msb amplifiers

[hifinutt]

anyone using msb amplifiers . ? I am a great fan of them having moved to their s200 some years ago .

"this is about the s201 which is essentially the same amp as s200 Some amplifiers hold an image together well with multiple instruments playing but were not capable of fully resolving the individual instruments or soundstage. Other amplifiers simply sound wonderful until more than two or three things started happening at once! We even listened to a few amplifiers that seemed to be completely missing notes in low frequencies! The S201 amplifier was designed from the ground up to resolve the well organized and truthful harmonics of the best sources like MSBs own DAC IV series. The dynamics get special attention with a quiet and robust power supply with deep current reserves. The S200 plays music beautifully and will hold a solid image for each instrument especially when the music gets complex and many instruments are going at once, with out being harsh or edgy. It is a Reference Amplifier, and capable of driving the gambit of speakers."

Both the inputs and the outputs of this Amplifier are completely Balanced. There is no funny business going on here! The S201 also offers a single-ended input, that is treated separately from the balanced input. A simple switch located near the input jacks allows you to switch the Amplifier between Single-Ended operation, Balanced (high gain, + 6dB) and Balanced (low gain).The heart of the MSB S201 Amp is our MSB designed current mirrors. This approach is expensive but allows amazing accuracy. With such great accuracy we can even operate with zero feedback, greatly improving our phase response. Negative feedback is a trick used by most amp designers to improve linearity but its cost is in degraded phase performance. Our use of zero feedback is significant breakthrough and indicates the care taken in our design.Other improvements include the use of toroidal transformers to keep noise levels low as does the dense packaging. High quality connectors are used on the back of the unit with both balanced and single ended inputs.
from msb site

http://www.stereophile.com/content/m...g7LfldlgUFe.97

[Elberoth]

I used to have msb stereo poweramp and moved to msb M202 monos. Trully great amps and very, very underrated. Which a great thing if you buy them ... used. You can buy S201 and M202 for pennies. They compare favourably to any 30-40k amps. They offer a very full bodied, natural presentatin - the exact oposite of thin, bright and edgy sound.

I recently had two amps that sounded slightly better: $55.000 Vitus SM-011 monoblocks (but only in Class A mode) and $49.000 D'agostino Momentum Integrated. But considering the price difference ... I had chosen to upgrade the speakers instead.

[hifinutt]

yes the msb are extremely competent . glad to see you run m202 . over here in UK msb s201 is definitely not pennies though s/h . about £7-8000 s/h which is a LOT of money . I love the fact mine is remote control and you can stick it in a corner and operate with remote . its also totally silent with no hum ever

[Elberoth]

You can get a pair of M202 monos for less than $8k and S200 for around $5k. That is a still considering the performance you are getting.

[bonzo]

I used to have msb stereo poweramp and moved to msb M202 monos. Trully great amps and very, very underrated. Which a great thing if you buy them ... used. You can buy S201 and M202 for pennies. They compare favourably to any 30-40k amps. They offer a very full bodied, natural presentatin - the exact oposite of thin, bright and edgy sound.

I recently had two amps that sounded slightly better: $55.000 Vitus SM-011 monoblocks (but only in Class A mode) and $49.000 D'agostino Momentum Integrated. But considering the price difference ... I had chosen to upgrade the speakers instead.

How close was the Dag integrated to the Vitus?

[bonzo]

Joel (who writes for 6 moons too) says that the 203 is a substantial jump

[Elberoth]

How close was the Dag integrated to the Vitus?

It is great question I cannot answer, since I had both amps at different points of time and as we know - our aural memory can be deceptive.

[hifinutt]

review of the 204 monoblocks in the latest hi fi crtic mag if any one interested [ this is a great mag that has no adverts so costs a bit more but its a great read ]

https://www.hificritic.com/

[Elberoth]

Is anyone a HiFi Critic subscriber here ?

[bart]

I am.
It's very good, but not my only source of information.

[Elberoth]

Would you mind sending me a PDF of that msb M204 review ? It is not on the msb website just yet.

[bart]

Would you mind sending me a PDF of that msb M204 review ? It is not on the msb website just yet.

Adam, PM me your email adress please.
My scanner doesn't work properly at the moment, so I took a detailed photograph of the article, that I can mail you.