Your power amplifier has the most difficult job in your system. It must provide the power to move the drivers of your speaker which energize the air in your room and produce what we perceive as sound. While preamplifiers are likely to be faced with fairly consistent loads (the power amp input circuit), which are reasonably easy to drive and not unreasonably complex, amplifiers are not so lucky. Loudspeakers are a complex, low-impedance load that often react differently with different power amplifiers. The amplifier must 'start' and 'stop' the drivers of the speaker in a linear manner despite the complexity of the load and 'kickback' voltages from the speaker crossover/drivers. 

It is our deep experience in the art of musical reproduction that assists us in the creation of a range of extraordinarily natural sounding amplifiers. At Musical Design, we believe you want to hear the beauty of the music recorded on your precious software. That's our mission, to play the music faithfully. 

Design Philosophy

At the core of our beliefs is the drive to attain simplicity. Each and every component in a power amplifier contributes in one way or another to the non-linearity of the output. No matter how good any given component part is, it is not perfect - by definition. Each new part adds distortions that are often unrelated to the music being amplified. Complex designs inevitably sound compressed, dry and unnatural. Some manufacturers boast about the complexity, and therefore, supposed sophistication of their designs. Complex design is the antithesis of sophistication. Complexity is no surrogate for actual sophistication. No amount of strong-arm, negative-feedback will completely, accurately make up for the non-linearities inherent in each and every device. In addition, the application of excessive negative feedback, in an attempt minimize traditional distortion measurements, results in the secondary production of distortion, such as TIM. This is more sonically harmful than lower feedback levels with higher, but more benign distortion properties. Our D-75C, for example, is a remarkably simple design accomplished with modest use of overall negative feedback. Yet, it has relatively low distortion due to the elegantly simple, sophisticated circuit design.

How we test!

Musical Concepts, our modification division, has the ongoing opportunity to evaluate a wide range of expensive, high-performance contemporary amplifiers. Matching our power amps against highly regarded amplifiers is one of the ways we test for musical transparency. On a good system, it is not difficult to hear the differences between power amplifiers. 

It is especially important to hear an amplifier design on many different loudspeakers. Musical Design has owned many different brands and types of loudspeakers over the years. This exposure to many speaker designs builds experience that is invaluable in designing a more universally excellent amplifier. 

Of course, it is incumbent upon us to test our designs with good test equipment, but this is never the final evaluation method. The human ear is still the finest test instrument we have to evaluate the differences among amplifiers. At Musical Design, the ear always leads the way.

What you get!

There are plenty of audio makers racing to build the heaviest amplifier, to have the thickest faceplate, to use the most 'name brand' parts, to offer the thickest power cord, to find the sexiest new metal finishing technique and on and on. I think you're following me. These things aren't the issue. Natural, inviting sound is the issue. Sound quality is what we concentrate on at Musical Design. If you are of like mind, we have some interesting components for you.