Accuphase or Musical fidelity for Focal Micro Be

Hello everyone,

Finally, I have found some time to tell you about the auditions I have made before buying the Accuphase E-550 and DP-500 combo.

Firstly, I have listen to a Lyngdorf TDAI 2200 amp. The dealer brought the amp to my home and also set up the room correction system. I have used my Musical Fidelity A5 cd player as a transporter feeding the Lyngdorf DAC via the optical output of the A5. The dealer left me the amp for four days. Overall this was quite a bad experience. I will not go into details about this as this thread is not about Lyngdorf. However, if some of you want more details about this let me know and I will elaborate. I should say that I was verry surprised to obtained such bad results. Before asking the dealer to bring the Lyngdorf to my home I have listen the Lyngdorf driving the Diablo Utopia in his show room. The combination was superb. Probably, the dealer has messed things up when setting up the room correction system. Because of this bad experience I have decided that it is safer to stick to Musical Fidelity. This is how I have become interested in the NuVista M3 amp. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I was not able to audition the M3 amp driving the Micro Be speaker. The dealer that was selling the M3 was too far from where I live. Stan and Grimace, thank you for posting your thoughts regarding the M3 amp.

Secondly, I have listen the Accuphase E-350/DP-400 combo driving my Micro Be speakers in a dealer room. I went to the dealer also with my Musical Fidelity A5 combo so I could do a direct comparison. I have compared the two combos for about 4-5 hours. As you can all imagine the Accuphase combo did everything better than the Musical Fidelity A5 combo. The sound was more open and faster, and all the small little details in the music were more obvious. The music played via the Accuphase was more in the room (surrounding me) and better focused, e.g. on "The Dali CD vol. 2" I could "follow" Josefine Cronhold's mouse movements while she was singing "In your wild garden". Of course, all the details that were brought to my attention by the Accuphase combo could also be heard on the A5 combo. However, they were further in the background. This gave the Musical Fidelity combo a more softer/warmer, relaxed and less involving presentation, i.e. the music sounded like it was played not in front of the listener but a bit further away.

While comparing the A5 combo with the E-350/DP-400 combo I have also interchanged the two cd players. Interestingly, it turn out that the DP-400 cd player in combination with the A5 integrated sounded very close in character to the E-350/DP-400 combo (but had more power). This has clearly showed me how good an integrated amplifier the Musical Fidelity A5 is. On the other hand, the A5 cd player and the E-350 integrated sounded very close to the A5 combo. This was the first time I have hear a cd player completely changing the sound of an amp/speaker system. At first I was very surprised, however, after thinking more about this I have realized that the warm and relaxed characteristics of the A5 combo are often associated to tubes. As the A5 cd player is a tube player things started to make more sense.

After this comparison, I was quite sure that eventually I will buy and Accuphase combo for my Focal Utopia Micro Be speakers. The sound was superb and the attention to details was second to none. However, I was a bit reluctant to spent for the Accuphase E-350/DP-400 combo more than 3 times the price I have paid for the Musical Fidelity A5 combo. This dilemma was quite well captured by the "philosophy" of the two manufactures. Accuphase is a luxurious company that pays attention to the smallest detail, whereas Musical Fidelity is a company that makes "budget" products that can compete well with the big names (although not exactly in the same league). Eventually, I have decided to look at second hand Accuphase units, i.e. the same dealer had a E-408 amp in stock and I was able to find a DP-68 cd player at a different dealer.

As the post has gotten very long I will share with you the rest of my adventure, i.e. the comparisons between the E-408, E-450, E-550 amps (and also and Ayer amp), in a second post. I hope you have enjoy my story so far. Please do not hesitate to share your thoughts.

Regards wishes,

Very interesting, waiting to be continue.

I have decided to buy the Accuphase E-550 & DP-500 combo after 2 - 3 days of rather long auditions, i.e. 5 - 6 hours per day. All electronics were compared in the same room using my Focal Micro Utopia Be speakers. I have also used a pair of Wilson Sophia 2 (for about an hour or so) to test the ability of E-550 to drive larger speakers (see my system page for a brief description Micro Be vs Sophia 2). For music I have used my usual test CDs:

1) Loreena McKennitt - Nights from Alhambra
2) Ludovico Einaudi - La Scala Concert 03/03/03
3) Dali CD - volume 2 (tracks 2, 5, 6, 7 and 13)
3) Marantz - High-End Audiophile Test DEMO SACD 12th edition (tracks 4 and 9)
4) Norah Jones - Come away with me (mostly track 10 to make sure I am right between the speakers and probably also parts of the tracks 1, 3, 5 and 7)
5) Diana Krall - Live in Paris (track 11)
6) AC/DC - High way to hell (track 1)
7) Dream Theater - Awake (tracks 1, 6, 7, and 11)

I have made the following comparisons:

A) CD players: Accuphase DP-500 vs. DP-400

I have compared these two units on both E-450 and E-550 integrated amplifiers. Speakers were my Focal Micro Utopia Be. The sound of the two units was very similar. The DP-500 was more fluid but the difference was not night vs. day. Also, I did not find a significant difference between balanced and unbalanced connections (cables were from Transparent but I can't remember the models).

B) Integrated amplifiers: Accuphase E-450 vs. E-550

The two amps, like the two cd players above, had very similar sound. Again, the more expensive unit, i.e. E-550, had a more fluid sound (that was also somewhat fuller and seemed a bit more transparent). Again not night vs. day, but the differences were more obvious than in the case of the cd players.
In my opinion, however, the most important factor when choosing between the two units should be the amount of power one needs. The E-450 is extremely powerful, much more than its 180 W/ch would indicate. About two months ago, at the same dealer, I witnessed a very impressive display of E-450's power. Driving a pair of Martin Logan Summit X and playing some opera, the E-450 has literally shaken a three floor building, i.e the entire store. Unfortunately, I could not see the indication of the power meters as I have left the room before the peak of the crescendo occurred (I was actually on a different floor one level below). Even if the dam think has clipped, who would care? The sound was unbelievable loud. Nobody (sane or insane) will play music at those level at home. Obviously, the E-450 drove effortlessly my Micros and also the Wilson Sophia 2 speakers.
It should also be obvious that E-550 with only 30 W/ch does not have the power reserves of E-450. However, E-550 too had no problems driving the Sophias. It got quite a bit hotter than when driving the Micros but it has kept unaltered its sonic superiority over the E-450 (at least at the levels that I consider as very loud). As I have already mentioned in my previous post, the E-550 clipped for fractions of a second when required to play very loud. This has happened with both Micro and Sophia speakers, though it occurred somewhat sooner when driving the Micros. Now (after 10 months), it is very clear to me that, during my audition in the dealer's room, I have driven the Micros (also the Sophia) way over the levels I normally listen. (I think this is a mistake most of us are making when auditioning audio components.) In the 10 months since I have the E-550, not even once did it clipped when driving the Micros. My room is rather large, i.e. 5 x 7 x 2.75 meters, but the Micros are paired with a REL Stentor 3 subwoofer.
Finally, in a pm Itzoros ask me if the E-550 had better controlled bass (not more powerful) than E-450. On my Micros I did not noticed this. But obviously, due to their limited bass output, the Micros are not the ideal speaker to judge the bass performance of an amplifier. I have listen only briefly the E-450 driving the Sophias, i.e. only a few minutes in order to compare the meter indications of E-450 vs. E-550, but I did not notices any significant difference.


C) Integrated amplifiers: Accuphase E-450 vs. E-408

The E-450 seemed a bit more open and more transparent maybe also a bit quicker. The E-408 retrieved the same amount of detail as E-450 but was wormer, i.e. a more laid back and somewhat fuller presentation. This gave me the impression that the E-408's presentation was closer to the one of E-550, i.e. more relaxing, though E-408 did not have the transparency and openness of E-550. Because of the large price difference between these two units, i.e. almost 3000 euros, and since the differences between the two units were subtle, I would have chosen E-408 over E-450.

D) Combos: Ayre the 7 series vs. Accuphase E-550 & DP-500

This was a rather short comparison, i.e. around 30 minutes. I have already decided to buy the E-550 & DP-500 combo, plus most likely I was tired and sick of paying attention to subtle differences. I have used only the Micro Be speakers for this comparison. The Ayre combo was very open, dynamic and transparent but not in the same league with the Accuphase combo. This was especially obvious when listening to Norah Jones' voice and piano recordings (e.g. Ludovico Einaudi). Some inflections in Norah's voice and some piano notes sounded quite harsh and uncontrolled through the Ayer combo. This was never the case through the Accuphase combo. Also, the Ayre combo looks incredibly cheep next to the Accuphase, e.g. the cases of the Ayre components ring almost like bells when tapped with the fingers.

I will conclude by telling that I am still as excited about the Accuphase combo as I was 10 months ago when I bought it. However, unlike 10 months ago, now I know that going the class A route was the right thing to do. The 30 w/ch are more than enough for my listening habits. I hope some of you will find this (again very long) post helpful. It know it is way overdue, i.e. I have promised to write it 6 months ago, but better later than never.

Best wishes,
Paul