Audio Research DSI 200 integrated amp

As to sound characteristics of the four brands noted, my general impression is that McIntosh would tend to lean a bit warm, ARC the most neutral, and Musical Fidelity and Bryston would tend to lean a bit bright.

As to features, if you want both a headphone jack and phono stage, then McIntosh or Bryston offer really good candidates. These are both excellent brands which hold their value as well as any and getting service when needed should not be an problem.

On the other hand, if you need the phono stage but can do without the headphone jack, then the Musical Fidelity M6PRE/M6PRE separates would be worth considering. They are what I use and they pack a lot of value for the money; however, MF may not hold its value quite as well as the others and some have reported problems getting service on MF products.

If you don't need either the headphone jack or the phono stage, then I'd put ARC at the top of your list along with Bryston (I assume you'd be looking at the b135 sst2 where I think headphone and phono are options that you can take or leave).

If you need headphone but don't care about phono, Bryston looks like the best option to me. A 20 year warranty is pretty hard to overlook!

Hi Fishing ... If my ear is within one foot of the Musical Fidelity M6PRX power amp, I can hear a hum. This hum is inaudible to my ears if I am any further than one foot away from the amp; therefore, I consider it to be irrelevant to normal listening. To provide a point of reference with another piece of equipment with which many are familiar ... I also have an Oppo 95 in my system. The 95 is known for emitting fan noise. The fan noise from the 95, which also is not loud enough to affect normal listening, is many, many, many times louder than the hum from the M6PRX.

Fishing, if you decide to go with MF and you buy new, don’t get sucked into paying full list price. You should be able to negotiate a discounted sales price on MF M6 components. I’d say at least 15% off and possibly more.

Second, whether you buy new or used, make sure you know exactly who will handle repair service if you ever need repair service.

Third, if you are considering buying new, before you do take the plunge, make sure to confirm what the warranty period now is and who stands behind it. When I bought my components 2 years ago, there was 4 years of extended warranty from Tempo (who was MF's US distributor at the time). This presumably gave me a total 5 year warranty. However, Tempo is no longer the US distributor, and unless I missed it, I don’t see anything on MF’s website that indicates what the current warranty terms are.

In my case, it has just dawned on me that I had better find out if MF is or is not standing behind the warranty extensions that Tempo was giving out. I assume that MF is standing behind the 5 year warranty that I received even though Tempo now seems to be out of the picture, but if I find out that I am no longer covered by warranty, I am not going to be a happy camper.

Regarding my warranty, I just checked with MF's North America sales manager and he indicated that years 2 through 5 of my M6PRE/M6PRX warranty are covered by Tempo, not Musical Fidelity. Thankfully my MF components are working just fine, but going forward should I ever need warranty repair service, I have to wonder how responsive Tempo will be. As I indicated in my previous post, I do not know the length of the warranty coverage that MF currently offers, but if it's only 1 year, then I think anyone considering buying new MF gear would do better to look elsewhere.