A few facts about the Audio Note Meishu:

The Meishu is an expensive Amp. Particularly when you intend to buy new equipment. Meishu amps with a phono board are very scarce on the second-hand market.
Tube replacement is quite expensive, especially when you are looking for good and reliable tubes.
Indeed, a Meishu is not the easiest part to get serviced. You will not get this machine serviced or upgraded for a small amount of money. Aside of the financial aspect, I wouldn't bring a Meishu to every high-end shop for a service or an upgrade.
A meishu sounds 'miserable' in a system which doesn't suit this amp. Before buying this amp you should consider very, very carefully which loudspeaker you connect on it's terminals. Forget about connecting loudspeakers which are less sensible than 94 dB. And once you have heard how beautiful this amp performs on a 98dB or even better a 104dB loudspeaker, you will understand my statement that a 94dB loudspeaker in fact is too less sensitive to achieve an optimal performance.

So why is it still worth buying such an expensive and in a way 'delicate' amplifier? To give you a simple answer to this question. Make an appointment with an Audio Note specialist store or visit a Meishu owner which is capable to demonstrate this amp in a suitable musical environment (this is very, very important!). After ten minutes of listening you will understand what is meant by the difference between 'listening to high-end' and 'listening to music'.
When you succeed to find a loudspeaker which matches to this amp in an optimal way, you will notice that you start listening to music in another way.
To make it short: this amp manages in an extremely good way to emphasise on the musical aspects of a piece of music. This amp also manages to distract you from the so called 'technical-way of listening to music'.
Like every musical device (regardless of it's price), also a Meishu has it's minor sonic weaknesses. However with careful matching you should be able to reach a level of music performance that leaves almost nothing to be desired.

Note: my Meishu Phono resides at the moment in the
Netherlands for an extensive upgrade. More about this
upgrade and improved sonic performance in future
(around June 2010).

My current high-end systems contains:

cd-transport: T+A cd3000ac
da-converter: Audio Note DAC3
pre-amp: Thorens Restek V3
power-amp: Audio Innovations series 800 (25W/EL34 tubes)
integrated-amp: Audio Note Meishu phono (8W/300B Single
Ended tubes)
record player: Technics direct drive /Linn K5
tuner: Revox B261
loudspeaker: Audio Note AN-E

Sound, musicality, bass, mid, and high in the right proporsions.

Design of the black box

I saw the first 2 reviews on the Meishu ( which I own now for more than 3 years )
and coudn't understand why they where so unstatisfied, tll I saw what they are using for speakers, less than 93 db!!!
Advise : use 8 ohm > 97 db for example Klipsch RF 5 or RF 7 and all your troubles are gone, you won't believe your ears.

Musical presentation, harmonic textures and great dynamics.

Proper speaker matching mandatory

I love this hobby!

Particulary after reading the bad reviews on the Meishu.. there are a lot of people out there with some very different tastes...pppfff.. anyway.. here are my two cents:

I have owned more than 15 amps in 20 years - from very powerfull SS designs (Gryphon, Rowland, Levinson, Metaxas, Pass, etc..), powerfull Tubed designs (CJ, VTL, Manley, Jadis) and SET (Wavelenght, Cary) ' I must stress the word OWNED, not heard on a friends place or at a dealer shop as some other rely to be so brave to comment.

Bottom Line first: The Meishu is one of the best sounding amps I have had, actually used with AG UNO speakers they just sing!, right tonality, excelent musical textures and great articulation and dynamics - of course there is the need to proper speaker matching (as all amps do) - and try not to push it at insane levels of volume.

Are there better options out there? - most probable, is this one of the best p/p ratio options in audio? absoloutly!

Customer Service

not used yet

Similar Products Used:

read above

midrange clarity plenty of power for the right speakers.ps very musical compared to other amps I have listend to and owned.

nil

I found the Meishu to be the best sounding amp purchase I have owned, this powers my Tannoy Westminster speakers and after trying a number of other amps including Audio reserch and Krell, I found that the Meishu was the most musical of them all.

Similar Products Used:

Cary 300b se amp, Audio Reaserch classic 30, Krell 300i

it's integrated; it has tube rectification; it's great.

not the easiest unit to get serviced. also no matter what people say, choose speakers carefully. people who say 300B amps can work with 90db efficient speakers have never heard dynamics

I just happened to be passing through this site when I saw these two reviews of a product I know extremely well. Both border on the ridiculous. First, the manufacturer's price is all wrong. It costs way over 7,000USD new, not 2,900. And it is also worth every penny of it -- especially if you know what you are doing around an amp. First order of business is to get good tubes in the amp. Spend some time doing research and more time investigating. the sound with different combinations. Second, get speakers that appropriate. Don't listen to the hype about how many speakers can be used successfully with 300B amps. You need a speaker with efficiency above 96-97. I use speakers with 103db efficiency. If you use common sense on speakers and good judgment with tubes, you will be rewarded with one of the great sounds going. People who know the Meishu know that and I am writing this only because the two other reviews on this site are way off. I use the Oris 200 speakers, and first rate tubes. I get excellent bass and remarkable midrange and high end. The phono stage with Clear tops is excellent and the line stage is supberb. This is a magical piece, but you do have to know what you have

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everything

Very clean sound, excellent with vocals and folk music.

Not good with rock. Bass is weak even with sensitive speakers. I used Meishu with Tannoy D700 (93db sensivity).
Expensive.

Nice amplifier with very good phono section for small-scale classical music, vocal and jazz. Try before you buy is a must. Fully breaks in in 100-200 hours. Upgrade to Western Digital 300B tubes is a very good idea.

Upper midrange.

Everything else.

I have had considerable experience with this amplifier while working the odd Saturday at a dealer's run by some friends. The first problem we noticed was a sense of thickening and congestion in the lower midrange. Many different speakers were tried (within the constraints imposed by its lack of load tolerance), most of them Audio Note's own models. This alleviated the problem, albeit only slightly. Different stands, interconnect and speaker cables were also tried, with similar results. We were assured that the amp was fully run in and the sound stayed the same after several weeks of continual usage. It displays all the usual 300B traits - rolled off frequency extremes; lack of transient control (especially in the bass); and weak portrayal of timing. Rhythm sections sound as if they are struggling to keep up with everyone else, and as for large-scale symphonic works, forget it ! It has that euphonic softening which creates the 'nice' sound which many listeners prefer, but to my ears it falls short of achieving the goal of true high fidelity. Reliability is also an issue here. The volume pot is noisy; there is signal breakthrough on all the inputs (i.e. you can hear a CD playing when the input is set to another source); the input selector itself broke twice (where the shaft connects to the rear panel) and one of the valve seats had to be replaced after it 'melted'. Things such as this are inexcusable in a product at this price point - if it were a £400 Arcam then fair enough, but this is a £2000+ amp. On the plus side, build quality on the outside is very good, close to being first-rate. Those who get off on physical weight and size will love the Meishu; those who value getting the best transparency and reliability for the money may well be disappointed. You have been warned.
1 star for external build quality; 1 for excellent room-warming capabilities.

Similar Products Used:

Audio Note OTO SE; Audio Note Conquest Monoblocks.