Your room
Which Would You Choose?
My System
NAD M12 Preamp with HDMI/BluOs modules
Parasound Halo JC5 Amp
Arcam DV79 DVD/CD
Sonus Faber Olympica III speakers
Sunfire HRS 10 subs X 2
Audioquest NRG Z2 power cords
Silnote Morpheus Reference Series II XLR
Audioquest Pearl 48 HDMI cables
Audioquest Greyhound sub cables
Aircom S8 cooling unit for amp
Monster Power HTS 3600 MKII
Mogami 2921 speaker wire/bi wired
You all know the desire to improve your sound. Thinking of switching amps again.
Rotel Michi S5
or
Music Fidelity M8s-500s
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- 44 posts total
+1
I must admit, @mazian is correct. Your Olympica are capable of way better sound. But they need to be feed with electronics a couple levels up. I used to own Olympica 3s for many years. I supplied them with a $18K DAC / CD player, Audio Research 5SE preamp, and Pass 350 amp. While a great combo, if I had switched to a ARC Ref 75, they would have sounded better.
Ideally a preamp like a used Audio Research 5ish, Amp like Audio Research Ref 75, or Pass 250 would kick your system up a level or two.
Rotel and MoFi is midfield stuff… your speakers are way better than that. I would start by getting an audiophile preamp. Look to Audio Research, Presto, Conrad Johnson, or VAC. I would look to spend around $8K. Given your speakers an appropriate allocation would be Streamer, DAC, preamp, amp each cost (carefullly chosen and synergistic) = ~$8K. This will get you the very best sound out of the Olympica. |
Tube amps too weak on the bass drivers the Hegel has a class leading 4000 damping factor which is far better then. The competition by a large margin, giving far better control and slam to all drivers. And the Hegel H600 has a excellent preamp section to complement the Dual mono amplifier section and a very good dac section even better streamer that has tidal but will have Roon to add very soon with QObuz and other software upgrades. Substantially better then any previous product far closer to their best separates. I am considering this for myself. |
To answer the question you posed, I own the Michi S5 and I have been very satisfied with the performance. As someone said, it's probably not going to compete with an amp three times the price, but that should be no surprise. I recently was looking to upgrade, and auditioned against Macintosh amps and preferred the Michi over the Macs and Classe. I also listened to Boulder as well, which certainly was better but of course at about three times the price. In my case, i thought I could do better by keeping the michi and spending the available money elsewhere. I find the Michi gives you abundant power, and pairs well with SF. So, I think the S5 offers a lot of performance for the money. I have not heard the MoFi. I don't have the ability to review components, I have not heard, at least with any hope of offering a helpful opinion. As with most buying decisions, I think it comes down to getting the best performance for the money you have to spend. Obviously, if money is no object, upgrade everything. |
- 44 posts total