whereand pre/power combinations that cost four or five times more don’t offer even faintly comparable performance. Our point is that the circuit concepts, layouts and general topology of the kW ‘monsters are used extensively in all our designs, especially in the A3s. The AS’s sonic and technical characteristics are similar to the kW monsters® - but with less power. ‘The AS integrated, A5% preamp and AS power amp are closely related to the kW monsters. We do our utmost to give maximum performance for the money. Our expensive products exist only so that ‘we can push the outside of the performance envelope - and then incorporate what we leam into our more mod- estly priced products, so that they will offer extraordi- nary performance, On the CD player front, the background is just as interesting. Musical Fidelity has made a stream of extraordinary digital products. The original X-Ray CD player is legendary, the Nu-Vista 3D CD player is stil regarded as one of the best ever made, and we topped that with the Tri-Vista CD player. Our DACS have been equally warmly received. Our X-24K was a benchmark. The A3“and Tri-Vista 21 DAC got amazing reviews. The X-DAC” has received raves. So the AS CD and the five-channel SACD (planned for May 2005) have a proud heritage. The AS CD is easily the best CD player we have ever made. It embodies and improves upon the best design ideas pioneered in our ground-breaking products - at a much lower price. ‘The AS CD offers far better performance than the Nu- Vista 3D, but costs half of what the Nu-Vista cost four years ago. Now, that is what we call progress. To sum up: amplifiers and CD players are made up of components that are relatively cheap. The way you organise the components and lay them out determines the sound quality and technical performance of a product. As all amplifiers have roughly the same component costs, there is no valid reason (apart from power rating) for one product to cost dramatically more than another. Tn nse Neen CMU ELEN CCRC Tn We believe that the casework of an amplifier o CD player should be pleasing to look at, beautifully constructed and well finished. The ‘industrial chic’ of the ASs is our latest example of this. Look carefully at the AS front panels, handles and heatsinks, and you will notice their exquisite proportions and detailing. Compare it with any of its competitiors costing many times as much, and you will see that the AS looks better, is better made and is better finished. We achieve this by careful production design and tooling, To accomplish this, we invest lange amounts of money in production tooling and we manufacture pieces in large quantities, because we have found that this gives us a higher level of finish and and more consistent quality than other methods of manufacture ‘The usual high-end approach is to machine the detailing, Machining costs seven to ten times as much as production tooling, We see no advantage to paying seven to ten times the price for what amounts to exactly the same part. Our metal parts are tooled and extruded and theirs are machined out of solid. Tooled or machined, the parts function just the same But tooling offers amazing value for money. Every aspect of the external design of our products is tweaked like this, until it can be manufactured at the highest quality and the lowest piece part cost. ‘These are not things that audio manufacturers usually talk about, But they are part of the reason that our products offer such amazing value for money [rm TSB nY COO RVALZO ee Musical Fidelity believes in value for money. We also believe in making a bit of money and having a good time. Our commercial policy is dictated by these ideas. A Lot of products that claim to offer high-end performance come at extremely high prices. This is because pretty well all high end companies charge on a basis of ‘how much can T get for it?” This is not how we do it, We work out what our profit margin needs to be to sustain our factory overheads, R& D and make a little on top for ourselves. We put roughly the same profit margin onto everything we make, regardless of what the competition would charge. The results of our policy are plain to see. At any given price point, our products will offer better technical and sonic performance, be better looking and better fin- ished than their competition. Our customers benefit from our obesession with offering stunning perform- ance for a fair price. All of us at Musical Fidelity live in the real world, and are acutely aware of everyday financial pressures, We understand that hiei is a luxury and think that it should really offer something special to be worthy of the financial sacrifice that the music lover has to make to buy one.rT Inside the extraordinary AS CD player is the very latest, up-to-the-minute DAC, upsampling and filter technology, «giving it technical performance that is pretty well the best there is, egardless of price. Linearity is maintained at better than 0.14B right down to -974B. Noise ratio outstanding. The jitter is very low at better than 135 pps. Actually, when you measure the test equipment for its own jitter, you come up with a similar figure. This implies that there is virtually no jitter on the AS CD. ‘The AS upsamples to 24-bits at 192k. This genuine ‘upsampling gives huge improvements in performance, noise ratio, linearity and, ultimately, musical accuracy. ‘The hybrid output stage uses the extraordinary 6112 Tee CPSU een ely AS ge vgn oe AS Nass ‘mu-Vista mil-spec, mil-usage tube. The mu-Vista is exceptionally non-microphonic. Most tubes enrich the sound by their microphony, picking up sound and adding it to the signal. This is not the case with a mu Vista tube. The AS's hybrid output stage has excellent neutrality and linearity. More importantly, it has a low output impedance and can easily drive any combination of amplifier or cable The AS CD is a limited edition of 1,500 pieces and, given its exceptional performance, they will probably be sold out within nine months. If you want the best CD player that Musical Fidelity has ever made, and probably the best in the world, then the AS CD is for you. The AS integrated amplifier is closely related to the KW 500. Many of the circuit concepts on the AS are inherited straight from the kW S00. At 250 wats per channel (24 dBW), the AS isa litle under half the power of the KW 500, about 34B less power capacity ‘The kW 500 has been acknowledged as about the best amplifier in the world. The AS is quite as good. It has a slightly lighter, faster sound which will be prefered by some people. The AS integrated will drive just about any speaker available and will give far more dynamic range than almost anything else. Most high end amplifiers are in Ee 8 8 8 D AMPLIFIE the 100 to 150 watt (20-22 dBW) region and, as a result, most high end amplifies will be roughly 36B less powerful than the AS integrated. The AS integrated also has a home theatre direct input, which allows the AS-based stereo system to become part of a multi-channel home theatre system. When the AS integrated is used with the AS CD player the results are exemplary, far exceeding typical high end offerings costing five or ten times more. The AS CD offers exquisite aesthetics, fabulous build quality, beautiful sound, excellent reliability and a fair price. menaEn TUONO TOROS ‘This beautiful preamp has excellent technical and sonic performance. On the technical side, distortion is very low over a wide bandwidth and the noise ratios are ‘exemplary. The line stage has high input impedance which makes life easy for whatever is plugged in. The ‘output impedance is very low, so that it will easily drive any combination of amplifier and cabling. The AS“ preamp has very high output voltage capacity and incredible overload margins. Allin all, the AS preamp ceasily outperforms high end competitors that are priced at five to ten times more, The AS preamp’s power supply configuration is fully choke regulated so that it has outstanding immunity from mains borne interference. This fitted with a high quality phono MM/MC stage, with accurate RIAA, excellent noise ratio and great overload margin. ‘The AS preamp also has a home theatre direct input, which allows an AS* pre-power-based stereo system to become part of a multi-channel home theatre system. ‘The AS“ preamp is outstanding value for money. See UO SOL ‘The AS* power amp offers state-of-the-art performance in a beautiful, compact package with excellent build quality, high reliability and a fair price. The AS power amp is 250 watts (24 dBW) per channel, but has more than double the peak current of the AS integrated, The choke regulation system in the power supply ensures thet power supply ripple artefacts and mains borne interference are virtually eliminated, With its wonderful combination of sonic delicacy and serious muscle, the AS power amp will drive any speaker with ease. Its stability margins and peak a ee INPUT A Nput 8 MUSICALADEDTY SICAL ADEMTY current (over 100 amps) are more than enough to cope with anything that can be thrown at i With two alternative, switchable inputs, the AS can easily be incorporated in separate multi-channel or stereo systems. It also has line-in/line-out, soit can easily be used in passive bi-amping setups. ‘The final piece in the AS Series, the AS five-channel SACD / CD player, will be available from June 2005, Like the other pieves in the series, it will offer excellent performance and sound at a great price.Aiba UA See De ee ee For Musical Fidelity, one of the markers of genuine hi-fi is a decent dynamic range. To produce a decent dynamic range, the system needs to be able to produce peaks of at least 100dB in your listening position, and comfortable peaks of 105dB to 1104B are better. However, 1004B is the bare minimum requirement, and any system that produces less than this does not deserve the name of hi-fi It takes an amplifier with a metre. However, as you move away from the loud- speaker, you lose about SdB for each metre over one ‘metre. You'll see in a minute why you need to know this, Amplifiers are usually specified by their power rating in watts To use these two pieces of information, you need one more number - the amplifier’s power in dBW. This is a lot of power to produce peaks of 1004B or measure of how much sound (4B) is AMPLIFIER AMPLIFIER ae ee aa more. powet warts power im ppw_ | Produced fora certain amount of po (W). As you will notice on the table, the Many amplifier manufacturers produce 10 10 eee anon i 20 B amount of power needed for each increase units with low power and call them ‘high- 7 : 50 0 is not linear - each inerease in dBW end.” Low-power amplifiers will produce ° ; 6B 18 requires a steep increase in power. A low- a surprising continuous level, but unless 79 19 powered amp will never be anything other they are coupled with extremely efficient ede Ge eas ee 100 20 than a low-powered amp: we are dealing DUCED SRNETS, NDE. canunol pose ya 126 2 here with the laws of physics. a decent dynamic range. No matter what a ise a manufacturer says, or how much it costs, a 200 23 However, armed with this information, you low-power amplifier is not genuine hi-fi. 251 2a are now in a position to find out whether ; 316 25 or not your system is capable of peaks of Unless you understand the relationship ann oe anes between amplifier power and peak | sory rue a5 nvreoRTED AMPLIFIER AND listening level, which most audiophiles do | 45% rower awrumi rropuce 24 0BW. | To find out what a system can do, take the not, you are likely to be sold something loudspeaker's efficiency, add on the that costs you a lot but is not really a proper hi-fi system. One reason that few audiophiles understand the relationship between amplifier power and peak listening level is that loudspeakers and amplifiers are specified differently and there is no obvious way to use the information to find out what kind of peak levels you can expect from a particular system, Most manufacturers are loathe to clear up the confusion, for reasons. that will become clear, Loudspeakers are usually specified by their efficiency; they produce a certain ‘number of dB for 1W at one amplifier power in dBW, and deduct for the listening position, You have now worked out the system’s peak level capability. For example, to work this out for a system with loudspeakers of 874B efficiency and an amplifier, power of 200W and a listening position about three metres from the loudspeaker: 87 +23 - 10= 100 dB peak level capacity, This assumes that the amplifier’s power really doubles into 4 Ohms, a can of worms that we will not open at the moment, and that the amplifier is stable, In this example, the system would be just about reasonable ‘THE AS TOWER OF POWER MUSICAL FIDELITY Musical Fidelity Limited 15-17 Olympic Trading Estate, Fulton Road, Wembley HA9 OTF, Middlesex, England O11 44 (0)208 900 2866 www.musicalfidelity.com nov 2004