MUSICAL FIDELITY NU-VISTA 800.2 INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER REVIEW

Musical Fidelity release the latest iteration of their much loved Nu-Vista powerhouse integrated amplifier in the guise of the Nu-Vista 800.2. Janine Elliot takes a listen to the latest integrated amplifier for HiFi PiG.

Musical Fidelity is a company I have followed ever since my youth and then in adulthood when I worked in a HiFi shop selling them. I particularly liked the original 1984 A1 amplifier, which has now just been resurrected in its slightly larger Mkii guise. I owned the P150 power-amp design many years ago and which still sits in my own audio museum.

Professional musician Antony Michaelson began Musical Fidelity in 1982 with the ‘Preamp’ (My first proper preamplifier – Ed) followed by a power-amp. Their first high-end power-amp was in 1986 with the A370, and which got me hooked on keeping up with the company. The following year saw the world’s first high-end DAC, the Digilog.

In 1997 the distinctive oval-shaped Nu Vista preamp was launched with the diminutive metallic Nuvistor valves hidden somewhere inside. It did amaze me and was the start of the important Nu Vista series that followed in the 21^st Century.

Big, bold, and not afraid to show it!

In 2009 the significant 1kW output Titan was launched, and was something an inspiration for the first Nu-Vista 80, which sparked off the introduction of the nuvistor valve some 16 years after the original Nu-Vista.

The original Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 800 of 2013 was always great, but over the years as some parts were no longer available to purchase it became necessary to start looking at the successor to this behemoth of an amplifier. Things that could no longer be available included the retro-looking display, so the new 800.2 has a redesigned front panel with a clearer display and new view options including the VU meters.

The hybrid 800.2 uses the Nuvista 6SN1N tubes coupled with SMD technology, it has a new rewound transformer, revised power supply circuitry and a new remote with on/standby controls. Owned by Studio Tuning, based in Austria, and run by Heinz Lichtenegger from Pro-ject Audio Systems, the Musical Fidelity products are designed in Britain and made in Taiwan. Along with the 800.2, Musical Fidelity has introduced the new Nu-Vista PAS stereo power-amp (£21,999), PAM mono power-amps (2x £20,499), and the PRE preamp (£20,499), plus a CD and phono stage introduced earlier. Indeed, MF has spent over €1m and 3 years designing an impressive series of audio components. As such this is an important product range.

NUVISTOR TUBES

Having the 800.2 based largely on the separate PRE and PAM/PAS, the nuvistor tubes of this hybrid integrated amplifier are found in the preamp section. Nuvistor tubes were invented in the 1950s to solve the many shortcomings of conventional tubes. Looking very unlike conventional glass-covered tubes with their metal shell, these are highly reliable, have low noise, and have low microphony. There is also a good deal of consistency between each batch meaning less degree of performance variation. They offer low power consumption and have great performance. They have appeared in the past in a number of products, for example the Ampex MR-70 professional reel-to-reel recorder, and the AKG (and Norelco) C12a and Neumann U47 microphones. The four triode 6S51N tubes placed in the 800.2 are easily recognizable as being really small and lit up by LEDs at the rear of the unit.

A look inside the Musical Fidelity NU-VISTA 800.2 Integrated amplifier

BUILD AND FEATURES OF THE MUSICAL FIDELITY 800.2 INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER

This is a very large product; though the two knobs are very large they make the product look deceptively small in photographs, with the unit measuring 483 x 187 x 510 mm. Yes, it’s deeper than it is wide, and when you add cabling you’ll need a very deep and substantial stand to put it on as it weighs in at 41kg.

This is a beautiful-looking amp coming in silver or black.

It is built like a tank, reminding me of OTT Krell monsters of yore, and designed to be the very last amplifier you’ll ever need, bearing in mind it took two of us to cart it into my listening area.

This is a dual-mono analogue integrated amplifier with no phono or digital inputs. Inputs include one XLR and 4 RCAs including switchable aux 1/HT (home theatre), aux 2, CD, and tuner. There is also a line-out and pre-out (volume controlled) and two sets of speaker terminals in case you bi-wire. In HT mode the volume control is unaffected so that the volume control on the home theatre processor can be deployed.

All sockets were of excellent quality (especially the MF speaker sockets) and well laid out. There is no master on/off control at the rear and the unit enters standby when plugged in. Turning on is when the fun starts.

Importantly, there is a lovely and matching remote control included with the Musical Fidelity 800.2 integrated amp

THE LIGHT SHOW

As soon as you press the standby button on the left of the unit the unit will light up red around the four valves and under the front of the unit. The LEDs under the front are a lovely feature, a bit like the light show you might see on the skirt of a 17-year-old boy racer’s first Vauxhall Corsa! After a few seconds, the valves turn orange meaning that they are useable but still warming up. After around 20 minutes the valves have reached full thermal equilibrium and turn blue, as does the underside of the unit. Now you can start to seriously listen.

The light show doesn’t end there. The two buttons at the far right select “lighting mode” and “display”. The former gives you seven permutations as to the lighting and the large central visual display; whether you want valve or base illumination or the central display to be visible or not. The “display” button gives you choices of brightness and theme of the central screen. You can have a black background and white/blue meters (which I liked), reverse with a white background, or just showing the source and volume control level. I loved the meters, though their reaction time to the music was a tad slow.

On the left is a very large source selector knob and on the right is the volume control. You need big hands! Turning up or down the volume control is not a simple 360 degree motion, rather it takes lots of turns to get up to around -16dB, my preferred listening level.

The unit comes with lots of accessories, including the lovely matching aluminium remote control, a choice of feet for placing the unit on (pads or spikes), and a pair of white gloves if you need to change the valves or simply don’t want to get your grubby paws on the unit. The remote allows you to power up the unit, mute the sound, change the display, and change the source and volume up/down.

Those knobs look deceptiviely small…they aren’t!

TECHNICAL INFO

Inspired by the Titan amp with a locally decoupled output stage, each output device is coupled to its own capacitor resulting in lower impedance and better performance. The high-current bulk supply capacitors sit next to the output transistors. This means that the latter get immediate access to stored energy with lower impedance and gives better transient response.

The 800.2 has an uprated power supply circuitry and premium transformers, having lower standing flux and improved noise characteristics.

The main supply capacitors are placed close to the rectifiers which reduces power impedance and therefore keeps hum down and away from the power amp circuitry.

The amp has Faraday cage shielding to keep EMIs out of the way, and of course, the sheer weight means there is less vibration affecting the performance.

The 800.2 delivers 330W into 8 ohm, 500W into 4Ω and a blistering 1000W into 2Ω. This dual mono amp will power any speaker you want to use.

A beauty from which ever angle you look at it

SOUND OF THE MUSICAL FIDELITY 800.2 AMPLIFIER

I must say I had great fun listening to this amplifier, choosing digital, vinyl, and reel-to-reel as my choice of sources.

Firstly, I played ‘A Swinging Safari’ (Billy Vaughn and his orchestra playing Bert Kaempfert songs). This reel-to-reel has an amazingly powerful bass end and top detail to match, and this amplifier performed it with plenty of grunt. “That Happy Feeling” certainly gave me plenty to smile about with this integrated. Everything was brilliantly controlled and detailed. This is a punchy but gentle-minded amplifier that really understands the music it plays.

The cymbals in ‘Blue Rondo’ from Dave Brubeck were precise and beautifully engineered, and similarly, the kick drum was excellently controlled from initial transient to final decay. I just wish the LED VU meters registered at the same time as the music. The saxophone just played in the room – not from the speakers. Indeed, in all the music I played the instrumentalists and vocalists were in the room positioned around the speakers, not emanating from them. Just as the Brubeck quartet gelled as a team, so the amplifier mixed the ingredients together to make for a meal of musical magnificence. This amp just got better the longer I played. 

As well as being a powerful performer this amp could be equally sympathetic to the quietest passages; for example, listening to the slow movement of Vaughan William’s 5^th symphony was beautifully controlled and highly musical.

Plenty of inas and outs but no phono

Classically Minded’ is a jazz album from the David Rees Williams Trio, playing some of my classical favourites of the past. The musicians played in my living room with great detail and intimacy. Bass was very extended from my LS5/9s and piano and drums were clearly positioned in the soundstage. Duke Ellington’s ‘Three Suites’ is also based on classical favourites and here with 18 movements, each one played with great detail and soundstage, including details behind and in front of the speakers.

Turning up the wick a bit I played “Repentance” from progressive metal band Dream Theatre. This starts with strong kick drum beats and a repeating guitar riff until the vocal melody finally begins. Top-frequency percussion was the clearest I have ever heard from this track and the kick drum was, like before, in the living room rather than emanating from the speakers. Only when the music got really excited did this amp not quite hit the “best amp of all time” award, though it was very close. It was brilliantly clear and detailed but just not quite coping with some of the vocals, but this is a track that is hard to get sounding just right.

Turning to something easier to enjoy – ‘Long Road out of Eden’ from the Eagles.  This is a brilliant vinyl album released in 2007. The Eastern theme of the title track was precise and detailed. Even the electric guitars sounded polite.

The inside of the Musical Fidelity NU-VISTA 800.2 Integrated amplifier is as beautiful as the outside

Turning to reel-to-reel again and Madeline Bell’s ‘Blessed with Your Love’, the amount of detail and reserves of power in the amplifier really came to fruit. Playing this from my Nagra IV SJ reel-to-reel was the best I have ever heard. “The Look of Love” had an amazing soundstage and details at the tops (such as the bell) and the extended bass were brilliantly captured. Madeline’s voice was clear and mellow and instruments were positioned precisely in the soundstage that I could almost touch them. If this were a sweet it would be a mixture of chocolate and hundreds and thousands sprinkled over the tops. Detail in the decays were also precise and extended, such as with kick drum and snare. Powerful drums in “Good Morning Freedom” showed off the power reserves in the 800.2. Electronic keyboard solos were precise and perfectly focussed.

This was no ordinary amp; just as the Titan wowed the audio press back in 2009 this new Nu-Vista should do so now. Its price tag of £10,999 was no obstacle for the amount of joy I was getting out of it. “Dreams” is a beautiful track by Frits Landesbergen and contains a beautiful piano melody with very little vocals in it. The clarity, detail, and timing were excellent, with a richness to the tone that almost matched Madeline’s vocals. It could be silky smooth yet with enormous transients when the time called for it. Nothing flummoxed it. Indeed, in Beethoven’s 9^th symphony (Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert Kegel, SACD) that power reserve was needed in droves. This performance was extremely powerful and tight. Instruments were placed perfectly in the soundstage, fast bowed strings played with verve and brass blew as powerfully as they could. The second movement has great depth of volume from the tight pp’s from the strings to the loudest ff’s from timpani.  I have an LP of Karajan rehearsing this work (celebrating 70 years of DG records) which enabled me to understand – though not easily as it was in German – the constituent parts of the last movement. With the 800.2 I was there in the midst of the instrumentalists picking out all the individual melodies and textures.

Heatsinks will be required!

It’s not often that I am so excited about a product, but I could have listened to this amplifier for weeks.

CONCLUSION

I spent many hours listening to the Nu-Vista 800.2 amp trying to find faults, but I just couldn’t. This was not only a mighty amplifier in terms of size and weight but it was also mighty in terms of performance.

The soundstage was epic, and the amount of reserve in those capacitors meant that no music was too much.

It performed well at all frequencies and with all types of music.

Apart from price, your only consideration should be whether you can lift it up and place it on a suitable stand.

I am awarding the Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 800.2 integrated amplifier the highest award I can and recommending it for Editor’s Choice consideration! 

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality:

Incredibly well put together and excellent choice of components, with a good central display screen

A good aluminium remote

Sound Quality:

Exceptional musical performer with excellent detail and transparency

Value For Money:

£10,999 might seem a lot of money, but it is only a quarter of the cost of the combined PRE (preamp) and PAS (power amp) from Musical Fidelity

We Loved:

Excellent soundstage

Transparency

Engaging sound

We Didn’t Love So Much:

Some might find it just a little too big

Elevator Pitch Review

When I was told the 800.2 weighed in at two-thirds my own weight I could only hope its performance was worth its weight in gold, and was mightily impressed by not only its build quality but also the electronics. With the Nu-Vista label back in force this is an exceptionally impressive machine coming with the cute little metal-encased nuvistor valves. Would this 41kg amp be as good as its weight? I wasn’t to be disappointed.

Price:

£10,999

Janine Elliot

SUPPLIED BY HENLEY AUDIO

Review Kit: Pre-Audio GL-1102N/Audio Technica AT33sa (turntable/cartridge); Manley Steelhead (phono stage); Krell KPS20i (CD); Ferrograph Logic 7 and Nagra iv-sj, (reel to reel); Astell and Kern SE180/iFi xDSD (DAP/streamer); Townshend Isolda and F1 cables.

Specifications

Output

• Power: 330 Watts per channel into 8 Ohms; 500 Watts into 4 ohms; 1000 Watts peak into 2 ohms

• Voltage: 52 Volts RMS, 20Hz to 20 kHz; onset of clipping; 147 Volts peak to peak

• Current: 120 Amps peak to peak

• Damping factor: 200

• Output devices: 5 pairs per channel

Line input

• THD+N: < 0.005 % typical, 20Hz to 20 kHz

• SNR: > 107dB ‘A’-weighted

• Input impedance: 40 k Ohms

• Frequency response: +0, –0.1dB, 10Hz to 30 kHz

Connections

• Line level inputs: 4 pairs line level RCA  connectors; 1 pair line level balanced XLR connectors

• Line level outputs: 1 pair line level RCA connectors, constant level LINE outputs; 1 pair line level RCA connectors, PREAMP

• Speaker outputs: 2 pairs 4mm banana plug/binding posts

Power requirement

• Mains voltages: 115/230VAC 50/60Hz (factory pre-set); 100VAC 50/60Hz (alternative)

• Consumption: <0.5W in standby mode (orange LED lit); 130W on and idle (blue LED lit); 900 Watts maximum

General Information

• Dimensions (WxHxD): 483 x 187 x 510 mm

• Weight: 41 kg net