New Musical Fidelity M8 pre - anyone heard this

You did forget one very important part. I did own the best MF and I gave presentations for MF. And I sold it a lot in the past. Wenn you use speakes who can give a wide an deep stage, the stage will never be of the same quality as Pass Labs can give you. But there is another very big part missing. Pass Labs can focus on the sound of an instrument. For example a recording with 2 different acoustic guitars. The Pass will let you hear the difference in sound very well, for MF this is a lot more difficult. In the world of Highend MF is good, but not the highest level. So not good enough compared to the very best.

Musical Fidelity Always has been exeptional good in focus and they are still exeptional good at it. But the stage is less deep and wide. It also depends about the speakers you use. There are many speakers with nog a deep and wide stage which will work better with amp's like MF which are superior in focus. Pass Labs gives a deep and wide stage. But you need a source and cables to get the sharp and small individual focus of instruments and voices. Because wenn you do not use this as said above the details will not stand loose from eachother. In most shops and also at show most people make this misstake. Because they do not understand how small and direct voices and instruments should be played. And second they do not know how to create it. Did you try the 8700 with the Audio Research. I will give you an example; I sold my modified MF Nu-Vista 300 power and sold it with a Primare pre-amp. The stage became a lot wider and deeper than with a MF pre-amp. You Always need to find the best combination. What I wrote earlier with an Onkyo PR-SC5509 with my way of measuring with Audyssey Pro I win with ease from a XP-20 in all parts you Judge a pre-amp for. MF works very good with Dynaudio. Which cables did you use?

I have to admit that I didn't listen to this one. I hope to do it next week. Have fun with it!