Alternatives to Musical Fidelity M3 Nuvista

I'd have to agree with a number of the other posters in that I think you can extract better from the Nuvista. On the occasions I've heard this amp (admittedly a while ago), it was certainly not bright. Transparent yes, but not bright.

I think the Marantz amplifiers are very smooth, but I think you'd need to go further up their pecking order to get to the M3 quality level - perhaps the PM-11 integrated. IMHO the NAD amp is not in the same class as the M3.

I agree with all of the above, if you read the on-line Stereophile review, they mention your problem was solved by upgrading the power cord and cabling from the power center to the amps. I did that with mine and am very satisfied. Have it matched with the Nuvista 3D CD, and have not hear a demo of anything I could afford (and I could not have paid retail for these) that even comes close. In fact many of my wanderings through "if I only have an unlimited budget" have not moved me to replace these units. I am definitely staying with mine and as soon as I win the lottery will get some ridiculously expensive speakers which I believe the MF will pair with nicely,

My Nuvista M3 is anything but bright. I would look at your source components first and then your speakers. The M3 is the best amp I have heard yet, by far.

My experience is that MF pairs very well with Dynaudio (out-of-the-box). Also, like many here, I never heard a MF amp sounding bright. While changing cable might help, you should realize that M3 is not a young amp anymore. Re-cap-ing it might have a much more significant effect.

Regarding the original question, while MF M3 is a very good amp it is certainly possible to better it. Accuphase is the first brand that comes to my mind (e.g. E-408 or E-450), but there are quite a few other brands you can consider, e.g. Simaudio, Octave, ASR, Bryston+ a tube pre, etc. All these brands pair very well with Dynaudio speakers. What is your budget?

Finally, regarding the NAD M3 integrated, as already mentioned it is not in the same league with the MF M3 integrated. A few years ago I have compared a NAD M3 integrated with a MF A5 in the same room driving a pair for Dynaudio Contour S1.4. The A5 literally moped the floor with the NAD. With less demanding speakers the NAD probably had the edge when it came to detail retreaval, but the NAD was not able to provide the juice required by the Dyns.