TESTED: Muse Model Two Hundred integrated amplifier

The Insider

Integrated amplifiers continue to surprise and inspire me. Just when I think I’ve heard pretty much all there is to hear from this segment, along comes the Muse Model Two Hundred. And to look at it, you’d never suppose there was anything remarkable going on. Its chassis—a modular design known as MAP (for Modular AudioVideo Platform)—is less a classical beauty than an imposing 200Wpc edifice for conducting the business of music. The controls—tiny buttons on the front panel and the remote control—are inscrutable. The distinct lack of warm and fuzzy might be due to the fact that designer Kevin Halverson hails from the unforgiving pro ranks where utility and reliability remain job one. So yes, it’s a tool amp, but man, oh man, does it get the job done.

Generally I’ve found that most amps have a singular bold characteristic that stamps their identity cards from the first listen to the last. For the Muse Model Two Hundred, it’s the inside game of audio. A few bars of the duet of “Give Us Peace” (Yo Yo Ma & Friends: Songs of Joy and Peace [Sony Classical]) from bassist Edgar Meyer and mandolinist Chris Thile illustrate just how well the Two Hundred operates from music’s interior, gleaning details from thickets of notes. The feathered delicacy of Thile’s flat pick, the spatial relationship between players, the transition of tonal qualities as Meyer switches from finger-plucked strings to bow midway through the performance are all there in rich abundance. During pianist Evgeny Kissen’s performance of Glinka’s “The Lark” [RCA] his rat-ta-tat arpeggios and trills are superbly articulated. On a densely layered chorale work like Rutter’s Requiem [Reference Recordings] there’s an almost subliminal sensation that a soft light with a wider sweep and deeper throw has been cast into the deepest recesses of the soundstage. And as I listened to violinist Anne Sophie-Mutter (Tchaikovsky and Korngold Violin Concertos[DG]) musical images were pristinely focused and full-bodied. Harmonics were saturated with energy and the acoustics were immersive. 

Unlike some electronics, the Muse hardly lays any of its own editorial slant onto the music; neither does it “colorize” recordings. There is a hint of coolness in its general tonality and a feeling of firm control being exercised, but not to the extent that the sound veers toward the analytical. Actually the treble is sweet enough to make you think that it must be modestly rolled-off, but it’s clearly not. It’s merely the lack of electronic glaze or etch that gives this impression. Although bass response is tight and controlled I didn’t step away from familiar recordings with the sense that the Model Two Hundred was mining new levels of extension or bringing sledgehammer dynamics to light like I did with the Pass Labs INT-150 or the MBL 7008. But this was par for the course for the Muse, which performs without drama or embellishment in all octaves. Tonally the Two Hundred doesn’t sound romantically tube-like nor does it have the hardened soul of early solid-state. Rather it strikes a middle balance that allows it to yield to the personality of the source, veering where appropriate to the warm or cool, the lean or rich, but never too far from center. The finest discs or LPs glow just a bit brighter, transcendent with beauty, while crummy recordings are reproduced in disastrous detail. This amp’s overarching appeal is its expression of openness and pure and unrestricted bandwidth.

In terms of dynamics and speed, I never caught the Muse Model Two Hundred napping or flatfooted. It’s quick out of the chute with no attenuation or rounding of transients. Micro-dynamic energy was as lively in the uppermost regions as it was in the lowest bass that my room will support. In one particular area, however, it revealed an interesting skill in the way it controls and holds onto low-level information in the bass octaves. I’ve heard k.d. lang sing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (Hymns of the 49^th Parallel [Nonesuch]) dozens of times, but until the Muse I’ve never heard an amp grasp the decaying low-level bass notes of this track for such a long duration. In fact, there were some moments of low-level resolution so quiet and subtle that I needed to confirm that there wasn’t something else in my room augmenting the sound. But it was truly the radiating ripple effects coming off the soundboard of the piano. Remarkable.