Anemic Musical Fidelity A300


I recently purchased a demo A300 from Audio Advisor. I need to turn the volume knob up to halfway to get decent volume. Is this "normal"? I'm using this in conjunction with a pair of Epos M15's. Also, when I first began using the amp, the mm phono stage sounded simply horrible. It has improved with use, but still sounds a bit closed-in and one-dimensional. Anyone had similar experiences? I would like to determine if the amp simply needs a longer break-in period or is defective in some way.
hamdub
Don't know about your amp in particular, but FWIW I have had an experience buying an MF demo piece from AA and having it show up with an operational defect (which I returned for AA to fix themselves, but they didn't succeed and I had to do it myself - and my problem might well have been simpler than yours seems likely to be).
With 85db and 88db speakers with a normal load, the volume at 12 would make you deaf sitting 10 feet away. I'd say call AA immediately.