So far they’ve only been running for 24 hours, and I’ve only listened critically to a couple of albums - an SACD of Claudio Arrau playing Liszt etudes, and a CD of Martha Argerich and Itzhak Perlman performing the Kreutzer sonata live, and they sound wonderful. The Liszt has a piano sound that’s just glorious - full, very detailed, almost tactile at the frequency extremes. And on the live Beethoven the 700s do a great job of putting you in the seat in the audience. The instruments and the hall sound very “real.”
I’m really looking forward to hearing how these change over the next week or two (or beyond). I haven’t tried anything “big” yet, like rock or large symphonic works, but for the first time I think I’m understanding what critics mean when they talk about amplifiers sounding “effortless.” There’s a real ease to the presentation.
The reviews from the M1200 owners are the reviews I rely on. Mostly because most are former M700 owners who traded up. I’m a current M700 owner who values your opinions more than the professional reviewers as I also soon hope to be the current M1200 owner.
I think it would be alright to let the community know that the kind folks here at PS Audio have a set of M1200’s on their way to Stu’s Place. Much thanks to Frank Doris and the sales crew for making it happen for me.
So who is Stu, what’s his place and why would you care? The short answers are- It’s me, It’s where I have my listening room and you shouldn’t (unless, like the OP of this thread, you are looking for some “professional” reviews of the M1200). I’m a senior associate editor and legal counsel for Positive-feedback.com and I’ve been having fun with the PF crew since 1992. I’ve had a long hiatus, but I’m back at it and seeking out a long term amplifier “anchor” for my new system. I’m auditioning for my “reviewer’s tool” amplifier, so unlike a typical review, this one is quite personal and perhaps not as “professional” as some might like.
The M1200’s were on my very short list of contenders and I’ll have a few more of the bachelorettes here vying for my love and affection. If I know my fellow 'philes, then the comparisons I’m going to make should be as interesting to this community as they are to me. I even have a David vs. Goliath scenario coming that I’m very excited about.
I’m going to be picking Darren’s brain to find out all I can about the M1200’s setup, his design philosophy, spirit animal and where he falls on the Kant-Hume continuum.
We’re a little different (weird, no…idiosyncratic) at PF, so I’m unshackled and can share my thoughts anywhere I think it might promote the “audio arts.” I like it around here and hey, “Copper” magazine is just plain awesome, so If it’s alright with you folks, I will share some of my thoughts on the M1200 as the wooing proceeds.
My current setup is quite different from my former ones. I used to use, almost exclusively, large full-range speakers. I introduced many people to Von Schweikert Research and assisted Albert and family in making the move to my hometown in upstate NY. I also worked with Pat McGinty of Meadowlark Audio when he made a similar move. So, I’ve always had their top of the line full range speakers in my system. I down-sized my life a few years ago and built a new place with a smaller listening room. Acoustically, its actually better than my old one, but I decided to optimize the space by using smaller “bookshelf” size speakers on dedicated stands with two subwoofers running off the amplifiers high level outputs. The speakers are currently Quad Z-1’s and the subs are Kef Kube 10b’s. I’m really quite pleased by how much variability this setup gives me for tuning. I can vary the speaker height and how much rake back it has for driver alignment and I can move the two subs all around to find the locations that minimize the standing wave, peeks and dips, issues.
Just like I’m now doing with the amplifiers- finding the best “reviewer’s tool,” I have done the same with my preamplifier choice. I’ve ended up with the Polish sausage preamp -Arek Kallas’ Hattor Audio Big Passive preamp with his new class D opamp gain stage. I call this the “Swiss Army Knife” of preamps, because it gives me loads of options. It has remote controlled dual-mono stepped attenuators (64 step,1db increments for fine balance and level adjustments) with your choice of resistors (starting with Vishays as the least expensive). It has both RCA (SE) and XLR (balanced) inputs and outputs and you can remotely switch from pure passive, to a simple gain stage with choices of +3/6/9 db of gain. The Hattor is very transparent and it allows me to work with (and dial-in the sound) of any gear I audition, regardles of input or output impedances.
OK, I’ll spill the beans on some of the contenders/comparisons. I’ve been a Bel Canto fan for a long time, in fact their Evo amplifiers were the first to open my ears to the Class D possibilities (even though they were called class “T” with Tripath modules). I will definitely have a Bel Canto representative here. Benchmark is just down the road from me in Syracuse, NY, so I have made my appeal to John Saiu himself to get the AHB2 amplifier here. I may also be able to include in the lineup the Rogue Audio Dragon, which is another well-regarded tube/Class D hybrid. And Lastly, I’m bringing young little David into the Goliath arena to see how the budget mom and pop shop fares. This is Warren Coleman’s VTV Amplifiers. Warren is sending monoblocks made with the Purifi modules and a new tube input buffer that was designed for him by Andrew Sparks of Sparco Labs (discreet opamps and regulators fame). Talk about an original twist, he’s powering it with the same SMPS as the Purifi modules, and its a no capacitor design. This is going to get REAL interesting.
I had the chance to hear the M700’s in a friend’s system and I was so impressed that the M1200’s shot to the top of my list. I confess to having a bit of a PS Audio bias, but I’m going to let my ears be the final arbiter for this very personal decision.
There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. I have a pair of his Kestrel 2s that I love. They were my go-to speakers for over 12 years before I finally returned to the Maggie fold last fall. I need to sell the Kestrels but can’t seem to bring myself to do it just yet.
Pat is one of the truly nice guys in audio. He is still in the area and I understand that he’s back at it with some custom installations. I still have a pair of the Ospreys here that I use for speaker comparisons.
I have had the M1200’s burning in since last Thursday. I use the Purist Audio break-in CD which seems to shorten the time required for full burn in. I enjoy hearing an amplifier bloom like a flower in this process. Frank Doris specifically asked me if I wanted to wait a week and let PS Audio do the burn in, but I said, no, ship them right away. Well, I don’t know if someone at the factory slipped in some burn-in time on this pair, but they sounded surprisingly good after only one day of the PAD torture process. No, let me be a little more emphatic - I could tell straight off that the M1200’s are world class contenders. After another 72 hours of hard playing time, I believe that those initial impressions are spot on.
Back in the day I did a series called “Tube Fest” and I went through a personal journey of finding my holy grail of amplifiers. After more than 35 amps came and went, I thought I’d found it in the Blue Circle BC2 monoblocks. Shortly thereafter, my “grail” got knocked off by the Bel Canto Evo 200.2’s which I used in differential mono mode. I mention this past history only to show that I’m no stranger to amplifiers of every configuration, including those that utilize various digital modules. I have critically listened to a slew of them and I know what I like.
I REALLY like the M1200’s (already). Tremendous and effortless dynamic range. A squeegee clean window onto the soundstage and superb imaging characteristics. Just a dab of that natural and spacious tubuliciousness without calling attention to itself (this is very much welcome, because I found the Bel Cantos to be very slightly on the lean/dry side).
I have some more interesting comparisons to make in the days ahead and I’ll give you guys some additional updates as things progress.
Disconnect your speakers from the M1200’s and crank the preamp volume up to listening levels much higher then you would normally listen and break-in will be MUCH quicker and MUCH more thorough.
I got these instructions from the creator himself, Darren.
That’s great advice. I have been told by other EE’s that break-in is best when the amplifier sees a speaker type load, so I actually do both. If I didn’t have a listening room bunker, I sure would prefer doing it sans speakers all the time.
I recommend doing both styles of break in. For some who have an isolated listening room that is far away from bedrooms, it would be preferable to just play it at a moderate level with speakers. If this is not an option, follow what twablt described and turn the preamp up to what would be a very loud SPL in your room.
Just FYI, leaving the amps on without any signal passing through them is unlikely to break them in - or I at least have zero evidence that this even helps the unit progress. Perhaps it does, but just at an extremely slow rate.
Paul172 and any others who own the M1200 amps, please allow me to suggest that as a M1200 amp I have found that for the amps to be fully broken in one has to pass 400 hours!
Yeah, I know it’s a lot even more then what is said casually by PSA . However I found that at about 200 hours the amps sounded meh… or at best sounded in line with the M700’s of which the M1200’s replaced! Check my other posts on the m1200 amps. For me it was at 500 hours before I could definitively say the amps are at their best.
