I picked up one of these to drive my Decware HDTs for late night listening, which will be up in my Attic room. At first I thought that i had made a mistake because in hooking it up to my big Odeons it was quite lightweight in the bass, a bit glary/glassy and ocassionally peaky on top. Also, compared to my now sold Ayon Crossfire, it was lacking depth of soundstage and imaging dimensionality. I thought "oh well it didn't cost much" and left it for a couple of days.
When I went back to listen again it was big improvement: punchy controlled bass (still not as deep though) with a highly nuanced and textured mid and upper bass. Great midrange projection and presence, a return of 3d imaging but still not hte last word in depth and much cleaner sounding highs. Dynamics and subtle shifts in dynamics and texture to the sound were actually really good and competitive with some of the better amps I have tried in-house...it is a lively sucker but doesn't (now) grate on the nerves like I was afraid it would. I think it just needed time to setlle into the system and a good long warmup run in did wonders. I still haven't tried it yet with the HDTs in their new location upstairs so that will be the next trial.
Still for an amp that retails at around 3K Euro it is something of a marvel...
Just for the record, the Ayon Crossfire III was better in every way and this little Mastersound was not bought to replace it...that honor will go to the new Aries Cerat Genus integrated that is on order.
When I went back to listen again it was big improvement: punchy controlled bass (still not as deep though) with a highly nuanced and textured mid and upper bass. Great midrange projection and presence, a return of 3d imaging but still not hte last word in depth and much cleaner sounding highs. Dynamics and subtle shifts in dynamics and texture to the sound were actually really good and competitive with some of the better amps I have tried in-house...it is a lively sucker but doesn't (now) grate on the nerves like I was afraid it would. I think it just needed time to setlle into the system and a good long warmup run in did wonders. I still haven't tried it yet with the HDTs in their new location upstairs so that will be the next trial.
Still for an amp that retails at around 3K Euro it is something of a marvel...
Just for the record, the Ayon Crossfire III was better in every way and this little Mastersound was not bought to replace it...that honor will go to the new Aries Cerat Genus integrated that is on order.