My M700s arrived Friday. Had been using Anthem MCA 2 I bought 20 years ago. Very nice upgrade I must say. I’m using DSJ and it sounds great. Problem is I’m a bookshelf speaker junkie. I just love them. I have three and one must go to PS Audio to get my discount. I know it’s my decision but am having a hard time. So I’m hoping I’ll hear something that will help me make a decision. Polk Audio lsim 703 vs Sonus Faber Venere 2.0 vs Martin Logan Motion 35 xti. One of these must go. Using a Martin Logan Dynamo 800 sub and that’s it. Any expert opinions would be appreciated.
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Congrats on the new monoblocks. Good choice and welcome to the club. I am a fan stand mounters / bookshelf speakers as well.
I own a pair of these before the “i” generation. They’re great value for money, well designed and built. When paired with AQ Rocket 33, they did a great job at every level.
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Thanks Serhan. I’m happy to be here. I think I’ve decided to keep the 35s but having a hard time between the Polk’s and the Sonus Faber. I have 25 days to figure it out. Much listening to do.
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I do spaced out comparisons using music that I know very well. It allows me to see the big picture and avoid certain pitfalls of quick short comparisons. All the best and have fun 
If you’re having trouble choosing based on sound, we can probably assume you’d be happy keeping any of them. So how about deciding based on economics? If you’ve been offered the same trade allowance for whichever brand you send in, send the one with the lowest resale value. That way, if you ever decide to sell the others, you’ll be at least slightly ahead of the game.
Edit: and congrats on the M700s. I’ve had mine for about 9 months and I love them to death.
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Congrats! I too replaced my MCA-2 with M700’s. My suggestion is to wait another two weeks before deciding as they will be broken in by then. They do change. Then I would select the pair that has the greatest differential between retail and resale all the things being equal. Enjoy!
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Thanks mscardina. I thought the MCA 2 was a great amp for that time period. Better than Adcom and Rotel from the late 90’s IMO. That’s all I really had any experience with. However the M700’s are better and I look forward to the break in. I keep them running around the clock, unless I’m changing speakers which I may be doing too often, so hopefully soon. One problem I have is the Sonus Faber’s don’t have a box. Not sure how to pack them. They are a different shape than most speakers.
Well my M700s have been running six days straight now and I have to admit I can hear the break-in happening. They are sounding better and better. Very happy. As a new member of this forum I hope what about to do will not ban me but I want to weigh in on the measuring Vs listening debate. Not sure why it’s a debate. I started my audiophile journey in the 80’s and read everything I could get my hands on. I believe it was Stereo Review I was reading at this time. An article about a Sony power amp. Do not remember the amp or the reviewer but will never forget one thing he said that has been a staple in my thinking. Maybe to me detriment. It stated that the engineer on the amp project noticed the amp sounded more natural with less negative feedback. Now I had no idea what this was but I new that it caused the distortion to be higher but still under the threshold of hearing. I noticed many the amps for sale at the PX had distortion specs like 00000000.1%, ok maybe not that low but you get what I’m saying, and the more expensive amps had much higher rating. From that time forward I looked for “high” distortion and would never buy any power amp with very low distortion. Maybe technology has gotten better in the last 30+ years since that time and I’m being silly but like any old man give me distortion or give me death. Sorry for the long post but had to get that off my chest. Thanks to the engineers at PS Audio for giving me such great sound.
I resemble it to buying a car. You look at all the nice specs, then do a test drive, then buy, then use for some time, then make an evaluation of the whole experience, part of which is relaibility, economy, after sales service, etc. etc.
For your info, the M700s have very nice measurements, and happen to sound great. Enjoy, and forget the debate. Check BHK Labs test and enjoy the music:
I think your experience is what’s at the base of the never-ending argument over measurements vs listening. Amplifier design has approached vanishing distortion figures for quite a few years now, yet there are still discernible differences in sound, at least to my ears. That leads me to two conclusions - we’re at the point where today’s distortion performance is largely irrelevant to differences in sound quality, and that at least some of the things that contribute to SQ differences aren’t being measured (or they’re unmeasurable).
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Just to be clear I’m not saying the amps have distortion I can hear. Less than 0.1% at rated power would be anathema to my buddies in the 80s. No doubt in my mind that % is not within hearing range but from my limited understanding some believe the things you need to do, negative feedback?, to bring that measurement down has detrimental effects on sound quality. Maybe I’m remembering this wrong. It was a long time ago. I looked up three amps from that time period Yamaha MX 1000, 0.003%. Adcom 555, 0.09%, Krell KSA 250, 0.1%. All my friends loved and bought the Yamaha due to it’s lower distortion and probably the lights. I bought the Adcom due to it’s higher distortion and I couldn’t afford the Krell. The Adcom sounded much better in my opinion. I’ll bet the Krell sounded even better. Oh no. I don’t want to start a negative feedback debate so I’ll finish with this. I’ve never had amps that sounded as good as these M 700s and I wonder if a lack of negative feedback played a role in that.
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Regarding the M700s.
They have both XLR and RCA inputs, both no switch, as other manufacturers have in similar cases?
Why PSA does not have?
I connected to the XLRs my 2 channel setup and want to use the RCAs for HT situations.
You would win that bet . . .
The XLR and RCA inputs on the amps are tied together. That’s why there isn’t a switch. Because of this, don’t hook up both the XLR and the RCA at the same time with two different preamps as this be really hard on your preamp’s output stage.
At certain level they are tied, but that’s why it should have the switch to untie.
I had amps from midfi to hifi price range and all with dual input had switches at the back. Could use them perfectly with different preamps hooked up in parallel (obviously not powered up at the same time).
@Audiofile,
Does your preamp have a home theater bypass input? If it does, you can connect the front channel preamp outputs from your surround processor or receiver to the home theater inputs.
Then, the amp can be used with both two channel and home theater. With the home theater bypass, the surround processor or receiver will control the volume. I use this set-up and it works great.
I know what you mean, but the current setup doesn’t have passthru. Actually intentionally my setup is minimalistic. Hooking up one preamp to another kills the sound quality right away.
Anyways this PS amp is missing that switch big time, pretty important, no wonder used market is full with them. But I can’t complain about sound quality.
That was just a suggestion. You know your system better than anyone.
But, with two channel, I just have the preamp on and not the receiver. The home theater bypass is just an input, so I do not believe that sound quality is degraded. In surround mode, the receiver is on, but not the preamp. My preamp defaults to the home theater bypass when it is off and in standby mode. So, it is possible that SQ might be degraded somewhat in surround mode going thru the preamp. But, I don’t listen much to surround sound music. And I really am not concerned about degrading movie soundtracks.
It’s not about the surround sound.
I have streamer/server/preamp with xlr out which is used to output full dsd, this goes to the monoblocks’ xlr in.
The preamp/processor for mch needs the rca input of monoblocks’. I can add the 5 grand McIntosh preamp with pass through in this loop, but degrades the dsd quality clearly.
I hope you can picture it, well if not, I can’t explain more clearly.
But the point is that PS is missing that switch which others offer. And it’s important.
Agreed, there should be a switch.