Hi All,

Last week I had the pleasure of spending some time listening to Musical Fidelity’s new monster integrated amp, the NuVista 800, to be honest I haven’t heard any of the original NuVista products launched back in 1999, but I am constantly reading HiFi Mags and often hear about the ‘much loved MF NuVista products from years back’ so when I was offered the opportunity to have a listen to the new NuVista offering I jumped at the chance.

From what I understand is that NuVista tubes offer many advantages over standard valves like better reliability, more consistant matching, they are smaller and run cooler + offering much better performance, apparently they were developed by RCA in the 50’s for TV’s and the like but around 15 years ago MF started using them in their NuVista HiFi range of components, but their availability was limited as there weren’t too many of the bases left that the valves sit in, so MF ended up with stacks of tubes left but no bases, now MF’s boss Antony Michaelson didn’t give up on the NuVista technology and after years of searching he came across more NuVista bases which he ended buying the whole lot meaning that NuVista is back.

Now the NuVista 800 really is a sight to behold, it is a beautiful piece of engineering, it is definitely a 2 man lift coming in at a back breaking 45kgs and it is certainly no shrinking violet as this is a big amp, its basic design is a hybrid so it uses the NuVista valves for the pre-amp section and uses a solid state dual mono design derived from MF’s Titan amp to create 300 watts per channel power amp section.

But what does it sound like? Well for our listening we used the Magneplanar 1.7’s panels with their additional bass panels, Maggies are notoriously hard to drive but when driven properly they really do sing, and this is what the NuVista 800 achieved, what is great is that the valve pre section just added a hint of warmth which made vocal tracks sound gorgeous but the power amp section really got hold of the Maggies in a way that I have never heard before, I can honestly say that I have tried our Maggie 1.7’s on a lot of amps and I have never heard them sound this good, I can only imagine what the bigger 3.7’s would sound like when driven by the NuVista 800.

It will be priced at £7999 which to be fair is a lot of money for an integrated amp, but the NuVista 800 doesn’t perform like any other integrated, it really is like a Pre/Power combo and with the NuVista Tubes really does offer something quite unique and really does have to be heard to be appreciated, we will hopefully have a NuVista 800 on demo in around a month so please do get in touch to arrange a demo.

Please find more information below on our website + here are a few pictures that really don’t do it justice.

http://hifilounge.co.uk/musical-fidelity-nuvista-800

I’m sure I could see the wooden shelf bowing under the weight.



4 NuVista Tubes glowing.



Beautifully Machined Military Spec Aluminium Front Panel.





Getting the best out of the Maggies.



Stock Picture.



Cheers,
Paul.