MSB M500 monos : Home audition in Hong Kong

[CKKeung]

MSB announced their new S500 and M500 amp series earlier this year.
http://www.msbtechnology.com/amplifiers/
They are radically diff from their previous classA monos which got a nickname of "sea urchin" in Hong Kong.

The M500 was debuted at the Munich Show in May. Paired with Magico M6, they received many praising comments.

During the HK Hi-end Audio & AV Show in Hong Kong on 9th-11th this month, Pacific Audio, the HK dealer of MSB got the Munich pair of M500 in their room.


Paired with a whole stack of Select Series frontend, a Raptor server and gigantic Extreme Audio MAAT Vector XAC speakers, the sonic performance surpassed all those of the previous years in that Pacific Audio room.
In fact I think that it's one of the top 3 rooms in the Show.

My friend Ricky is a die-hard fans of MSB. He arranged a home trial of that pair of M500 in his house after the HK Show.
I guess this may be the only occasion of M500 performing in a home environment. I of course won't miss the chance to audition them!

This is Ricky's audio system. All MSB frontend with a Crystal Audio Absolute Arabesque glass speaker.


The ic and sc are Siltech triple crown.
Powercords are Audience Frontrow for M500 and Crystal Ultimate Dream for the frontends.

Here are the photos of M500 :



The external finishings is of very very top grade. Each heatfin surface & edge are unbelievably refined and smooth. IMO much better than many of the top brands in the market!


Is this the result of their new in-house Haas 5-Axis cnc machine?
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2602920053108264&id=161361487264145&__tn__=*s*s-R

It seems that the the external chassis+heatfins are bolted to a inner core enclosure which contains the circuitry.


When the M500 is playing, the logo is white in colour and there is a standby mode to shorten warmup time and the logo is orange in colour then.



Here is the back of M500. Both the gain and input impedance can be adjusted.
There are 2 grounding posts too. My friend connected them via the Select Powerbase to his 2 Tripoint Troy Signature groundboxes.



I shall share with you my audition comments on a following post.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

beautiful system your friend has.

 

[Dustin Symanski]

If your listening is all at 94 and below on the Select DAC volume you may want to try out the gain switch in the back and put it into the "MED" or "LOW" position. The gain switch effectively scales the dynamic range of the amplifier to best match the speaker efficiency. I like to begin in the "LOW" position and switch the gain up one notch each time I reach 100 or more on the volume display.

 

[CKKeung]

If your listening is all at 94 and below on the Select DAC volume you may want to try out the gain switch in the back and put it into the "MED" or "LOW" position. The gain switch effectively scales the dynamic range of the amplifier to best match the speaker efficiency. I like to begin in the "LOW" position and switch the gain up one notch each time I reach 100 or more on the volume display.

Thanks Daniel for your advice!

Here is the closer look of the gain control & impedance control on the back panel :


Ricky's Crystal Audio Absolute Arabesque speaker is highly sensitive.
We did try both the low gain and mid gain settings.
The mid gain setting was obviously much better in all aspects and the Select DAC volume settings is usually around 70-75.

 

[koalakoala]

This is intriguing...

I play my select dac mostly at 70ish but always imagine that 90ish could be better (on manufacturer's recommendation)

 

[howiebrou]

Those MSB amps really look nicely made.

 

[CKKeung]

I wrote the 1st post of this thread on Monday and I said I would write a following post on my audition comments.
It's Thurs now because I find it not easy to describe the M500.

Then I remember how I described my MSB Select DAC a few months ago :
#1458 of https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/msb-select-ii-arrival.23302/page-73
" ... I don't have LP and open reel tape so I have concentrated on silver discs and CAS on my audiophile journey.
HK is a compact city and I did have listened to most of the top DAC in the market (except the famed Aries Cerat bcos there is not local dealer yet).

Most of these top DAC can impress listeners instantly : maybe their high resolution, maybe their huge dynamics, maybe their romantic sound, maybe their Swiss finesse characters ... etc

However I listened to Select DAC many times at shows/showroom demo/homevisits. Every time it's enjoyable yet when being asked what signatures it possesses, I can't give an accurate answer.
Via listening to it for longer time at home, I now understand it more.

IMHO the words to describe Select DAC are Righteousness and Allroundedness.
It seems to me that Select DAC has, at least amongst digital component/DACs, perfection in every aspects of sound. ..."

IMHO the same comments can be applied to the MSB M500 monos.
And again, the only pitfall I can pick out is its high price!

BTW a point to note is that my friend's Crystal Absolute Arabesque speakers are not the perfect partner for M500.
It is a highly sensitive speaker : 95db.
It doesn't need so much power. In the past, my friend paired it up with Kondo Ongaku (used as poweramp) and First Watt SIT3 with very good result.
And it's often our experience that using high power poweramps to drive high sensitive speakers can have a lot of downsides such as forwardness, coarseness ...etc
However I could detect nil of them during the audition.
In fact all my friends and I were surprised by the resolution and musicality of M500, both at low and high SPLs.
Awesome!

 

[koalakoala]

Nice review...In fact, I have similar feelings about this whole thing (although I have only heard m500 at the HK show)...

Righteousness is a dramatic word. I would rather put it as natural, or perhaps supernatural!