Just picked up an ex demo bargain (£280) and received this afternoon. Left it for a couple of hours to warm up to room temp from TNT van temp; powered it up and connected line in straight from the DM+ RCA line outs. First impressions are somewhat staggering. I was hoping for a subtle improvement, although I suspected that the DM+ headphone amp isn't class leading, it's far from bad. The MF on the other hand is stunning, the differences are much greater than I expected. Tonally it's similar, but the level of detail is much higher, so separation of instruments, space and soundstaging are so much more defined and easy to follow. This is a much bigger change sonically than any DAC I've tried in my system, by some margin to benchmark it.
Musical Fidelity M1 HPA Headphone amp
- Thread starter SteveR750
- Start date
El Hefe
Well-known member
Congrats Steve on your purchase. I used the HPA for a good 3 years. And with 2 headphones output, me and the Mrs can enjoy the late night music together.
El Hefe said:
I think you helped me to plump for this amp about 3 year ago, so thank you. I love it. You know when you have a piece of kit that you love that much you consider buying a spare incase it gives up and you never get anything like it again ;-)
El Hefe
Well-known member
I'm about to audition a hegel H160, which has a built in h/phone amp. Dedicated, not an afterthought, and if its as good as the reviewers mention, I'll have a spare HPA available.
SteveR750 said:
It was a sort of tongue in cheek comment. Buying a spare would be a little obsessive ;-)
Surprised you are considering getting rid if you love it. Will be interesting to hear your findings on using the Hegel with headphones
I do think its great, but if the in built amp is as good, then I have no need for extra boxes. One of the attractions of the Hegel option is that it replaces 3 boxes with one.
A good headphone amp is a MUST if you have a set or two of excellent headphones. I have a DAC with a headphone socket, but it cannot compete against the pure excitement of listening the my recently bought Beresford Capella headphone amp. I even find myself listening a lot more to my headphones these days now that I got this new amp. I can even swear that the headphones sound a lot better "burnt in" from the high current and voltage output from the Capella.
SteveR750 said:
Is the Hegel Amp with DAC? (and headphone amp). Really keen on auditioning Hegel gear, especially the HD12.
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