Thanks for the update. So good to get some specific highlights rather than a précis of everything, and happy to see your enthusiasm for these expensive but attainable pieces - or they would be attainable if they made more than 1973 of them!
Cheers guys, loved your riff as always. It was nostalgia central seeing that old A1 design. Back when the A1 was king of my world, I always appreciated that they added the griddle to the top so my steaks got those nice lines.. Less remembered was the B200 which used the same case but offered fantastic bang per buck back in the day.
So glad to see the MF A1 is back! I use an A1 Final Edition in my main system...recapped etc and it's phenomenal. What a great company MF was at its affordable prime!
I recall the balance control on my Nait 1 only changed the volume on one channel, and well that's how you adjusted the balance. I really want to have a listen to the new Nait 50 though because I'm expecting it to NOT sound like the original at all. That one had such an energetic sound that no new amp I've heard has even dared to try to replicate it.
There's no tape monitor switch anymore. There is a normal/direct switch which bypasses the preamp gain but not the volume control. Volume control placement in the circuit has changed (it is now after rather than inside the preamp voltage gain stage) so that may have affected its physical placement too.
@@MrVinylista Just been reading the StereoNet 'round-up' article of the Munich show. Some interesting photos in there 😀 Love the group shot in front of the CA London Bus - looks a bit like a Summer Holiday reunion.....
btw there are a few changes on the new A1 compared to the old one, apart from better components. Most important one is that the did away with the strange pot configuration which was originally designed to be inside an opamp's feedback loop for Pete's sake and put it where it should have been i.e. after the preamp gain circuit. Functionality wise they did away with the tape monitoring loop and introduced a direct function button which bypasses the preamp gain block but NOT the volume control resulting in 10db less gain and hopefully better noise performance.
I also hear that the volume pot has been upgraded, too. So yes there are some meaningful tweaks, but it's the same basic circuit and not a horrid 'reimagined' Class D affair. I don't know the specifics of the Nait 50 but would be very interested to see what's inside - I'm guessing that it's further away from the original NAIT 1 than the new A1 is to the original.
I wonder if you spotted the Supatrac Blackbird tonearm at Munich? An intriguing and quirky design and Richard, the inventor, very much in the quirky British audio engineer tradition!
@@bigblueocean it does look clunky and home made, sure. Not what a Super-arm should look like! But reports of exceptional sound quality suggest that this unique take on the unipivot principle, with no wobble, may have something special about it.
Great episode as always guys! I must make it along to a Hi-Fi show at some point. When the Bristol show was on, right here in Bristol, I was away. Poor forward planning by me!
Fantastic lads seeing you both having been on your jollies, come on Mike you not short of a Bob or 2 just go for it and buy yourself the naim Nat 50 you know you'll regret not buying 1
I have already got the A1 on order (mostly destined for bi-amping duty). I believe Heinz bought MF back in 2018 (time flies, Dave, more so when one's getting older, I'm afraid). AM always maintained it was pressure from the press (especially the American one) that had him change models too frequently in order to keep MF name in the headlines. That never sounded too convincing to be honest. With regards to the two BBC type speakers MF have introduced I have that sneaky suspicion these are Chinese sourced OEMs.. Especially the LS5/9 one looks absolutely identical down to the small details to a certain Chinese brand LS5/9 I could mention. The new A1, btw, is made in Taiwan where MF have been producing their 2-channel amplification devices for decades now.
Certainly nothing wrong with being made in Taiwan - some of the most advanced chips in the world are made there. Interesting though that he's decided not to bring the MF stuff into his fancy new factory outside Vienna.
@@MrVinylista It is neither an easy nor a cheap job to do that, I presume. MF Dacs and phono stages are now being built in Slovakia btw. I have no issue with the MF being made in Taiwan either, since they have a proven record. I do have an issue with their latest HT jobbies being made in China not because of China per se but because a. Not being made in Taiwan signifies something and b. Because they look to me as OEM jobs. Something which of course I cannot prove. Suffice to say they do not resemble MF devices in other than their front and back plates.
More btw, I do seem to recall many used the A1 to drive the LS3/5a back in the day. I believe it is not as terrible an idea as it appears to be, especially for the small bachelor pad. LS3/5a electrical sensitivity is indeed low but load is very benign making them not too inefficient (so high voltage gain is required but not too much current, contrary to Mike's view I'm afraid), more so in the 15 Ohm models (as the new MF one is touted to be). These speakers were never intended to and cannot fill a large room full of people. Their dynamics are inadequate regardless how powerful the amp which drives them. To pair the amp with horns AND retain its goodness at the same time you will have to spend inordinate amounts of money on the speakers. Who's going to pair this 1500 quid amp with multi thousand pound speakers? As far as the speakers go, remember, the BBC did not have monster amps driving them in their vans.. Lastly, Dave and Mike, I would have loved to have seen you in fishnet t-shirts in front of that bus..
So, I have two points to make. Number 1, I lived with the falcon ls3/5a's for a couple of months and found that they loved being driven by an amp with a high current delivery. Number 2, how on earth could you possibly know that David and I both own fishnet T shirts? Mike
Horses for courses. The two amps are very different in electrical design, sound AND price. About the only thing they share is that they are small wattage amps operating (mostly, in the A1 case) in Class A (though the Sugden is single ended and the MF is push-pull) I agree such a comparison would be interesting though.
@@razisn Agreed. I had a Sugden A21 SE for a while, and it sounds very different to the MF A1. Would be fun to do a Class A bake-off. I'll make enquires...
@playbackvintagehifihunter9669 The Sugden is/was much more clinical sounding - very clean and delicate, with a glass-clear midband. The MF sounds more like a classic valve amp, much sweeter and more sugary. It's obviously a lot more coloured but is still pretty open and lacks all the grey mush of your average Class AB solid-state design. The bigger MF Class As move a bit more towards the Sugden sound - I thought the AMS35i was an excellent mix of both styles.
@playbackvintagehifihunter9669 It depends how big your room is, what type of music you like and how loud you normally listen at. Certainly at low to medium volumes they sound lovely together on light classical or vocal, but there is no power to push out rock or electronic dance at higher volumes. That is, of course, why Musical Fidelity made the A100 - which has twice the power of the A1!
Excellent video fellas with one obvious Q. Why would the new owner of Musical Fidelity and the Ls35a speakers put demo them together, given their incompatibly? It seems like a very silly way to demonstrate both products
Absolutely right. He demo'd them together simply because they are new MF products, rather than because they're a synergistic pair (they're not). Nor were they commonly used back in the 1980s when the original A1 came out - the LS3/5a was very much out of fashion back then. Still, I think we can forgive Heinz this. It's still a great thing to see these new products from his 'new' brand.
They are not incompatible, regardless of what our hosts are saying. Neither is meant to fill a large room full of people. If you buy either for this purpose you will make a bad buying decision. Near filed listening, small room, medium levels is what they shine in. In this context they are not incompatible. The speakers might be insensitive but they are a very benign 15 Ohm nominal load which makes them not current hungry. Of course the amp can fill a large room driving big horns but that, in my view, is a niche use for it. All its goodness will be lost with approachably priced horns and who would pair a 1600 euro amp with upper 5 or 6 figure horn speakers?
@@razisn I wasn't saying there are incompatible, I was saying that the pairing in the dem room was sub-optimal. It simply did not sound good and I was in the front row, hearing it with my own ears. I've explained why - the amp was working right at the top of its volume envelope. It needed more efficient speakers in that large room full of people. It was a lack of watts that was the problem in this case, although I still think current drive is a good thing for any amp connected to LS3/5as, whatever their nominal impedance may be. Same goes for any infinite baffle speaker, in my experience.
Is the MF LS3/5a really an LS3/5a if it doesn’t use Kef B110 & T27? As far as I know they’re not sourcing the drivers from Falcon, with Falcon currently the only source of these drivers, surely a speaker built with any other drivers is just a small LS3/5a’alike bookshelf speaker?
I would get the SME if I was ballin. Kinda what if NASA built a turntable . That Benesch looks like a bunch of the money was spent on flashy design. If not the SME , then Technics top model.
A bit disappointed in you guys. The floggle toggle on the flim flam flob on that bus points to it being a ''young ones'' routemaster and not actually the original '' cliff' one. I expect you were in a rush? I too have a Nait 1, originally paired with the aptly naimed Kanns, replaced them with metal enclosure Alexanders.
The great thing about this hobby is that everyone has different tastes and there is room enough for all. Enough different gear to cater to all audiophiles. To tell people that it's "laughable" if they prefer Class A is just rude.
Going down memory lane with the Naim Nait. I had an original with Kans and it worked well in my small room. A good hefty lump for its size.
What a combination. ❤
Thanks for the update. So good to get some specific highlights rather than a précis of everything, and happy to see your enthusiasm for these expensive but attainable pieces - or they would be attainable if they made more than 1973 of them!
Cheers guys, loved your riff as always. It was nostalgia central seeing that old A1 design. Back when the A1 was king of my world, I always appreciated that they added the griddle to the top so my steaks got those nice lines..
Less remembered was the B200 which used the same case but offered fantastic bang per buck back in the day.
The quad 405 was always a good match with the LS3/5a's.
Brilliant to see all the old equipment coming back better than ever Naim and musical fidelity
Actually quite astonishing... It begs the question, what do we want resurrected next?
Mike
Great video guys! :D I see you caught Mike bothering the sockets of the new Nait 50 @ 12:31!
Too right JK!
Understand David has a pair of Kerr Acoustics at last.
I'm going to be moving in to his house. 👍
Well spotted. I've never seen him so happy. Well, maybe since he last polished his Midget. MG Midget, that is...
@@MrVinylista we'll get struck off!
Fantastic to see the old faithful A1 return!
... and the Nait!!
Mike 😊
@@mikeyevs very true Mike!
@@mikeyevs and let's be fair- The Creek also!!!
@@roryyoung6192 absolutely! Well said... Well really liked the one we listened to.
Mike
So glad to see the MF A1 is back! I use an A1 Final Edition in my main system...recapped etc and it's phenomenal. What a great company MF was at its affordable prime!
I recall the balance control on my Nait 1 only changed the volume on one channel, and well that's how you adjusted the balance. I really want to have a listen to the new Nait 50 though because I'm expecting it to NOT sound like the original at all. That one had such an energetic sound that no new amp I've heard has even dared to try to replicate it.
I've noticed the newer A1 Volume control has moved away from the Selector and TAPE monitor switch. Looks slightly odd. Great Riff ,thanks a lot.
There's no tape monitor switch anymore. There is a normal/direct switch which bypasses the preamp gain but not the volume control. Volume control placement in the circuit has changed (it is now after rather than inside the preamp voltage gain stage) so that may have affected its physical placement too.
I had nait 1 and linn kan 2, the most musically coherent I've heard in a long time if the kanswere on Kan open frame stands and hard against the wall!
Well done lads!
Thank you... Bit of a niche riff for us, a bit like "what we did on our (bus man's) holidays!
Mike
Nice one guys good stuff!
Das war echt toll, vielen dank! HiFi Riffenraffen.
Gern geschehen!
@@MrVinylista Just been reading the StereoNet 'round-up' article of the Munich show. Some interesting photos in there 😀 Love the group shot in front of the CA London Bus - looks a bit like a Summer Holiday reunion.....
btw there are a few changes on the new A1 compared to the old one, apart from better components. Most important one is that the did away with the strange pot configuration which was originally designed to be inside an opamp's feedback loop for Pete's sake and put it where it should have been i.e. after the preamp gain circuit. Functionality wise they did away with the tape monitoring loop and introduced a direct function button which bypasses the preamp gain block but NOT the volume control resulting in 10db less gain and hopefully better noise performance.
I also hear that the volume pot has been upgraded, too. So yes there are some meaningful tweaks, but it's the same basic circuit and not a horrid 'reimagined' Class D affair. I don't know the specifics of the Nait 50 but would be very interested to see what's inside - I'm guessing that it's further away from the original NAIT 1 than the new A1 is to the original.
@@MrVinylista Indeed the A1 should be pretty much as Tim de P imagined it.
I wonder if you spotted the Supatrac Blackbird tonearm at Munich? An intriguing and quirky design and Richard, the inventor, very much in the quirky British audio engineer tradition!
The one that 's made from Nylon thread and sections of rectangular aluminium tube cut at an angle? Well overpriced.
@@bigblueocean it does look clunky and home made, sure. Not what a Super-arm should look like! But reports of exceptional sound quality suggest that this unique take on the unipivot principle, with no wobble, may have something special about it.
Speaking of Thorens, did you see their new Reference turntable? Cost is €220,000. I wonder how it would compare to the Wilson.
Great episode as always guys! I must make it along to a Hi-Fi show at some point. When the Bristol show was on, right here in Bristol, I was away. Poor forward planning by me!
I really enjoy the Bristol show.
This year was very special as a few Riff Raff were there and had a lovely chat to us at the bar 😊
Fantastic lads seeing you both having been on your jollies, come on Mike you not short of a Bob or 2 just go for it and buy yourself the naim Nat 50 you know you'll regret not buying 1
Are you kidding? He hasn't spent any money on hifi since 1985!
Very good, hope you enjoyed the good German beer.
It was excellent... If a tad strong.
I enjoyed the kebab after too!
Mike
@@mikeyevs Yes, I can see that you look like someone who enjoys a beer and a kebab 😜(as do I)
We like the unusual riffs
Thank you. So do we ❤
Mike
I have two Musical Fidelity A1s one has an original box 😆
David will pay handsomely for the box.
He's incredibly jealous of my boxed Nait... but will never admit it!
Mike
Hi - long term naim fan and previous owner of a nait2. The price is sheer madness!!
The Nait 50 is very cool…but good luck getting one. Pair with the KEF LS50 and you’ve got a world class “simply elegant” small room system.
Interesting combo 👍
I have already got the A1 on order (mostly destined for bi-amping duty). I believe Heinz bought MF back in 2018 (time flies, Dave, more so when one's getting older, I'm afraid). AM always maintained it was pressure from the press (especially the American one) that had him change models too frequently in order to keep MF name in the headlines. That never sounded too convincing to be honest. With regards to the two BBC type speakers MF have introduced I have that sneaky suspicion these are Chinese sourced OEMs.. Especially the LS5/9 one looks absolutely identical down to the small details to a certain Chinese brand LS5/9 I could mention. The new A1, btw, is made in Taiwan where MF have been producing their 2-channel amplification devices for decades now.
Certainly nothing wrong with being made in Taiwan - some of the most advanced chips in the world are made there. Interesting though that he's decided not to bring the MF stuff into his fancy new factory outside Vienna.
@@MrVinylista It is neither an easy nor a cheap job to do that, I presume. MF Dacs and phono stages are now being built in Slovakia btw. I have no issue with the MF being made in Taiwan either, since they have a proven record. I do have an issue with their latest HT jobbies being made in China not because of China per se but because a. Not being made in Taiwan signifies something and b. Because they look to me as OEM jobs. Something which of course I cannot prove. Suffice to say they do not resemble MF devices in other than their front and back plates.
More btw, I do seem to recall many used the A1 to drive the LS3/5a back in the day. I believe it is not as terrible an idea as it appears to be, especially for the small bachelor pad. LS3/5a electrical sensitivity is indeed low but load is very benign making them not too inefficient (so high voltage gain is required but not too much current, contrary to Mike's view I'm afraid), more so in the 15 Ohm models (as the new MF one is touted to be). These speakers were never intended to and cannot fill a large room full of people. Their dynamics are inadequate regardless how powerful the amp which drives them. To pair the amp with horns AND retain its goodness at the same time you will have to spend inordinate amounts of money on the speakers. Who's going to pair this 1500 quid amp with multi thousand pound speakers? As far as the speakers go, remember, the BBC did not have monster amps driving them in their vans.. Lastly, Dave and Mike, I would have loved to have seen you in fishnet t-shirts in front of that bus..
So, I have two points to make.
Number 1, I lived with the falcon ls3/5a's for a couple of months and found that they loved being driven by an amp with a high current delivery.
Number 2, how on earth could you possibly know that David and I both own fishnet T shirts?
Mike
@@mikeyevs I was pretty sure you did own at least one. Took a gamble with Dave.
Super! do you Thing it's Worth to replace my Atoll in80 se with the a1? Does is make a big Differenz in Soundquality? Thx
In the United States the Nait 50 retails for $3650 U.S.
The hifi men are back to entertain us with their witticisms and hifi grease.
Hifi grease? Ooh err missus!
Nice title reference for those of us of a certain age.
It was their Enid Blyton script that did it for me 😎
@@geoffadams590
" 'ere Miguel.... The Russians are coming, what should do?"
"Run like bloody f*ck" "
A1 vs Sugden A21?
Horses for courses. The two amps are very different in electrical design, sound AND price. About the only thing they share is that they are small wattage amps operating (mostly, in the A1 case) in Class A (though the Sugden is single ended and the MF is push-pull) I agree such a comparison would be interesting though.
@@razisn Agreed. I had a Sugden A21 SE for a while, and it sounds very different to the MF A1. Would be fun to do a Class A bake-off. I'll make enquires...
@playbackvintagehifihunter9669 The Sugden is/was much more clinical sounding - very clean and delicate, with a glass-clear midband. The MF sounds more like a classic valve amp, much sweeter and more sugary. It's obviously a lot more coloured but is still pretty open and lacks all the grey mush of your average Class AB solid-state design. The bigger MF Class As move a bit more towards the Sugden sound - I thought the AMS35i was an excellent mix of both styles.
@playbackvintagehifihunter9669 It depends how big your room is, what type of music you like and how loud you normally listen at. Certainly at low to medium volumes they sound lovely together on light classical or vocal, but there is no power to push out rock or electronic dance at higher volumes. That is, of course, why Musical Fidelity made the A100 - which has twice the power of the A1!
Blue LED on the Nait? Really, what is the point. Blue LEDs are always too bright and why not green?
Exactly! 👍
Or red!!
Mike
Excellent video fellas with one obvious Q. Why would the new owner of Musical Fidelity and the Ls35a speakers put demo them together, given their incompatibly? It seems like a very silly way to demonstrate both products
Absolutely right. He demo'd them together simply because they are new MF products, rather than because they're a synergistic pair (they're not).
Nor were they commonly used back in the 1980s when the original A1 came out - the LS3/5a was very much out of fashion back then.
Still, I think we can forgive Heinz this. It's still a great thing to see these new products from his 'new' brand.
They are not incompatible, regardless of what our hosts are saying. Neither is meant to fill a large room full of people. If you buy either for this purpose you will make a bad buying decision. Near filed listening, small room, medium levels is what they shine in. In this context they are not incompatible. The speakers might be insensitive but they are a very benign 15 Ohm nominal load which makes them not current hungry. Of course the amp can fill a large room driving big horns but that, in my view, is a niche use for it. All its goodness will be lost with approachably priced horns and who would pair a 1600 euro amp with upper 5 or 6 figure horn speakers?
@@razisn I wasn't saying there are incompatible, I was saying that the pairing in the dem room was sub-optimal. It simply did not sound good and I was in the front row, hearing it with my own ears.
I've explained why - the amp was working right at the top of its volume envelope. It needed more efficient speakers in that large room full of people. It was a lack of watts that was the problem in this case, although I still think current drive is a good thing for any amp connected to LS3/5as, whatever their nominal impedance may be. Same goes for any infinite baffle speaker, in my experience.
@@MrVinylista As I said, those speakers were not designed for that environment.
@@razisn Then we are in complete agreement!
Can the A1 handle 4 ohm high sensitive speakers
David’s looking sharp…..Mike needs to up his game 😎
David was swanning off to a Marillion style garden party after our riff.
I had just finished a round of golf
Check us out!
Mike
😂 👍🏻
super cool
The Wilson Benesch is cheap..OMA £350k and the massive Techdas Air Force Zero 450K you guys have no idea how crazy this gets!!!
I can assure you that we do!
PS. RIP Una😥
Una stubbs lives on in our imagination!
Robert Gough Google has offered to translate your comment into English...! 🤣
@@bigblueocean Filth!
Is the MF LS3/5a really an LS3/5a if it doesn’t use Kef B110 & T27? As far as I know they’re not sourcing the drivers from Falcon, with Falcon currently the only source of these drivers, surely a speaker built with any other drivers is just a small LS3/5a’alike bookshelf speaker?
@@tomeasterbrook9486 I think MF is sourcing the speakers from Rogers.
I would get the SME if I was ballin. Kinda what if NASA built a turntable . That Benesch looks like a bunch of the money was spent on flashy design. If not the SME , then Technics top model.
A bit disappointed in you guys. The floggle toggle on the flim flam flob on that bus points to it being a ''young ones'' routemaster and not actually the original '' cliff' one. I expect you were in a rush? I too have a Nait 1, originally paired with the aptly naimed Kanns, replaced them with metal enclosure Alexanders.
Oh my god, a 'bus botherer' with a Nait 1! Am beginning to think we'd better put a stop to Hi-Fi Riff before it all gets out of hand! 😉
@@MrVinylista 😀😀😀😀
@@MrVinylista Just because you have a Musical Fidelity amp, the precursor to The George Foreman Grill, don't you be having a go at me!
@@owenoneill5955 why have two appliances when one can do two jobs!
Mike
@@mikeyevs Very true, My Kanns made excellent coffee table legs.
China is making excellent mf clones with top quality bits and bobs!. All out of patents before the knicker twisters start!
The Nait 50 is extremely over priced. Really sad. Why not produce a lot more of them and sell to a fair price?
No, it’s not £2500. It’s more like £3000. One more complaint - blue LED.. Hideous!
What makes you think it’s overpriced? Is it not comparable in SQ to others at the price?
@@andreasgraube4376 It’s a white LED but it’s far too bright
why anyone would buy a class A amp in the age of Hypex and Purifi is laughable
Have you ever compared the sound of a good Class A amp with a good Class D? Therein lies your answer...
@@MrVinylista yes I have, and I sold the Line Magnetic 845 Class A amp as the Purifi bettered it in every way
The great thing about this hobby is that everyone has different tastes and there is room enough for all. Enough different gear to cater to all audiophiles. To tell people that it's "laughable" if they prefer Class A is just rude.
@@sparkplug5392 Okay, each to their own!