NEWS: Musical Fidelity expands its A1 line with two-box preamp
Andrew Everard Tue, Jun 3 2008, 4:31PM
This is the new Musical Fidelity A1 FBP – a fully balanced preamplifier designed to be used with the company's 550K and 750K Superchargers, which are also designed to function as conventional power amplifiers.
The new two-box preamp uses an external power supply, and thanks to its fully balanced design is said to be able to drive any length of cable to the power amps.
The A1 FBP has two balanced inputs, a moving coil/moving magnet phono stage, a USB input, a home cinema bypass connection (for use when it's combined with AV amps or processors) and both balanced and single-ended outputs.
The fully-balanced layout is designed to give the preamp wide bandwidth, low distortion and low noise. Meanwhile the external power supply keeps electromagnetic interference from the transformer and power supply circuitry away from the audio signals in the preamp.
It also uses four-stage choke filtering to further condition the AC power before it gets to the preamp.
Available from August, the A1 FPB will sell for £1499.
Technorati Tags: balanced, hi-fi, Musical Fidelity, stereo preamp, Supercharger
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Comments
I have had mine just over a month.
Fully balanced from Maestro CDP to Lyngdorf Power and it sounds supurb.
Boxed, unmarked mint condition....£345.
If you can get one cheap grab it......
What's a "home theatre by-pass"?
MalcolmH
An input designed to let you feed the front channels of a surround system through the preamp and on to the power amp and thus speakers, bypassing the volume control.
What an unforgiving bunch of miseries you are, these new MF units have a distinct 60's retro look, and better still they don't demand that you look at them rather than listen to what they do?
Got it! they look fine to me, neat and understated, that's how I like my Hi-Fi which is why I am still using my Quad 306, 34 Pre, and FM4 Tuner, 18 years old and still performing, without a need for service. (And no one is getting it off me, despite my local Sevenoaks dealership manager asking!).
Gerald B.
Looks like it should cost £150. and it was made in 1981
My only real question is:
Why launch a fully balanced preamp, when the amps (550K and 750K) to be used with it aren't balanced?
My girlfriend would kick me out of the house if I bought these. I used to own a A 3.2 pre and power amp, those were a lot better looking than this.