General Asylum: REVIEW: Marsh Sound Design A400S Amplifier (SS) by hexenboden

I have owned the Marsh A400S for two months now. I purchased the unit with the piece of mind I had thirty days to return it for a full refund. Basically, there was never a question in my mind that this wa a keeper. The Marsh delivers close to state of the art performance for a price where there is not5hing that even gets close to it --including such best sellers as the Bryston 4B-ST. This amplifier will provide a true musical experience by essentially amplifying whatever is upstream from it, with virtually no coloration. That is to say, this is not an amplifier for those who wish to use it as a tone control, or to "obtain an emotional involvement with the music". You can still do that and pass on the information accurately to your speakers.
In my case I prefer getting as close to what's in the source as possible. My system includes a BAT VK3i preamp --the closest I get to pursposely "coloring" my music--, and a Muse Model 9 CD/DVD player (review forthcoming). I have used the Marsh with different speakers, mainly of the first order crossover type such as Thiels.
I find the Marsh worksed well with all of the speakers I used, and by well I mean that the Marsh just let the components show their true colors (pun intended). The Thiels let forth what they do best, crisp, detailed sounds with piles of information on the recording, good bass, and a little bit of an overall dry presentation. With the Silverline Sonatas the Marsh was astounding, balancing detail with overall musical experience. At over 90 db efficiency the Sonatas do not need 200 wpc., yet with the Marsh they were able to deliver such a convincing reproduction that all the inherent limitations of music recording and reproduction became quite apparent. At the same time, I would not trade this presentation with another that embelishes the music with colarations. This was like reading a book, as opposed to watching television. I could get all of the information contained in a recording, separate the bad from the good from the great ones, and still let my brain relax and fill in the rest to experience the emotional side of it. Don't get me wrong, this amplifier is definitiely not bright, or overly crisp, or anything of the sort. It is just "accurate". The high end is very smooth but quite revealing of poor recordings, the mids are amazingly neutral, and the lows are strong, although in my set-up perhaps somewhat sucked-out by room interaction. This amp does not sound like "solid state". It sounds like the good tube amps or the very best solid state amps.
The construction quality is adequate, and not more than you would expect a $2000 piece of audio to be. But I suspect the components inside have been chosen with real knowledge because I otherwise cannot understand how the rest of the industry would charge upwards of $5000 for an amp with comparable sound quality. I suspect you could easily spend $15K and not beat this amp.
I have not yet gotten to the tweaking stage, so I cannot report on different power cords, etc., but will follow-up later. uffice it to say that I can honestly recommend this amp to anyone who has $5,000 or less to spend on one, and even to those of a really open mind who are prepared to spend a lot more and do not care so much about snob appeal or outside construction quality and aesthetics. This is one of the best deals in audiodom.

REVIEW: Marsh Sound Design A400S Amplifier (SS) Review by hexenboden at Audio Asylum