Musical Fidelity ad Ayre

cstmar01

So this weekend I went down to a town about 1.5 hours away from my place to see same family for a birthday. I had never been to any audio stores down there before so stopped by two.

First one I have to say I heard the MF 6pre, amp, and CDP hooked up with Nordost cables (balanced) and Paradigm S8's and man, did that sound good.

The dealer also stated they will be getting Ayre products soon as well as VPI.

I told him the budget I would be looking to spend and he recommended the MF. Ayre he didn't know yet what the prices would be.

Anyone here own or have more experience with the MF 6pre and amp that are offered?

Also any comments on the Ayre stuff? Normally I like to buy used but even new the MF 6 pre and amp came to 5900 so to me not bad if they are worth the money.

organ

Sounds like you had a blast and have an upgrade plan in mind. That's great. Keep us posted!
oh yeah, you got PM.

madmax

The Ayre CD sounds great, very detailed and has tons of spatial imaging, very nice from top to bottom. Not really my cup of tea because I like a more analog sounding system. If you want to wow people with the sound the Ayre is a great choice for $3500! I got mine a month ago and it makes me want to re-listen to everything again.
madmax

cstmar01

I was looking at doing the MF amp and pre, as I just got a new CDP (esoteric DV-50) which I purchased from Ted.

My budget would be 8-10 10K tops for the pre and amp. The MF stuff came to a total of 5900 so I could easily have more left over to do other things with. Ayre I didn't know what I would be looking at in terms of $ as he didn't have the price sheet around.

I was orig looking on the used market at BAT gear. I need to get my ears on it some more to decide but the MF stuff was very nice IMO. I really dug the sound.

And right now I'm just looking to get ideas. I would be getting this around spring time next year. As first I think I'm getting a new TT around Dec/Jan (VPI classic)...

madmax

Vinyl is where its at. That is what took most of my $$.

I've heard great things about the BAT preamp but never heard them. "lively sounding" was the most widely used term when I was looking at them.

cstmar01

madmax wrote: »

Vinyl is where its at. That is what took most of my $$.

I've heard great things about the BAT preamp but never heard them. "lively sounding" was the most widely used term when I was looking at them.

Oh yeah, vinyl is awesome, however lately I've been on a CD kick due to the Esoteric I got from Ted. Loving that thing and now I can't wait to upgrade my TT.

megasat16

cstmar01 wrote: »

I was looking at doing the MF amp and pre, as I just got a new CDP (esoteric DV-50) which I purchased from Ted.

My budget would be 8-10 10K tops for the pre and amp. The MF stuff came to a total of 5900 so I could easily have more left over to do other things with. Ayre I didn't know what I would be looking at in terms of $ as he didn't have the price sheet around.

I was orig looking on the used market at BAT gear. I need to get my ears on it some more to decide but the MF stuff was very nice IMO. I really dug the sound.

And right now I'm just looking to get ideas. I would be getting this around spring time next year. As first I think I'm getting a new TT around Dec/Jan (VPI classic)...

Best advise I can give you if you are spending that kind of coins is to get the factory matched pair and stick to one brand. It's possible that Ayre stuff and MuFi stuff would sounds good together. But at the level you are looking at, I am pretty sure any brand takes Synergy seriously and they've tweeked the amps and preamps to sounds fantastic together.

You can always try to mate with MuFi with BAT or Ayre but synergy could be a problem and they may or may not matched at all...There is no assurance what gears sounds better with another one but if you start off with factory matched gears, at least you have some basics rules of thump that MuFi pre and MuFi stuff goes like bread and butter. From then, you need to compare with other stuff which sounds better. But it's my experience even the highest end gear from the different brands married together doesn't always come out the way I expected them to. I always ended up buying the matching pre for my amps later.

Good Luck with your next purchase and report back here!

Anyone else who thinks otherwise, YMMV!

lakesailor

Can't help you with the MF 6 but I did own the MF KW 500 and my only real regret was selling it. MF makes some nice gear and I would happily own MF again. Have not tried Ayre yet though.....