sprensenbuhl

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 1.00 votes

Price Paid:  $0.00 from vienna,austria

Summary:
I own a set of micromega minium tuner,cd and amp they look minimalistic, sound is smooth and detailed. I`d say they`re not for rock or disco fanatics but more jazz listeners to get a bit of bass I connected it to my AE 150 subwoofer together with my B&W 601 or Bang & Olufsen CX 50 bookshelf speakers, I use audioquest connectors and van del hul speaker cables

Strengths:
detailed and smooth sound, minimalistic design

Weaknesses:
not for rockers or disco fanatics as it is not capable to shake the house

Similar Products Used:
cambridge audio cd6 & cambridge audio A3 amp, musical fidelity E24 cd & E11 Amp

Price Paid:  $267.00 from sec. hand

Summary:
Goog overal cd player, almost perfect for budgeted systems.

Strengths:
Nice balance, clean sounding.

Weaknesses:
Lacks scene of sound. Comparing with hi-end players sharpness in "SS" may be felt. Rather soft compering with other hi-fi CDs but still rather sharp for a system of higher level.

Similar Products Used:
Cambridge Audio, Technics.

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
The Minium Amp was my first truly hi-fi amp. It was very low-noise, and extremely high-resolution. Frequency response was extremely well balanced, and it had an absolutely gorgeous sounding phono stage. There was certainly no lack of inputs, and I really liked the appearance of the unit. That being said, mine totally died after 10 months. All of the sudden, the left channel died, and about two weeks later, the right channel died. This was due to some part of the power amp protection circuit failing, causing the power ICs to blow. I had an electrical engineer replace the ICs with identical ones (they're quite hard to get, made by Philips). Those blew immediately. It was then good for nothing except as a headphone amp. Also, this amp always ran very hot. And it's not due to bad electrical at my house - I had it on an Adcom AC filter. It was a nice amp while it lasted, but it didn't last long. When it failed, the importer had stopped importing them, and I was told I'd have to send it to Canada to get fixed, and that it wouldn't be under warranty at that point. After moving to St. Louis, I got to meet and talk to the former importers. They said that they stopped importing Micromega because of reliability issues - that they were lucky to get one in ten units that worked properly on arrival, and that they were having to send more than half of them back to France as soon as they got them. They were surprised that my unit lasted 10 months. Apparently at the time, that was an above-average life-span for a Micromega amp. Too bad. It looked good, and sounded better. I'd really like to have it now. Because of this experience, I'll never touch another Micromega product.

Strengths:
Sound quality, very good MM phono stage, good headphone output, nice power transformer, pretty design.

Weaknesses:
Very poor reliability, high failure rate, runs hot, impossible to use as a preamp without using the headphone jack, strangely engineered enclosure.

Similar Products Used:
Arcam Alpha 8 amp, Arcam DiVA amps, Naim Nait 3

Price Paid:  $350.00 from Hifisenteret in Oslo

Summary:
This is a full frequense amplifire which is a uppgraded version of the micromega minium amp.2. The new version adds power and bite kompared with the older version.
It has a very fine base sometimes produsing a full bodied eksperiens. Soundpicture is breathtaking good fokused.
I use Nordost flatline blue heaven as interconnects and the solar wind speakercable from the same company. This is nessesary to make the ballanse correct to my speakers.
Other cables can take away some of the dynamics.
This amp. doesn t like to heavy speaker loads. It is a 50 watt pr. channel and doesn`t bring u at stadium levels.
But it is able to take you to the heart of the music.
F.eks Maryah Carrey musik boks album sounds involving. Classical music runs nisely trough the speakers. The tredemensional picture could of course be deaper but that isn`t interesting when melodies and harmony is more important. It`s hard to beat at this prise when we are talking about musicality.

Cd players used in the test:
Micromega cd 2
YBA cd spesial
Marants 53 mkII

Speakers
Audiovector c2
Cellestion 6

Cables:
Flatline nordost cables

Strengths:
Musical detailed and upfront sound. Superaudio ready.

Weaknesses:
There are more powerfull amps. at this prise.

Similar Products Used:
Micromega amp 2

Price Paid:  $695.00 from Bay Bloor Radio, Toronto

Summary:
FIRST, to the moron who's got nothing better to do than waste my precious reading time mixing cultural issues as they relate to audio: Bugger off.
NOW, on to the CD player. When I bought this unit, I had no interest in the 'overall' package offered by MicroMega, but hats off to them for allowing the system to be broken up. The CD player captured my heart as soon as I got it home and put the first CD, Cesaria Evora's Cabo Verde, into it. There is a synergy between highs and lows that makes it great for all types of music. I've loved the simplistic design of it since I first layed eyes on it. I am presently using it with a Cyrus II/PSX amp and Mission 751s, although it is still wonderful on lesser systems (originally I had it mated to the Missions and a Yamaha RX-V890). Speaker cable is van den Hull. Interconnect - can't remember. ANYWAYS folks, if you are hovering around the $700 mark and are considering the Marantz 63SE (I also have one of these) GO WITH THE MICROMEGA.

Strengths:
Minimalist design, solid transport (despite being a light-weight)and CLARITY the likes of which I've never heard in its $ range.

Weaknesses:
CD tray went a little wonky on me and had to be tightened at the three year mark.

Similar Products Used:
Marantz 63SE