Review of Conrad Johnson MF2550 Power Amp

[Vhiner]

Forgive the shameless plug, but this might be of interest:

http://www.theaudiobeat.com/equipmen...n_mf2550se.htm

[audio bill]

Originally Posted by Vhiner

Forgive the shameless plug, but this might be of interest:

Conrad-Johnson MF-2550 SE Stereo Amplifier - The Audio Beat - www.TheAudioBeat.com

Vance, very nice job on this review. It is well written with a balanced perspective, which is not easy to achieve once our emotions take over. Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing your listening experience!

[bgiliberti]

Originally Posted by Vhiner

Forgive the shameless plug, but this might be of interest:Conrad-Johnson MF-2550 SE Stereo Amplifier - The Audio Beat - www.TheAudioBeat.com

Thank you for the thoughtful review. For me, the money quote was "The MF-2550 SE’s transparency had me paying far more attention to individual leaves on the trees instead of what was going on in the rest of the forest." That is precisely why I opted for the non-SE version -- the SE, with all that Teflon, struck me as "detailed" to the point of distraction. Impressive, but not "musical," to use the cliche. Many would I am sure disagree with this, but for me, it was not about money, but what I liked the listening experience to be. However, I have Teflon caps in my CJ preamp (Classic SE), and that gets me the amazing detail that Teflon delivers, without the need for doubling down on the amp. It does not appear that you listened to the standard model. I think you might have liked it better than the SE, given your comments. RE the 350, which I have only heard a few times, it's a great amp, which seems to do everything well. However, the sound is clearly shaped by the Teflon caps, as with the 2550SE, and as great as it is, I doubt I could live with it either.

[Joe Appierto]

Excellent review, Vance. Thanks for the link.

[cmalak]

Enjoyed the review Vance

[Vhiner]

Thanks, guys! As with any equipment review, system context is the elephant in the room. The only "truth" is how a component sounds in *your* system and in *your* listening space. For those of us who don't get a chance to hear everything, the best option is to look for common observations among reviewers and get to know those reviewers' subjective values over the course of a number of reviews. While I have not heard it, I would bet that the 2550 at street market price is a real steal for anyone who likes solid state amplifiers with a natural "tube-like" signature.

[audiot servant]

Vance,

Congratulations on the great review. It struck good balance between a seemingly fair approach in terms of assessment as well as it being an enjoyable and well written piece.

I had actually read it the other day without realising it was yours and had thought then how much I enjoyed the review which is a less and less frequent phenomenon given the recent trends towards the explosion of overly personally styled blogfests and perhaps the tendency towards some loss of the structure of journalistic tradition in media in general.

Also great to see that the reviewer had a pretty choice setup as well. Nice work.

[Vhiner]

Originally Posted by audiot servant

Vance, Congratulations on the great review. It struck good balance between a seemingly fair approach in terms of assessment as well as it being an enjoyable and well written piece. I had actually read it the other day without realising it was yours and had thought then how much I enjoyed the review which is a less and less frequent phenomenon given the recent trends towards the explosion of overly personally styled blogfests and perhaps the tendency towards some loss of the structure of journalistic tradition in media in general. Also great to see that the reviewer had a pretty choice setup as well. Nice work.

Thanks, Graham! I'm glad to hear The Audio Beat has readers down under. I'm feeling all international now. ;-)

[tima]

Originally Posted by audiot servant

Vance,

Congratulations on the great review. It struck good balance between a seemingly fair approach in terms of assessment as well as it being an enjoyable and well written piece.

I had actually read it the other day without realising it was yours and had thought then how much I enjoyed the review which is a less and less frequent phenomenon given the recent trends towards the explosion of overly personally styled blogfests and perhaps the tendency towards some loss of the structure of journalistic tradition in media in general.

Also great to see that the reviewer had a pretty choice setup as well. Nice work.

Excellent observations, Graham.

For a while now anybody with a GoDaddy account and a little HTML knowledge can act as an "audio reviewer" and convince manufacturers to send them gear for review. Certain established Web-zines show openly biased stances for or against manufacturers and do so in a way suggesting personal antipathies are in play.

That audio reviews reflect a journalistic tradition of exposition, show evidence of methodological thoroughness, balance, technical research, and accuracy, all with a margin of grammatical awareness and use of active voice, suggest an experienced and capable editor is behind the scenes. Knowing a Web-zine's editor is one gauge of the quality within. /rant

I think C-J have been evolving their house sound more in the past decade than in their previous two. That seems backwards and curious. This 'wandering' began circa 2003-04 with the release of the Premiers 350 and 140, each something of a departure from the 'golden age' of C-J's roots. Shows a bit more in their tube gear than solid-state - consider their journey between the 6H30 and the 6922- but Vance's review (nice job!) suggests maybe they're still traveling to a resolution between the analytic and the synthetic. It will be very interesting if one day they make a hybrid amp.

[audiot servant]

Tim,

It's probably fair to say that the struggle to develop a practical business model for media in the new world of internet publishing has been an expensive one.

Clearly an early causality has been the variable quality. It's not that there isn't enthusiasm among the new breed of reviewers but truth is it takes time and mentoring to foster good journalism. Without a traditional model to keep it tested and true and to ensure compliance with deeper values we risk losing faith in what is written.

In the old days the guild taught the value of truth and brought perspective to the word.

That transparency and ethics are the greatest asset any writer can have is only going to become more and more evident going forward.

You guys are among the flag bearers that remind us that there's more to a good review than just getting excited.

The language of assessment has to extend beyond just saying what's the new best.

It needs to discuss in fairness and in depth and use broadly accessible benchmarks and talk in terms of familiar criteria. The language of both context and spirit. The fact that the better writers also tend to also be musically knowledgeable as well as technically aware just probably adds to the challenge. Thanks for your efforts in this.