musical fidelity sound?

I had the A308 with Signature 805's from B&W and loved that setup. One of the best I've had. When I heard the KW 500 it was on diamond 802's at my friend's house.

As others have pointed out, hear for yourself, as personal preference obviously plays a role here. Dry is not a term I would use.

I suppose we could question the meaning of dry; Stereophile has three definitions.

dry 1) Describing the texture of reproduced sound: very fine-grained, chalky. 2) Describing an acoustical space: deficient in reverberation or having a very short reverberation time. 3) Describing bass quality: lean, overdamped

I could agree with number 2. The pieces I used were a bit one-dimensional. I am not convinced though that you can put all the MF products into "one box" sound wise. It seems their stuff from a few years ago is reported to be warmer than their current stuff, which is more neutral.

I have used MF equipment for about 5 years now. I would describe the MF sound as refined. I am currently using the MF CD PRE 24 (preamp/cd player) with a Prima Luna Prologue 5 power amp. Previously, I had used the same MF CD PRE 24 with both a MF A300 power amp and a MF A3 integrated amp.

If by musical, you mean warm and favoring the bass end of the equation, then MF equipment is not warm. It is also not dry sounding or analytical or favoring the treble end of the equation. It is pretty close to neutral, very clean sounding, and engaging.

Regards, Rich

Ask Stereopile, they're full of it.

I started with an a3.2 integrated, now I have an a308. I am quite pleased with it.

Boa2,
I am not challenging your opinions on MF gear, but I am wondering what gear you have in mind for hearing music, not hi-fi?