A new era as Musical Fidelity changes hands
At the recent High End show in Munich it was announced that one of our long-standing favourite brands has been sold. Antony Michaelson, the founder of Musical Fidelity, has (semi) retired, and the company has been purchased by Audio Tuning, the owners of turntable manufacturer Pro-Ject Audio Systems. While the announcement caught us by surprise, it was obviously a deal that has been in the works for some time. The new owners have already announced some major changes including the introduction of a new lower priced M2 Series amplifier and CD player (November release), and the re-release of some of their recently discontinued models, including the M8 Series. We will see the re-introduction of these models during the coming months.
Audio Tuning have also announced that they will be moving at least part of their manufacturing back to Europe – which will include the new M2 Series (this is becoming an increasingly common event). There will be a software update for the Encore models to be released in a few weeks, and they were showing the new M8 Encore 500 (above) at the show.
We believe that this is going to be a very positive move for Musical Fidelity. Antony Michaelson is staying on in an advisory role, and remains part of the design team. This, coupled with the resources that Audio Tuning has available to them, should result in a broader product range, more consistent supply and even greater reliability.
Musical Fidelity M6 Vinyl
In our last newsletter we made mention of the Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista Vinyl phono stage, a $6,000 five-input device utilising the nuvista sub miniature valve. Musical Fidelity have since released the M6 Vinyl, a solid-state three-input unit selling for $2,699. Each input can be set for either moving magnet or moving coil exact loading. Both impedance on MC and capacitance on MM can be adjusted while playing, allowing you to wed the unit to your cartridge in real-time. In some ways the construction of this unit may appear to be overkill (utilising, for example, seven power supplies). However the results speak for themselves. Distortion is less than 0.008% and the signal-to-noise an impressive -96dB on MM. It features balanced XLR outputs, along with RCA.