Musmy a75 clone (not a review)

[Yeth]

Im also considering getting this clone ...it has some of the looks I really love, and reminds me of my time with my late dad and the audio world we lived in. I find it gorgeous and will serve as a external fir my lesser serious 2 channel listening space. As you pointed out, to have some fun. Besides, if "all amplifiers sound the same" then its perfect for my needs. I have never purchased anything without a serious research of measurements, so I'm still debating....yeah, I could just get the purify class D from buckeye, but ... I'm leaning towards this one ATM. Thanks so much for sharing. Ket us know your impressions when you have tested it and pushed it a bit.

I just bought one, thanks to this forum. So many people laughing at the chinese amp saying they are soooo much better than those who buy copies xD I just couldn't stop myself from buying it. I will not post any sound measures because I don't care. I also don't care it looks similar to Accuphase amp, tbh I would prefer a black one instead of this 'golden' look on the front. I will only say it sounds better than my Akai AM-95 Reference Master (fully rebuilt with new capacitors matching original ones etc.) with my Dynaudio Emit M20 speakers. I'm extremely happy with this purchase. Just mind to research the shop you are buying from - there are fakes of this clone on the chinese market and I've seen people posting they received such a fake and that it sounds bad. I bought mine from a shop with multiple positive reviews of this amp (one even stating it's not pure A class due to low temps but still sounds great).
One more thing - they fixed the wording - it's PEAK now

 

[gentlejax]

Probably just in general, no one is really buying this because they think its a accuphase 1:1 clone, it has good specs, sounds good and looks cool. I've spent a lot on speakers r11 metas and mofi 888's but I dont think I could ever stomach spending $10k+ on a power amp lol I bought this because I was curious, all 3 products I have from Musmy have been very good quality so far.

imagine how crappy all these new mini TP3255 amps must sound too since they are sometimes less than $100.. cant possibly sound worth listening too!! how wrong many would say about that statement too.

I think its a little annoying to have people bashing these units when so far havnt seen a single negative said. the reviews say the parts are better than many many amps I have opened up and looked at. I myself pulled my Parasound P5 off the wrack within the 1st hour of listening to the 2860+ preamp. it was that good.

some of these peices are a year old now and still kicking so unless I hear of all of them dying I dont get the hate.

 

[gentlejax]

its my understanding the patents ran out on these amps/preamps so its ok to take the info and make a similar amp. Sure they are using the Acuphase name to draw attention to their amps/preamps but I dont really know what else they should do . Ive seen titles on other chinese made devices and its hard to draw my curiosity in without mentioning a name people associate with goodness. I dont think anyone thinks any of these are exact matches. with all the reviews it appears they have better than entry level capacitors and lots of capicitance to spare. I havnt seen a negative yet.

 

[gentlejax]

View attachment 494004

how does the single unit integrated sound compared to the pair next to it. I want to say the review I saw said the all in one sounded slightly better. could be wrong.

 

[khaliss]

so much hate & bashing to these chinese "clone" amps... if you haven't actually tried one yet & don't care for these line of products, then I don't see any point to voice out your negative assumptions LOL. For those of us who are willing to give it a shot, I doubt there's anything any of you can say (opinions based on assumptions, without actually having tried these products yourself) to convince us otherwise. I've acquired 3 Musmys products already (2x E406 amps, 1x C2860+ preamp) and they have all worked flawlessly so far since May/June of last year... almost daily use.

I have not compared the amps to anything high-end, but I've done some A/B testing versus:
1.) Yamaha A-S701 integrated amp
2.) Emotiva BasX A1 monoblock amps
3.) a couple of Marantz & Yamaha Aventage AVRs

The Musmys gear sounded superior versus all of the products listed above (medium to high level listening)

 

[Zakazulu]

I just wanted to chime in with my experience. I saw a lot about the musical fidelity A1 clone and i never tried a true class A amp. I was worried with only 20 watts of power while having 2 floorstanders > B&W matrix 804. Coming from a NAD 214 this 'clone' just is a lot better sounding to my ears and in my small living room it has way more then enough power. The internals also look fantastic especially compared to the internals of the NAD 214... And best part was it came in 3 days for a total of 185 euro's.

 

[dlaloum]

People mostly don't realise how little power is actually needed in most cases.... often what is more important is how the amp behaves into reactive loads, and the varying impedances that many real life speakers have...

In days of yore... the 1970's and 1980's most pundits recomendations were that for a high fidelity setup, you needed to have 25W or more (RMS, @8ohm)

I really don't believe that this has changed over the subsequent 40 to 50 years.... although nowadays, we have an enormous wealth of available power, at very very low prices....

But anyone that has done the sums (Speaker SPL sensitivity, distance from speaker, listening SPL at MLP) - will typically find that normal continuous power usage is around 1W, and peaks typically don't even get to 20W....

 

[Cobra2]

I did a quick check on my Musmys A-75; giving out close to 80-85W in 8 ohm (both ch. driven/loaded)
-seems to distort a little before clipping at nearly 100W (uneven pos/neg sine).
Mine draws ca. 100W at idle, and is just above ambient to touch. So the class-A part is obvious much less than stated. Maybe 15W /ch?
Also, they forgot to add a soft-start...(but have DC-filter on trafo-input) -AND, the large caps are 2-in series! Voltage rails +/- 48V

Mine is a "later"/corrected version, with ss-output "relays"
Last "nag": the display is ref to input-signal, not load...

 

[Malohm]

I did a quick check on my Musmys A-75; giving out close to 80-85W in 8 ohm (both ch. driven/loaded)
-seems to distort a little before clipping at nearly 100W (uneven pos/neg sine).
Mine draws ca. 100W at idle, and is just above ambient to touch. So the class-A part is obvious much less than stated. Maybe 15W /ch?
Also, they forgot to add a soft-start...(but have DC-filter on trafo-input) -AND, the large caps are 2-in series! Voltage rails +/- 48V

Mine is a "later"/corrected version, with ss-output "relays"
Last "nag": the display is ref to input-signal, not load...

Same observations here. Couldn't be happier with how this clone sounds - deep, tight basses, holographic imaging, liquid mids, transparent highs. Wonderful match with my Sonus Faber Cremonas...
But: would love to understand why Musmys puts two caps of 160mF each in series on this revised version. I have actually measured the caps and they turn out to be genuinely 160mF. So ... by putting them in series (instead of on parallel), we get 80mF per voltage rail, and ESR as well as ESL double. Why would anyone do this? Is this about the (lacking) slow-start, e.g. to protect the rectifier bridge during switch-on? Or can't the caps run at 48V (they are spec'ed at 63V)? Then again: even 80 mF per rail is huge. Why not go with a single 160mF cap and perhaps add a simple soft start which would have been more cost efficient and safer?
Another question: I had a look at the transformer inside. The round metal pot is resin filler and hence I couldn't get to the actual transformer. My suspicion is that this is actually not of toroidal, but of E-I type. This would explain the lack of the soft start (not really needed for E-I transformers).
Can anyone confirm?

 

[mhardy6647]

But: would love to understand why Musmys puts two caps of 160mF each in series on this revised version. I have actually measured the caps and they turn out to be genuinely 160mF. So ... by putting them in series (instead of on parallel), we get 80mF per voltage rail, and ESR as well as ESL double. Why would anyone do this? Is this about the (lacking) slow-start, e.g. to protect the rectifier bridge during switch-on? Or can't the caps run at 48V (they are spec'ed at 63V)? Then again: even 80 mF per rail is huge. Why not go with a single 160mF cap and perhaps add a simple soft start which would have been more cost efficient and safer?

 

[Cobra2]

A new/revised version is now showing a design-update on caps... now in paralell. And a different trafo (2 separate windings -not centre-tapped). Cannot see other changes.

 

[Johnkeizer]

A friend has the preamp from this company, bought it for the looks and it was cheap- he is loaded so wasn’t looking for a cheap knockoff.
Had a listen, not bad in direct mode, engaging the tone controls was a disaster sound quality wise, and the meters basically didn’t move as they were probably calibrated badly.
Looked well made but personally I think my Schiit Kara and Tonewinner preamps sounded clearer.

 

[Malohm]

A new/revised version is now showing a design-update on caps... now in paralell. And a different trafo (2 separate windings -not centre-tapped). Cannot see other changes.

I think it is the other way round. The second picture shows the original parallel version (as shown by various Ali web shops), and the first picture is what apparently you and I received (caps in series). The original transformer had indeed one more wire on the secondary tap; I believe they are both tied to ground on the PCB.

I assume they made the change after the original version either because
- the main rectifier blowing during switch-on, or
- too many owners complaining about main fuses in their houses triggering during switch-on

By putting the caps in series, the switch-on current will be lowered by 75% (due to 4 times higher ESR of in-series vs parallel caps). Alternatively, they could have put a slow-start board in front of the transformer. I'm actually not aware of any big amp that does not have slow start). My theory is that the transformer actually is an E-I type (which has a slower core than a true toroid, hence limiting the switch-on current someshat towards the safe side). This would also explain why this clone has no slow-start board. Still, the in-series cap layout is wasting damping factor and hence bass stiffness by factor of four ...

A darker theory would be that Mumsys has mounted "63V" caps that are actually more like 35V. By putting them in series, they can safely work below 30V (I measure 21 to 27V across each individual cap); rail voltage is 48V.

If I itch to dig deeper into this, I will pull one of the caps and try them on a bench supply (very slowly increase voltage from 30V to 48V while checking temperature). If this is fine, then adding a slow-start should solve the potential rectifier and mains fuse issues.

Anybody out here who has the original (in-parallel) version? Any issues during switch-on / operation?

 

[JSmith]

how this clone sounds - deep, tight basses, holographic imaging, liquid mids, transparent highs

Uh huh...


JSmith

 

[Malohm]

A friend has the preamp from this company, bought it for the looks and it was cheap- he is loaded so wasn’t looking for a cheap knockoff.
Had a listen, not bad in direct mode, engaging the tone controls was a disaster sound quality wise, and the meters basically didn’t move as they were probably calibrated badly.
Looked well made but personally I think my Schiit Kara and Tonewinner preamps sounded clearer.

This is about the Mumsys C2860plus preamp ... I have this as well and it's actually sounding very clear, on par with other preamps at hand. Haven't tried the tone controls though as I can EQ in digital domain if needed. The VU meters become more "energetic" when the the preamp with a 2V input signal (and lower the gain at the power amp input stage if needed).

 

[Malohm]

Here are some thermal images. Room temp was 18 degC, and amp had about 1h time to warm up (in idle) before taking readings.

Everything stays rather cool. Notably, the transformer is warmer (34.5 degC) than the output transistors (32.5 degC). The bleeder resistors below the power supply board (last pic) are too hot (78 degC) and should be swapped for higher-wattage types. This amp is indeed not a pure class A as it stays way too cool.

 

[mhardy6647]

A new/revised version is now showing a design-update on caps... now in paralell. And a different trafo (2 separate windings -not centre-tapped). Cannot see other changes.

Since the product is widely, perhaps universally, described as a clone, it seems to me that the most interesting question is which design variant is clonal and which is mutated?

 

[Cobra2]

The 2860-Plus has a lot of mediocre electrolytic caps in the signal-path, Most are same type/size. And for the tone-control board, I would change tweeter-caps for half the value, it rises too early (in midrange). + DC-blocking caps... (and opamp if you want..)

 

[Malohm]

Since the product is widely, perhaps universally, described as a clone, it seems to me that the most interesting question is which design variant is clonal and which is mutated?

Well ... features taken from the original include look & feel (albeit not at same level of refinement), mosfets for both the actual power stage as well as speaker protection/switch, oversized power supply (transformer, capacitor bank), dedicated and fully balanced input stage. Not sure about the power amp stage but this looks similar on pictures at least. Then again, Musmys obviously had to cut corners so they biased this amp in AB mode (with quite some reserves to extend the class A range ...), the transformer seems to be E-I type instead of toroidal, there is no soft-start and I suspect this is why the they eventually put the power caps in series, to limit the start-up spike going through the rectifier bridge. I come from an Accuphase E305 myself and the Musmys A75 is more quite (zero transformer hum, zero output hiss), and is has (a lot more) bass power and stiffness. So this is all good, certainly for the money. As long as one doesn't expect the same performance as the original Accuphase A75...

 

[Gorgonzola]

Anyway, even if this kind of clone isn't badged Accuphase (or any other cloned brand), these makers are obviouly searching tocopt the appearance of well known original products and get profit from this imitation. I guess Accuphase and other copied brands have asked their lawyers if something could be done to suit such practices.

Even if these amps works fine (it's easy to make an amp work fine today, anyway) I'm shocked by this obvious imitation. As for me, it's not a proper audio industry.
You'd better buy an original good and cheap class D or AB from a maker of today, at least you'll own a real product and not an external copycat.

People who are ready to buy things like like this suffer in my opinion from an obsession for the object as an appearance, they're not in quest for an object for its function and its quality. It's the same as people who crave for a copy (often at a price) of a well known sculpture or painting. I have no will at all in such a confusion between object and artistic or technical creation.
I like Accuphase, or Mc, or Quad amps, but I would never buy such imitation products, good or not.

I can't get hot & bothered by a maker's attempt to exploit the appear of the prestige brands or even their circuitry. If, in fact, there are patent or copyright violations then if behoves the prestige brand to sue or take other measures.

The OP loves the appearance of the Musmy on his rack and can't say I blame him for that -- it looks great though it isn't likely fool any slightly knowledgeable person that it's an Accuphase.

Of course equal or (more likely) better performance can be obtained from, say, a Topping B200. So what? As long as the OP isn't under the delusion that he has an Accuphase, (which he isn't), then it's his clear-minded choice to go for the glamor over value.