Musical Fidelity A5 or A308 integrated?

If you are so inclined and have the rack space, you may wish to go with a new power amp and use the A3.2 as the preamp. You just need to make sure that the A3.2 has the jacks to do this (the A3 did not have them and earlier versions of the A3.2 did not as well).

My upgrade path went from an ADCOM tuner & preamp combo/power amp to a MF A3 integrated to a MF A300 power amp/MF CD PRE 24 to a Prima Luna Prologue 5 power amp/MF CD PRE 24. I am driving Acoustic Research 302 speakers.

I always felt that the A3 integrated, whose sound I really liked, was a bit underpowered in my 25 X 15 X 8 listening room. I had gotten a good deal on the CD PRE24 when it was discontinued and thought that I could use the A3 as a power amp and the CD PRE 24 as the preamp/cd player (which didn't quite work out because of the input/output jacks issue) and so I went with the A300 power amp (an earlier incarnation of the 308).

With all that said, I prefer the 308 line to the new A5 line. I find the new A5 series somewhat "cold" sounding, not very involving, and somewhat brutish sounding and the 308 series "warmer" sounding, as well as more musical and refined sounding. Stated differently it was the difference between well reproduced sound and music. The speakers were Thieles and JM Labs/Focal.

Regards, Rich

Two months ago I had a chance to compare A308 to A5 side by side in the same system.Speakers were Dynaudio 1.8Mk2.
IMO A308 is way better than A5.Simply no contest.
Hope this helps.
Good luck!

Agree with the posters so far. I owned a 308 and loved it. When the A5 came out I tested it in my system and found it to be more detailed, but at the expensive of being removed from the music and cold over all. It might have been "acurate", but the soul seemed to be gone.

Heard the MF stuff with Dynaudio (don't remember which model) and I liked it. I can't say enough good about the 308.

Jim

Another musical vote for A308 over A5 to drive Dynaudio (Contour monitors). A5 might provide tighter bass though ( compared A308 pre-pow against A5 pre-pow).

The A5 has a higher 'Current Peak to peak' and will drive your speaker load with greater ease.

My vote is for the A5.

i also have had a good comparison. and my friends new A5 is colder than my 308. but the A5 does rock! the advantage for me is the seperate pre and power with the 308, that alone keeps heat away from the vinyl, space between the big transformers, and the circut boards, and the speaker cables shorter and even length, my friends A5 gets very hot. nuf said

WELL I'VE A MF A308 WITH DYNAUDIO FACETTE AND DAC TRIVISTA 21 AND A3.2CD AS TRASPORTER AND I FEEL VERY GLAD WITH RESULTS. I TRIED TO LISEN SOMETIMES THE A.5 INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER, AND I FEEL COLUD RESULTS, SOME STORES OF SPAIN IN BRIEF PREFER A308 OVER A.5, I'M AGREE WITH THEM.