Musical Fidelity

[Floyddroid]

Some really interesting replies here and many reflecting my own experiences. Firstly I have to agree with the view about the A370, an amazing amp. It plays music with authority and grin inducing depth. I had a friend who traded his for a Krell FPB300 which i thought vastly inferior to the A370 for sheer musical enjoyment. He also owned one of the failed Trivister sacd players. I have to admit that in the short space of time it was working it did sound very good. It was at this point I encountered Musical Fidelity's abysmal customer service employees who were at the time the very worst I had dealt with. I did have the unfortunate experience of meeting the head honcho himself too and thought exactly the same of him as printed above. I have never bothered with MF since and doubt whether I will again. I think in a world where a consumer has so many far superior products at far lower cost to choose from the prestige of owning Musical Fidelity flies out of the window. My view is their exceptional success's with amps like the A370 should have been capitalised upon instead of cutting corners to make a few quid. More time building customer confidence and support for their products would still have them being written about in the hi-fi press and online forums, instead they may very slowly be resigned to history. Just saying.

[Thetiminator]

I have these....replaced my Boulder power amps.

http://www.ultraaudio.com/index.php/.../article?id=54

[walpurgis]

I have these....replaced my Boulder power amps.

http://www.ultraaudio.com/index.php/.../article?id=54

Wonder if they'd drive my Lowthers OK?

[Thetiminator]

Hmmm...the first pair of Lowthers to orbit the Earth

[walpurgis]

Hmmm...the first pair of Lowthers to orbit the Earth

[Ali Tait]

Yes, I think you did, now you mention it!

I think you did an immediate re-cap on it with good results? It was a fine sounding beast before that, as well.

Those grab handles on the front were a god-send! - made a hard 1-man lift quite easy. More manufactrurers of big kit should do that, imo.

Yes, did some recapping, which was a worthwhile exercise. As I remember, it was a mark 2, the mark 1 was supposed to be better, though was less reliable?

[jandl100]

Yep, it was the blue-edged 370 mkii rather than the red-edged original.

[Arkless Electronics]

The MkII A370 had a small daughter board which, to avoid getting technical, reduced the background hiss. The same mods were carried out on other models in the range including the P140 which became the P150 etc. They did take the opportunity to cheapen the power supply capacitors as well.... The design used in this range was by TdP who actually modded a circuit from a Motorola application note for "boosting Op-amp output".
The comments about the head honcho are accurate... I resigned without another job to go to because I just couldn't work for such a specimen. Asking you a question and then turning his back and walking away whilst you were answering it was just the tip of the iceberg...

[Ali Tait]

Should've clocked him Jez. No excuse for being such an ignorant bastard.

[walpurgis]

Was he that bad? Sounds a right git. I don't take kindly to that sort of arrogance.