100% True -my take on the M1200’s. I prepared this initially Sunday evening - but decided to hold off posting until today so I could see if the charm had worn off after four days. It definitely hasn’t. My views are pretty much in line with what I see in most of the posts. Not surprising. A lot of people on this thread are wishing that they could hear comparisons to amps other than just the M700s. I’ve been running the 700s for two years so I can’t do a side by side comparison with another brand - but I can say that I’ve had some terrific amplifiers over the years, including those made by Nelson Pass with two different companies (Forté and Adcom), SAE (this goes back a ways), Cary Audio, VAC, Prima Luna, …and a bunch of “lower tier” amplifiers. I’ve also spent time listening to friends’ obscenely (in my opinion) expensive high-end systems. These M1200s equal or surpass all I’ve owned in the areas discussed below…and what makes this amazing is their price point. Here goes…
100% True…
The M1200s are here and…
Disclaimer:
First. LET ME BE ABSOLUTELY CLEAR…I am not a shill for PS Audio. It is a fact that over the past two or three years I have slowly, piece by piece, replaced the components in my current main hi-fi system with PS Audio components. Believe me, if I have a problem with a product or manufacturer (and I have, occasionally in the past), I am not too timid to express negative opinions. If a product doesn’t live up to my expectations, I offer constructive criticism to the manufacturer and ask for their help, or I return or sell it rather than convince myself that it is a great product- a common human reaction (cognitive dissonance/confirmation bias). I believe reviews SHOULD be meant to help others make informed decisions – not to make the reviewer feel better about their investment in the product.
Second. I feel a little out of my league writing to review audio equipment. Don’t get me wrong, I have been heavily into audio – both the music and the sound - since my high school days (I turn 70 in three months) and have been through numerous “hi-fi systems” since the early 1970s. For more than 30 years I’ve subscribed to only three (other than work related professional) print publications; The Absolute Sound, Stereophile, and Rolling Stone (been a Rolling Stone subscriber since the first year it went into publication). Sometimes I can clearly relate to descriptions of and comments about equipment and music and at other times wonder what motivates the reviewers or wonder what they’ve been smoking to come up with the poetic and sometimes other-worldly hyperbolic descriptions of what the equipment or recording reveals to them. Despite a few years of daily briefings (via email and YouTube) by Paul M on all things “audiophile,” I still feel that the more “engineering” based explanations are above my pay grade – I’m a liberal arts guy rather than a science guy. However, taking his advice to heart has helped my listening experience in a number of ways. All this is to say, that my impression of what sounds good or not so good is often hard for me to accurately put into words …BUT I KNOW WHAT I HEAR AND WHAT I LIKE. Sort of like the oft quoted Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous opinion regarding attempts to define the elusive term “pornography” – I can’t precisely define it, but “I know it when I see it.” So…I apologize up front if attempts to define my impressions don’t cite (or even SEEM to contradict) some engineering or scientific principle. I’m just a guy who loves music, particularly loves it when the “sound” grabs me, and I am someone who has one of my four current sound systems playing about half of my waking hours. For those of you reading this, most would find my pedestrian observations to be so basic that I’m not telling you anything you don’t alreadyknow. But for those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to hear the M1200s, I hope to at least paint a picture of what you can expect.
My experience and “sound” expectations:
Regarding the hi-fi “system.”
I’ve had many “systems” over the past 48 years, from a system I put together in 1984 at a total cost of about $45,000.00 (a lot at that time) with Nelson Pass electronics and Martin Logan’s top speakers, to the current $1,200.00 rig with Dragonfly, a tube amp and small psb bookshelf speakers on my computer desk at home. At my office after 22 years I still listen to an Adcom system of electronics (the power amp also designed by Nelson Pass) and more Martin Logans, and finally, I relax to a nice 18 watt tube based system I’m running at my cabin up north. Each of these systems ultimately resulted from a lengthy period of research, listening, and evolution by constantly switching/adding/upgrading components. My current (and hopefully last) “Main” system finally evolved to the system I’ve listed below, and I feel I was ALMOST at the point where I was never going to hear another system that would make me envious. As you can see – I’m now listening to a system primarily fueled by PS Audio electronics – but it didn’t start out that way. Each component started out with a different manufacturer’s name on it – but PS Audio has taken it over (except my analogue turntable/phono preamp), piece by piece. Historically, I have had a reluctance to monopolize my system with components from one manufacturer (how can one manufacturer excel at everything?) because half the fun of our hobby is doing our own thing and pulling together components from various manufacturers “known” for one specific category of equipment. So, I already had a slight bias in favor of mixing and matching from different manufacturers to find the “perfect” system. In the past year I’ve put that preconception to rest. Maybe there is some logic to going with a symbiotic system from one trusted manufacturer. Finally, in the last couple of years I’ve become convinced (after having it beaten into my head a million times). that the room setup is a critical component and I’ve spent more time and effort trying to achieve the best possible sound from my room. It certainly has paid off. For the first time ever, I have a designated music room for nothing but listening, and although not the largest nor the prettiest of settings, it’s at the point where the room “sounds” great – even if I’ve violated some of the “rules” for room set up. I finally trust my ears more than diagrams and even sometimes it seems, more than the laws of science. Having a familier room set up makes it a lot easier to evaluate a new addition (the M1200s).
Regarding Music:
My taste in music can only be described as eclectic. Played drums in a very local rock band (who didn’t in the sixties), amuse myself with some feeble guitar play, love live performances (saw the Beatles twice and the Stones 14 times), am a “groupie,” my wife and I having seen Mark Knopfler in concert more than a dozen times (in Paris, Chicago, Milwaukee, Glasgow Scotland, Manchester UK, Newcastle UK and most recently at Red Rock in Morrison, Colorado). Been to hundreds of great concerts so I have a pretty good idea of what “live” music sounds like. Been to symphonies, blues clubs, jazz clubs (I’m a Chicago native) and many choral performances. Enjoy listening to (but have never been to) opera nor to an intimate performance of chamber music, but I listen to it all. Enjoy some “electronic” music – have liked Kraftwerk since they first made the scene. I’m a little light on “Country and Western” but do like a lot of “crossover” (Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams etc) as well as bluegrass and “roots” music. Why does this matter to an amplifier review? Because in my world, these amplifiers are expected to produce in a variety of musical settings. Many equipment reviewers seem to classify components as ones which are strong on one type of music but less so on another. I think that the Holy Grail most “audiophiles” claim to search for (sorry Paul) is the “accurate reproduction of live music.” When I listen to reproduced music – I want the BEST sound. To me, the best sound is the sound that moves me, gives me goose bumps, conjures up images or emotions, and that reproduces for me what I want to hear in the music. Let’s face it- when we listen to recorded music, whether it be a recording of a live performance or the “mix” created by a sound engineer in the rcording studio, we are already hearing something different than what we would have heard sitting in the theater, the sympathy hall, the stadium, the small club, or recording studio as it was occurring “live.” The orchestra, the band, the folk singer, the choir is almost always being miked and amplified – so even the “live” performance is subject to external factors. Try taking away a singer’s “pet” microphone and see how they react. When I listen to a recording of a live Mark Knopfler concert I’ve attended, I don’t analyze the sound and compare it to what I heard live, I judge it by HOW GOOD IT SOUNDS right here in my listening room and my emotional response to it. Frankly, on a highly resolving system, with “voicing” by a manufacturer that hits MY sweet spot, I don’t fret how closely what I’m hearing replicates what I heard (or would have heard) live. In fact, there are times when the recording played through my system sounds BETTER than the performance I actually attended. One of my all-time favorite albums is the Nils Lofgren Acoustic Live SACD. I’ve seen Nils live and up close, and the live experience is great for many reasons, but the enjoyment I’ve gotten MANY times over from listening to a well produced recording is a different but equally rewarding experience. One that is especially heightened on a system with resolution worthy of the great recording. So now that you know where I’m coming from…let’s get to it.
Hi-Fi System:
PS Audio Stellar Trio (Gain Cell Pre, M700s)
PS Audio Direct Stream Memory Player
PS Audio Stellar Power Plant 3
Clearaudio Performance DC Wood (Clearaudio Maestro V2 Ebony MM)
Sutherland KC Vibe (phono preamp)
Harbeth 30.1 Bookshelf Speakers (Nordost Heimdall 2 speaker cable)
REL T/9i Subs (pair) (Morrow Audio High Output speaker cables)
PS Audio Power Cables
Morrow Audio interconnects (Balanced XLR & HDMI)
Sound Anchor Stands (Harbeths)
Sampson Rack (Mapleshade Audio)
Mac Mini (Qobuz via Audirvana)
M1200s Arrive:
Friday afternoon the much anticipated M1200 amplifiers arrived. I immediately went to work carefully removing the M700 monoblocs and replacing them with PS Audio’s latest. Since nearly two years had gone into setting up, modifying, and tweaking my current system (and being thrilled with the result) I merely swapped out the amps and decided to let the system “burn in” for 48 hours over the weekend before getting down to critical listening. There is absolutely no question in my mind that when I replaced my prior integrated amplifier with the Stellar trio (including the M700s) it took a fairly long burn in period before they reached their maximum performance. In fact, the initial sound was only slightly more satisfying than the integrated amplifier I was replacing. After a couple of weeks of hard play, they were singing beautifully, and I was a happy camper. I assumed the same would be true of the M1200s. My plan was to put on a dynamically challenging SACD, set it on “Repeat All,” close the insulated door to my music room, go have dinner and some quality Netflix time, and come back sometime the next day to change the music source. Logical plan…until the music grabbed me as I was leaving the room. While I didn’t want my evaluation of the M1200s to be colored by what I assumed would be a slightly inferior “pre-break-in” sound, I was so intrigued by what I was hearing that I sat to listen for a “few minutes” before moving on. Six hours later, I was still there rifling through my albums and SACDs to throw anything sonically challenging at the newly “upgraded” amplifiers. Next day…same story. Here’s the problem, and I’m not exaggerating, I couldn’t imagine how the passage of time could make these amps sound any better than they did right out of the box. If they do mature and sound even better, I’m never leaving my music room.
Okay, so I was instantly smitten – but why?
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After spending months “tuning” my room, I finally got to the point with my Stellar Trio that I had a more clearly defined and expansive sound stage than I’d ever experienced in my home system before. I marveled at the spacing and location of various sounds from up, down, left, and right. I could “see” the sounds coming from individual musicians or vocalists, but usually in a very general sense. Often the “sounds” would come from groupings in a general area, separated enough to give me a three-dimensional picture and some idea of where the sounds were originating at the time they were recorded. I had, of course, experienced and strived to achieve this phenomenon before, but never to this extent in a room of my own that had been set up for listening. I had always been excited by the ability of my system to highly “resolve” the details in the music, but for the first time, with the Stellar Trio, I was starting to really get into this “soundstage” aspect of the music as well. So, let’s talk about soundstage with the 1200s. I had become very familiar with the “soundstage” in my music room after getting everything in the room “just right” and logging hundreds of hours listening. Enter the M1200s and all of a sudden my soundstage went from being the size of the stage at a typical theater to the size of a soundstage at Orchestra Hall. My stage had expanded tremendously, mostly from left to right, but even slightly from top to bottom and front to back. With the M700s I was sitting halfway up the rows and mid center in “the theater.” With the M1200s, I was somewhere in the front few rows and the sound almost surrounded me. Score a HUGE improvement to the soundstage with the M1200s.
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Talking about “resolution,” I have always judged a sound system by how well it resolved even the smallest detail in the music. If a system isn’t “highly resolving,” it has no business being discussed among audiophiles. I’ve had and heard many highly resolving systems – but none better than my current system with the M1200s doing the driving. I was very comfortable with my system’s resolution with the M700s driving. You know the type of things we notice with high resolution – fingers sliding on instrument strings, breathing of musicians and vocalists, an occasional “shuffle” of feet or chairs, a cough here or there, and most importantly, the authenticity of a given instrument’s sound. On many recordings I might even hear background talking during fadeouts, between tracks, or before the play begins. The extent to which these things become audible tends to quantify a system’s degree of resolution. I’m stunned by the number of such things I’ve heard over the last 48 hours on recordings I’ve listened to dozens of times and never noticed before. The M1200s have amazing ability to resolve small details and accurately reproduce the actual sound made by a specific instrument. I’ve sat in dozens of rooms and listened to many “cost is no object” demonstrations at the last two AXPONAs in Chicago (and actually twice visited the music rooms at PS Audio in Boulder), and at many high-end audio dealers over the years. In terms of resolution, I’ve heard a few as impressive as the M1200s, but none better. Kind of mind blowing when you take their cost into account. So – is the resolving power and the expansive soundstage (in light of the added cost, which is not insignificant), enough to warrant trading in the trusty M700s for the M1200s? My answer – “probably.” But fortunately, I don’t have to agonize over that decision because…
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With the M1200s in my system, I finally found the indefinable “it” I’ve been seeking but feared was only heard in systems I couldn’t afford without winning a lottery. Here is where my vocabulary may fail me – but I’ll try to describe what I’ve finally achieved with the M1200s in my system. Every time I leave AXPONA, I reflect on what I heard in a few rooms that blew me away. It’s always the same thing, and it only occurs in the rooms that are really well set up and (not surprisingly) demonstrating VERY high end (EXPENSIVE) equipment. I suspect that it’s not easy to set up in the hotel rooms and open areas at a show, so what we hear there is mostly resolution and some limited sound staging coupled with well-chosen source material. Systems that do both those things well are impressive. But in the rooms that leave me in awe, one word seems to always pop into my head – “space.” In a system that blows me away, and I’m thrilled to say I finally have such a system in my home, all sounds seem to be suspended in space with air enveloping them individually. At a concert, whether it be the Killers or the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, I tend to focus my attention on a given musician or section and listen to the individual part they are playing. Being able to see them (visual cues) helps my brain and my ears focus on that particular sound even as it blends into the overall flow of the music. While listening to a recording, I don’t have that visual cue, so I’m always trying to segregate the individual sounds and picture in my head where the bass player or the flautist must be positioned in my soundstage. Well, that open space with air between the various sounds expands and spreads out EVERYTHING. It really heightens the listening experience. It puts details where they belong in the overall scheme of things. Whether this makes it closer to the real thing (live music) or not…well, I’m not sure. But I do know for sure it’s the sound I’m always looking for when I sit down to critically listen to the music. Until two days ago, I could never have imagined that a power amplifier could make such a profound difference. Yeah Paul, I know you’ve been telling us that, but I finally needed to hear it for myself.
Considerations:
I liked my system a lot – but I still felt there was something missing, as described above. My (wishful thinking) game plan was to someday move up to the BHK (or possibly …gasp…another manufacturer’s high-end amplification with tubes) if I found they could provide that final missing sound I was after. I have become more interested in tubes in recent years (Nelson Pass got me to go solid state some 30 years ago) and so that aspect of the BHKs appealed to me. When offered the opportunity to “Beta Test” the M1200s I saw that they shared some of the attributes of the BHKs at a fraction of the cost so I jumped at it. Boy, am I glad I did. One concern I had, and I discussed it with Chris at PS Audio, was whether the Stellar Power Plant 3 could keep up with the M1200s. Here’s an excerpt from the PS Audio Owner’s Reference (Manual)
. Question: Can I plug my M1200s into the Stellar P3 Regenerator?
Answer: We recommend plugging the M1200s into the filtered bypass outputs.
Answer: The M1200s are capable of large amounts of power. We recommend the P20
regenerator to take advantage of as much power as possible from these amplifiers, however,
much depends on actual power usage. It may be possible to use a smaller Power Plant regenerator if your speakers are efficient.
So – Chris checked with someone there and assured me that I should be fine with the Stellar P3 – and in the first 50 hours of listening there hasn’t been a problem. This is good – because I don’t feel like shelling out more money for a larger regenerator.
Finally, I wasn’t going to even attempt a review until I was convinced these puppies were completely burned in – but like I said earlier, they are already so good as to be a game changer. I really won’t have words to describe them if they get even better with more breaking in.
Why is this incredible improvement to my system happening?
Is it the Tubes?
The huge increase is wattage (increasing headroom)?
Whatever is inside causing the weight to double that of the M700s?
BEATS ME!!! I’ll leave the explanations to the engineers. But about this I’m 100% sure – the M1200s significantly upped the overall performance of my humble system more so than any of the dozens of tweaks and upgrades I’ve made to various systems over the years. Thank you PS Audio and my new electrical engineering Guru, Darren Myers. The down side of all this, however, is that now I’ll have to give serious consideration to Darren’s phono preamp – damn, this hobby never let’s me just stay satisfied with what I’ve got.