X350.5 with Magico Mini

Sacduser,

(I've already posted this note on the original MAGICO thread but am repeating it here.)

The X350.5, it is a very powerful solid-state amplifier with superb bass and Nelson Pass’s signature lifelike presence in the midrange. (I’ve never heard a Pass-designed amp that didn’t have a great midrange, which is not typical of solid-state.) Almost by design, the X Series has a bit more grain than Pass’s Class-A XA Series amps, rather like a well-designed pentode-tube amplifier compared with a well-designed triode-tube amplifier. The analogy also holds for image and soundstage size, instrumental bloom, and dynamics. (I generally prefer pentodes to triodes for all of these.) The X350.5 is not just an extraordinary watts-per-dollar bargain; it is an extraordinary amplifier, period.

The other options cost a great deal more money. The next one up would be the Edge 12.1 stereo amp, which is twice the dough. It too sounds like a pentode-tube amplifier, but even more so, with less solid-state grain, more bloom, somewhat bigger image size, sweeter more grainless treble, and slightly more natural tone color in the midband. Edge amplifiers are almost unique in the way they manage to sound like ARC tubes (especially when driven by Edge’s battery-powered preamp). In so far as they have weaknesses, they are less hard-hitting than something like the Pass X (when used with Edge’s preamp), less powerful in the low bass, and more forward, with less apparent soundstage depth.

From here you would step up to the ARC Ref 210, which is very nearly ideal for the Mini, although a bit underpowered. The 210 is simply the best amp ARC has ever made (save for its big brother, the 610T). It is far faster, more extended, and lower in noise than any previous pentode amp from ARC, with absolutely terrific soundstaging, dynamics, tone colors, and imaging. It may not be the very last word in very-low-level resolution (for which, see my next entry) but it is next-to-last. Financial considerations aside, I think it or the 610T are the perfect amps for the Minis. But I should also note that, at CES, the CAT triode amps (driven by the Edge preamp) also sounded exceptionally good (In tubes, you simply can’t beat a CAT for dynamic sock.)

We now come to the MBL 9008 and 9011, which are extremely expensive solid-state amps and, IMO, as good as solid-state gets. Neither of these amps can really be faulted in any of the usual hi-fi categories; they excel in all of them, including most especially timbre, dynamics, extension at both frequency extremes, and low-level resolution, even with decays. Both of these amps from MBL have the lowest noise floors (absolutely grainless) of any amps I’ve heard; as a result they will resolve fine inner detail better than anything I’ve yet heard and have better dynamic contrasts than any amps I’ve heard. They, too, sound fantastic with the Minis (driven by the MBL 6010D or the ARC Ref 210). The only thing they don’t have is quite the same measure of air and tube-like bloom (or “action” as I call it) of something like the Ref 210. OTOH, the Ref 210 doesn’t have quite the resolution, low noise, or extension and power at the extremes of the MBLs.

Hope this helps.

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