Mission Cyrus Two article.

[chebby]

In ‘features’ ...

https://www.whathifi.com/features/was-then-mission-cyrus-two

I recall one or two of you still use this amp.

 

[MajorFubar]

Nice read. Interesting how they call it a budget amp. I remember £300 not feeling particularly budget in 1984, and by the time you'd partnered it with its matching £200 PSX power supply, it was £500's worth. That's about £1,500 in today's money.

 

[mond]

Good read, thanks. I always enjoy reading about old kit

 

[MajorFubar]

Clearing out some old 1980's hifi and classic car magazines over the weekend, I found a copy of the HiFi News & Record Review magazine which first brought my attention to the demunitive Cyrus 2.

It was a paragraph about the new breed of integrateds that basically dispense with the traditional pre-amp stage (other than the phono stage obv) and build the whole thing round a high-gain power amp linked to the RCA inputs via a source selector and a volume pot, nothing inbetween. Consequently the signal path is about as straight and pure as can be feasibly managed. That's sort of common now, seeing as digital sources mostly fire out 2V+ so you don't need a pre-amplifier, but back then, when line-level meant 400mV tape decks and tuners, it was virtually a paradigm shift.

Cyrus 2 was commended as a notable example of the breed, apparently it being so good that legendary reviewer Ken Kessler kept a 'couple in his drawer' as spares in case his £10k mono-blocs gave up.

 

[tonky]

Exceptionally clear sound in the right setting. To my ears, deep bass was filtered out. The upshot of this 'thinner' more articulate bass was that it could control boomier loudspeakers.

I found mid and upper frequencies 'hard ' sounding. With matching speakers it could sound v good. Speakers with a lifted treble and damped bass could sound bass light and too hard to listen to over a period of time.

In the end I much preferred the sound of the pioneer A400. A much more balanced and articulate sound (inmho)

cheers tonky