I just registered here for a one time post as I thought my input could be helpful to people who are dubious about this whole Musmys thing.
As a owner of two Musmys A75 power amps and Musmys preamp here is my story…
First of all, i am from Eastern Europe so pardon my english gramatical errors that may occur. Year ago, or something like that, I was looking for some monoblocks and preamp as I was building my new system. Most of the stuff (Mark Levinson, Mcintosch, Pass Labs, Accuphase etc) from our beloved West was just way out of my budget, so i took a peak on Aliexpress and Alibaba. These Accuphase look alike immidietely caught my eye. I glimpsed through the reviews of the customer below and saw one really good looking and serious sound room from a guy from one middle east country, with two A75 power amps in the middle. I was like fine, but i am not going to buy this based on one guy from middle east opinion. Maybe it’s some guy from aliexpress writing fake reviews, who knows? All kinds of paranoid things skipped through my mind.
I went away from Ali and forgot about the whole thing. Week later, i got a call from a foreign number. I run a small turntable factory and this guy wanted to buy my turntable as he saw some of my adverts online. We were chatting for like ten minutes and then he asked me about some cartridge reccomendations i.e. which would fit with his system. I asked what amp or preamp he has? He said Musyms A75 and their C+ Preamp. I was like really? I asked him where exactly is he from? And he said the same country that i saw that sound room and a review. I asked him are you the one who wrote that review and he was like ‘yes’. I laughed like crazy. What a coincidence! I couldn’t belive it. I took it as a sign from above and after he told me it’s the best amp he ever had, I was like f’ it, i am gonna order it.
So ten or so days later, two huge boxes arrived at my doorsteps. For the first two days i was just starring at it, to scared not to fry something. I mainly bought them to use them as monoblocks, not power amps, so i had to bridge them, which is something i’ve never done before. Amps had just way too many options for my limited knowledge. You could bridge them, bi amp, bi wire, use them as power amp, through rca or xlrs, connect two pairs of speakers on each amp, set gains and god knows what else. It was insane and something that any western brand rarely, if ever, offers. The build quality is absolutely the same, if not the better, then any high priced brand that entered my room so far. So, with a little bit of help from my new friend from the Middle East, i finally managed to properly connect everything. The amps ran cool for an hours, no matter the volume. I hooked up couple of speakers and i can immidietly tell these are the amps of high quality. Now, i was not able to be 100% sure about the beauty of the sound as i made a huge mistake just a week before when i bought Klipsch RF7 III speakers which is the greatest mistake of my hi fi life (Christ, what a junk speakers) but the things really got more open and just huge. Like there is no limit with this amps, it’s just that I didn’t have right speakers to make them really shine or see what they could really do.
So, i picked up one A75 and went to my father’s house. He made bunch of money in the 80’s as he was building his own tube amps and speakers and was widely regarded as one of the most skilled guy in hifi in good ol’ Yugoslavia. His system was in front of us, Mcintosch 501 monoblocks, Mcintosh c220 preamp, Mcintosh CD as a source and his huge Magneplanar M20 speakers. As soon as i lay down Musmys on the carpet he said ‘Jesus, it looks exactly the same as Accuphase’. He got up and took a closer look. ‘This is amazingly built’ he continued saying. Next, we fired up his system with some jazz CD playing. We were listening that for some ten minutes and then we hooked up Musmys amp instead of Mac. Both of us were shocked. There was absolutely no difference in sound. Nothing. Zero. Nada. Musmys ran those hungry and not so easy to drive Maggies with the same efforthless ease as Mcintosh monoblocks. And it was only one amp (i was too lazy to carry them both to his house), one Musmys 50 watts amp as opposed to Mcintosh monos that were 2x500 watts!! We were stunned. My father just lit up his cigar and said “Dear Mother Of God, they are going to destroy us all”. By they, he meant China.
So few weeks passed and i was still pissed with my Klipsches. So after all sorts of tweeking (bi amp, bi wire, cables bla bla bla) nothing woke them up. I started to think maybe the synergy with these amps is just not right, maybe i should try with some better, stronger and more well known brand. I took a look on local sites and found a guy who was selling his Musical Fidelity Nuvista 600 behemoth of a amp with his 200 watts on 8ohms and the price of 10k when new. We organized a listening sessions and after half an hour i started to laugh. Musmys actually sounded better and it’s 10 times cheaper! Everything was more open, bigger and more organic then on this Nuvista 10k amp!
So in short, from my experience, this Musmys A75 plays on par with Mcintosh 501 and better then Musical Fidelity Nuvista, with both of these amps costing 10-20 x more!
Now, as far as all this philosophical and ideological take on clones, copies and what not. Western companies have no one to blame but themselves for people buying chinese products. The prices today reached a vulgar proportions. No speakers in the world are worth 200,000 dollars, no amp is worth 50 or 100,000 dollars. This is beyond ridicilous. This summer i went to Wienna for a HIFI show (which they moved from Munich to Vienna). And it was as if someone is mocking all of us. It’s like all these companies are living not on other planet, but in another galaxy and other dimensions then the rest of us. Cables for 50k, speakers for 200k (with Wilson leading the pack with their new 3.5 million dollar speaker!!), amps for 100k and turntables for 200,000 euros! As a turntable builder myself, i found that particulary offensive. There was no acrylic and metal on that turntable worth more then 500 dollars and they are selling it for 200,000. And that’s exactly the problem that people don’t realize when they are buying new hi end gears. You are not paying for the materials. You are paying for their EXPENSES. Each company pays their reviews in Absolute Sound, Stereophile etc, each company has 50, 100 of sallaries to pay each month for their employees, each company is paying for their hifi show appearances and so on and so on. So, when you buy a 50k amplifier, you are not paying for quality, or materials, you are actually paying for their expenses. And that’s exactly the reason why bunch of audiophiles all over the world end up dissapointed and not happy with their sound, despite the fact that they burned tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars or euros on their system.
No other branch of industry would survive if they all follow the audiophile rules. It’s like a car company that sells it’s car for 50k all of a sudden decides that the same car should cost 300k, just because some magazines (with their bribed editors) says so. If everyone else would use audiophile logic, the entire economy would collapse. Who the f’ would buy these things?
So, that leaves us to China. I am a pro western guy, i am all for protecting our companies and our economy, but in this case i can not stand with western hifi brands. They are just blatantly ripping us off with those inhumane and extremely high prices. Like the vast majority of the population on this earth, i will never have 100 or 200k to spend just to listen to some decent sound. China offers ordinary people to enjoy their music for human prices, like that was the case in the West in the 60’s and 70’s. They offer good, quality products that anyone with mid to high income could afford. And that’s exactly how things should be. And Musmys is definitely one of these products. I would absolutely recommend these amps to anyone who is looking for a great sound while not spending his entire life savings or getting a loan from the bank. As a matter of fact, I will probably add another amp of theirs to my system, MUSMYS-MK-8900 Class AB Integrated Amplifier, a beast of an amp with it’s 300 watts on 8 ohms, for a ridicilous 1,300 USD, which i am pretty sure plays absolutely the same, if not even better, then any amp from the West that costs 10-20k. I am pretty positive on that.
