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Two more REVIEWS for the ModWright KWI-200 Integrated Amplifier
This first one from Poland (translated by 6moons):
6moons audio reviews: ModWright KWI200 The next one is from Positive Feedback Online - an interesting review in the context of a more budget system: modwright kwi200 I've heard this integrated amp a few times now, most recently at RMAF, and I'm not surprised that this unit continues to receive well-deserved accolades! Very happy for Dan and the ModWright team! :thumbsup: |
I've been doing research on this amp and it sounds like a terrific choice for my living room system. A computer, the ModWright, and my trusty Guarneri Mementos...perhaps a stellar, yet simple system.
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Congratulations Kevin!
I can not wait to read your opinion. :music: Looks like a great integrated. |
Kevin - I have no doubt you will be very impressed! The KWI-200 is a terrific integrated amp - I look forward to your impressions! :banana:
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I trialled a KWI-200 in my home for a fortnight, and with 3 different sets of speakers. With each of them it was by far the worst amplifier I've ever heard.
My experience was that the bass was loose and completely lacked control, and worse still the music just sounded compressed. It was as though I was playing MP3s. It was shocking for the price. Apologies if this goes against what is commonly posted here and in reviews, but I feel it's important that people hear all sides. I urge anyone considering this amp to please audition first. I've heard a few reviews elude slightly to the bass issue, but no one has been brave enough to say to what extent. If this is your budget, do yourself a favour and look at the Plinius Hautonga, Bladelius Tyr, Moon 340i or Esoteric I-05. |
This is very interesting feedback, and extremely contrary to my experience. There is nothing wrong with having different opinions, but to say "by far the worst amplifier I have ever heard" is a very strong statement. I have heard this integrated multiple times, and I would describe it as being just the opposite - bass in particular was strong and dynamic, and not that far off from the dedicated KWA-150SE amps. I am not going to flat out say you are wrong, but perhaps you had a bad unit or something else was going on that negatively impacted your system synergy.
Kevin should have his unit soon - I am excited for him and I look forward to his report. |
Well.... I think the review is very valuable. I have listened to some pretty expensive integrated units in the last several months (not the ModWright yet, but may have that opportunity next week here in PDX), and many have fallen flat, compared even to my little NAD. However, I agree that there are so many variables that it can be a tough row to hoe getting a unit to perform correctly.
I'd have to say that I'd give the benefit of the doubt to ModWright, given their track record of very good products, but a user's experience and review is very valuable and, at the very least, should lead to more inquiry. |
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Looking forward to your thoughts, Kevin.
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Please do report your initial impressions, but do be aware that the MWI custom capacitors in their units do require A LOT of break-in time. That is partially the reason I have not written more about the LS100 I am evaluating - the sound has taken quite a while longer than I was expecting to finally settle into place. Now that I am finally there, I will simply say that it is a keeper, and I love what I am hearing! I hope you end up feeling the same way about the KWI-200... |
I sincerely hope you're right JJ, perhaps it had a fault? I realise that was a strong statement, but I've literally had dozens of amps in my system over the fast couple of years and I can honestly say it was the worst. Not only the worst, but the only one which I literally couldn't listen to it. Ie I wasn't enjoying listening to music, which is crazy talk!
But I read nothing but positive reviews on this amp and the brand, so perhaps something fishy was going on. 4N6 I hope yours works in your system. |
Got the KWI-200 this afternoon. Yea! Immediately hooked it up to my Guarneri mementos and the Cambridge Audio 840 CDP (my computer source isn't ready yet). I put in Norah Jones and hit play.
For cold, right out of the box and completely not broken in...the sound was tremendous. Vocals were already warm and rich, and the bass was tight and tuneful. I will restrain from getting too analytic at this point as it is brand new, but first impressions are very good. That is the good part. I will say that the amp is physically noisy. Not really a transformer hum, but definitely some mechanical noise. The noise is from the amp itself, not what is coming out of the speakers. Not sure if this will resolve in time, or if I may need to send it back. I'll give it some time and we'll see. One thing though, when the music is playing, I cannot hear the noise, so it is not THAT big of a deal. All-in-all though, I am VERY happy with the amp thus far. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next few weeks bring. |
Glad to hear it Kevin - starting to consider that I had a lemon because with Maggies you would have picked up any signs of the negatives I experienced. Nice one!
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I recommend contacting ModWright directly and speaking with Dan about the physical noise from the amp. I have no doubt he will make sure you are taken care of! |
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I too very recently bought this amp and for a couple of weeks have run music through it 24 hours to burn it in. I have to say the sound has changed and more focused with accurate base. My previous 2 amps were the Cary Audio solid state 7.125 & 200.2. Actually I have the the Cary SA-200.2 with me to compare it with the KWI 200 and I have to say both are very good. My previous Integrated was the Pass Labs INT-150 which I did not like very much at all, maybe system synergy!! I am not sure why Good Times had such a bad experience. Last year at the Toronto Audio show I was there for all 3 days, the Joseph Audio room had the pulsars hooked up to the KWI 200 and collectively every one agreed it was one of the best sound at the show! The funny thing was that room the set up was terrible layout wise and they had mid level cables connected with run of the mill power conditioner, yet the sound was so good, go figure. And here we are spending thousands of dollars on cables, power conditioner, racks etc. Though I think the rack they had was very expensive! |
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Thanks for your comments regarding the KWI200! Tell us more about your system... |
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I have a very modest system for now: ModWright KWI 200 Amp PS Audio PWD DAC MKII with bridge Pioneer Elite SC-68 AV receiver for HT Anthony Gallo Reference Strada with TR3 sub Mix and match of different power cords and cables No Blu Ray player used to have the Oppo BDP-95 before not sure what to get as I don't need an expensive one for analog sound, I have the PS Audio DAC for that. I Pull my music through the bridge connected to my NAS, mostly FLAC files. My previous set up was Cary Cinema 12 with Cary 7.125 7 channel power amp, same PS Audio DAC |
Some more follow-up with my new integrated...
Hooked up a laptop running JRiver and using music files stored on my NAS. Now it is just the computer, amp, and speakers, making for a very simple system. The sound is almost exactly what has been written about in the published reviews. A warm, rich, tube-like midrange and treble, coupled with tight and tuneful bass. Terrific sound coming from mt Sonus Fabers. I am very happy with the amp so far. Just for comparison, I used to have these speakers powered by the McIntosh MA7000 integrated amp. To my ears, the ModWright sounds better, with smoother treble and richer mids. The transformer hum has gone down in volume and is barely noticeable unless you are very close to the amp. I certainly cannot hear it from the listening position. I wonder if by using a PS Audio Powerplant that regenerates the power, the hum would go down even further? Who knows with transformer hums. Bottom line is that it does NOT interfere with the experience at all. BTW...I bought the amp from Galen Carol Audio in San Antonio. Perhaps the best experience in buying stereo equipment I have ever had. Absolutely terrific communication and very prompt service. BRAVO!!! :thumbsup: |
Glad to hear you are so pleased Kevin - I'd love to see a pic of your system sometime if you have a chance! Your main system is extremely nice also - it would be fun to have you try out the KWI200 with your Maggie's sometime to see what you think! :music:
I appreciate your comments about Galen Carol audio also - I've heard good things about them, and they are the supplier for the Sophia Electric tubes that Dan Wright recommends as upgrades in the LS100 and his tube modified Oppo and Sony digital sources. I have them in both of mine and they are a very nice upgrade! :yes: I'm betting you may have a considerable amount of break-in still to come - happy listening and let us know how things continue to evolve! :thumbsup: |
Kevin any other improvement or thoughts on the sound, how is your burning in going. I know another person who has the same amp, in fact I sold my Pass Labs INT-150 to him and he sold that and bought the KWI 200 much before I did, as I had a Cary Audio set up after the Pass Labs, sold that and then bought the KWI 200.
He said that the burn in process is long, very long but he is very happy with it and he is a strictly Vinyl guy. Both of us did not like the Pass Labs though! I also have a very little hum on my left channel, its quite less and the right channel has none, so I am thinking its not much botheration to change the Amp. Do you have any Hum Kevin. Oh I see that you have the same DAC as me PS Audio PWD Mk II. I think it competes with the top end, superb sound. Probably will never sell it! |
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My main troublesome issues are not with the amp, but with the JRiver software and Windows 8. When working , this is very convenient and sounds great. However, the JRiver software keeps freezing up or simply not booting up. I have to constantly reboot my computer to get it going again. Perhaps it is not yet fully compatible with Windows 8? I am running the latest and greatest software so I don't need to update. I did download yesterday E-Lyric Music Manager and it seems to work fine. The user interface is nowhere close to as nice as JRiver, but it was working. We'll see if it KEEPS working... Yes, in a different system I am using the PS Audio PWD Mk. II. I also love the sound, especially in DirectX mode. Bang for the buck, I would be hard pressed to find a better DAC. |
I've had trouble with JRiver as well, but not freezing up. And not with Win8. Mine had to do with no sound coming forth, even though it said it was playing. This was after a recent s/w update with Win7. I updated again and all was fine, so I doubt it was JRiver's problem. I do hope they get the Win8 problem fixed for you so you can concentrate instead on the 200. I should be able to hear one this Thursday.
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I've a date on Thursday with a KWI200 demo, followed by a Mc 6600, Bryston, then Naim. All integrateds. This should narrow things down a bit, or make me totally corn-fused.
Still trying to decide on the music to cart along. Suggestions welcome. |
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Currently happening.......
Oh, my! |
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Attachment 24349 It is now home for two days of listening. At Echo it was very noisy and distracting given an inrush of folks, so I just took it home. First impression is wide and deep stage. Revealing. But, that's all until I get it hooked up. |
Warning! This is a bit of a ramble.......
First of all, my thanks to the generous folk at Echo Audio in Portland, OR. Nice people; know their stuff; and believe in helping you get to the sound you want, which is all you can ask, really. They seem to be doing all right, selling used and new equipment both online and in a very tasteful brick and mortar shop downtown. Hard to do these days, but they look like they are doing well. I had sent them an email saying I’d like to check out the KWI200, and when I got there it was all powered up, ready and waiting. The problem came a few minutes after we got it cranking out some gorgeous tunes. It seemed everyone in the entire metro area wanted to have a listen, so in they came, talking, standing between me and the speakers, and so on. There was nothing to do but take the unit home, which is exactly what I did. In situ auditioning is really the only way to go. Now to my review of the ModWright KWI200 integrated amplifier. Let’s start by saying it “blew away” my little NAD 356BEE integrated. It’d better! The price differential (let alone weight) is a factor of six. Did it beat the little guy six times over? A resounding NO. It did take my little Dynaudio Focus 140s to the limits of their abilities, and that is probably the problem. If one is going to go from a very good sounding system, nicely matched in terms of each component’s level of competence, and move it forward by a dollar factor of six, then beware that something in that system might not allow the next upgrade to perform at its potential, and I think that’s what has happened here. The system I have is nothing if not modest. It consists of the aforementioned NAD 356BEE integrated I got used from Howard, a new REL T-5 via MasterLu, a new but now thoroughly broken in pair of Dynaudio Focus 140’s on Dyn stands. The music comes from my DIY Windows music server running JRIVER (with help from E and others), being sent to the amp via a HRT II DAC that PC sent my way (note lurkers how most of the equipment has been through AA from great people you can trust). All power chords and USB cables are stock, the interconnects are decent that I bought years ago and have forgotten their brand (emerald something), the speaker cables are left over from a SoundWorks installation in my old Lexington, MA. home. In short, there are many weak links in the system that can hold back the introduction of a stellar piece of equipment, such as the KWI200. However, my guess is that many here on the AA forum have such a setup, so hopefully this review will speak to you. Don’t get me wrong, the KWI200 took my little 140’s and made them sing. There were many surprises, like hearing clapping to the music in “The Weight” (The Band with The Staples Singers) that I had not known was there. I’m sure it was there, but it now was in my room, about two feet back and slightly to the right of center and exactly below the voice of the woman doing the rhythmic clapping. Not only was there clapping, but you could clearly hear the variations of the clap when her hands didn’t quite come together solidly. That never was there before. On “I’ll Never Be the Same” (Stan Getz with Jimmy Rowles), I swear Jimmy’s two-day-old whiskers touched the mike and I could see them. His voice has a timber that I had not known before. He bends notes ever so slightly and makes them slide down the chord to your ears. When Stan came on with his sax, I stood up and closed my eyes and wondered how much better this might be if I could get it in HD, because it was amazing as is. As some of you know, oboes have a special place in my musical heart, so I went next to Mozart’s Oboe Concerto in C Major K314 (Christopher Hogwood), and was not all that impressed. Oboes are tricky, since it depends a great deal on what sound the oboist is trying deliver, the type of oboe s/he is playing, the reed that day, and so on. In this case it sounded very thin, as did the violins. It reminded me of the DAC shootout a few weeks ago hosted by E. Like glass breaking. I was using the built in DAC of the 200 (costing more than 10 times my current DAC) at the time, so I switched back to the HRT II and problem solved. Now we have an oboe that floats right where it should and sounds as magical as an oboe should sound. Before leaving the store, I should have asked how many hours were on the DAC in the KWI200 (I suspect almost zero). I didn’t, but I believe the issue was just that, it had not yet been broken in. From that point on, the rest of my playing was with the HRT II. Full blown orchestral works are never going to shine with the little Dynaudio’s, but Beethoven’s 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 9th, came across better than before, especially passages that required punch. That’s what the KWI200 did much better than the NAD. It could deliver very controlled punch. Whether a kettle drum or bass solos, there was more weight and control, less mush, more definition. And it’s not all about punch either. It’s about how well an instrument can be reproduced with timbre accuracy. For example, the cello solo on “U Plavu Zoru” (Pink Martini’s Hang on Little Tomato album) made me do a double take. I love the cello almost as much as the oboe, and there is a quality that is tough for both speaker and amp to deliver about a cello, something having to do with the interaction of bass string and wood enclosure that makes my neck hairs stand on end when I hear it in live performance. My neck hairs stood up on that track, which led me to quickly go to Rostropovich and the Dvorak Cello Concerto. Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my. I had to turn it up. That was something. The sound stage was definitely deeper than before, and a bit wider, but not by much. My physical (speaker) setup is compromised, so the sound stage limitations could simply be a function of the room and how I have the speakers set. I did pull them out from the wall by another foot, which made a large difference in staging, as well as bass presentation. Even in their original position the staging did deepen and widen, for what that’s worth. Instruments did hold their position better, I must admit. I’ve always had difficulty understanding folks when they have referred to instruments or voices maintaining their place in space. I might now know better what that means. I could close my eyes and see Krall’s bassist, drummer, guitar player in space relative to her at the piano, and they would maintain their position throughout the piece and as I walked (carefully) around the room. That was cool and is directly a function of the KWI200. The NAD has been unable to be that precise. Does the combination of the KWI200 and my Dyns have or demonstrate good PRaT? I have no clue. All I know is that I couldn’t stop listening to a song once it was going. Several were played more than a couple of times because I was enjoying them so much. I got up and danced solo on more than one occasion. (Mel is visiting friends in Palm Springs, so solo dancing is all I had available, and her absence is the reason why the living room is now all torn apart for this audition. Such things require ROOM, don’t you know! As well as a good single malt. Yum.) So, yes, I guess. I’m hoping to bring home a Naim unit today or tomorrow, which has been said to have good PRaT with Dyns. I would suspect, given that my toes were a tapping, and I couldn't stop listening until way past 2:00 in the morning, that the KWI200 Dyn combo delivers good pace, rhythm and timing. Overall, I am very impressed with the KWI200, but that has to be tempered by the fact that I’ve not had such a level of equipment in my home before. I’ve heard much more expensive pieces in showrooms, but there are too many compromises in such environments and my memory cannot carry me from a session two months ago to one yesterday. It has to be a pretty close A/B comparison for me to understand the differences I’m hearing and what I like. Do I like it better than the NAD, well dah. Of course! Is it worth the six times price differential so that I’ll buy it? No, and only because I cannot justify putting it in the current mix of components. If I had a pair of Dynaudio Contour 3.4's or the C-1’s, maybe, because then it would be able to perform at what I think is its potential. I’m going to enjoy the KWI200 for the time I have it, but it won’t go in my system just yet. I know now that I want “better” speakers, and eventually a better amp. The question is how to progress to where I want to be, that place where you can sit down in your chair, call up a track or piece that you especially love, sink back into the leather, close your eyes and know that there certainly are systems out there that are a hair better at this or that, but you really don’t care because you have those neck hairs standing on end and you are loving every moment. That’s where something like the KWI200 can help, but I’m not convinced that the price/performance gap would give me that much over what I have now such that I’d feel good about sitting down in front of it. This is the part of this write-up that might speak for all those folks out there who have systems that are modest, such as mine. How does one move forward? How does one build what is essentially a system, but do so when you don’t really know how one component will perform with other components in the final configuration. Do you take the leap? If you have the resources and will, then no problem. You spend the money and begin to build around the unit. Many follow this path and thus the hobby. If the price/performance gap were less, I’d probably not search that much more and spring for the KWI200. I really like it, but I’m too conservative, too cautious. Time to bring other equipment in to see what can get me up the level of musical quality at a much lower p/p ratio. :music: In the meantime, I highly recommend you check out the KWI200. |
Thx for reporting Kevin. I think ModWright make fantastic equipment. Still miss my SWL 9.0SE !
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Keep on listening to different gear and discover what you like & don't like. Don't forget the value of the used market. Find a price to performance ratio that you can accept & enjoy. Suggest a used KWA100 SE amp. Should be in the 2k to 2.5k range. Most of all, have fun!. |
John - I'm headed out for the evening in a few minutes, but wanted to write a quick post and say thanks for your review and sharing your impressions. The only piece that surprised me was the performance of the modular internal DAC in the unit. When I heard it at the ModWright facility it sounded just as good if not BETTER than the tube modified Oppo 95 that I now own. As you mentioned, it definitely had to have not been broken in or something else happening there...
I have a few additional thoughts that I will write later, but I greatly appreciate your thoughts and contribution to this thread. Quote:
Absolutely do listen to some other gear to compare and determine what you like. If you determine you like the MWI gear, his idea of doing a gently used KWA100SE if you are wanting to eventually do separates makes a lot of sense also, and you could potentially add a LS100 later and be ahead of the KWI200 in terms of sound quality while spreading out your funds. Please keep us posted as you move forward! :thumbsup: |
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