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Amp/Preamp Asylum: REVIEW: Audio Note M3 Preamplifier (Tube) by KevinF

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REVIEW: Audio Note M3 Preamplifier (Tube)

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Model: M3
Category: Preamplifier (Tube)
Suggested Retail Price: $6000
Description: Audio Note M3
Manufacturer URL: Audio Note
Model Picture: View

Review by KevinF ( A ) on December 06, 2005 at 09:59:11
IP Address: 217.35.101.26
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Audio Note's M3 preamplifier was launched late in 1995 and, cosmetically unchanged, it is still a current model.

From the next room: "Stop right there. It's a 10-year old product and it looks just the same as it did at launch? No thanks!"

"Fine. Please be good enough to close the door. You don't have to listen to this if you don't want to."

Take a look at it. The M3 is… well… it's rather ugly isn't it? Actually, un-prepossessing might be a kinder term. The brushed aluminium front panel is bolted onto a simple – but substantial – folded steel chassis with a screw-on, wrap-around lid. Four knobs adorn the front of the M3: source, tape, balance and volume. And a red LED.

That'll be £4650 then.

"It looks like that and it costs £4650?"

(Sighs. Rises gently. Pushes door shut. Returns to seat.)

At launch, Audio Note acclaimed the M3 'a radical departure from the currently accepted pre-amp design philosophies…that performs way above any other at the price point.' That's actually pretty extreme hyperbole from Audio Note, a manufacturer normally as austere in its use of florid language as it is miserly with the eye-pleasing design aesthetic.

Sensitivities at Audio Note are quickly wounded when cosmetic looks are mentioned. But they needn't be. Audio Note's 'the sound is all' approach contrasts dramatically with the rest of the audio industry's 'the looks are much of it'. Audio Note spends money on genuine R&D, voicing and very high quality components – and that's as it should be. Fashion victims need not apply. Music lovers should.

The M3 was – is – a radical music-making machine; even more so since being revised by Audio Note last year. It was the first preamplifier in its price category to use a complementary dual mono power supply incorporating valve rectification and double choke smoothing. Liberal use was made of Audio Note's own tantalum film resistors, pure copper foil signal capacitors and Black Gate de-coupling capacitors, but its most unusual feature was the line output stage. This uses a 5687WB double triode per channel and a transformer coupled to the output to serve as an interface to the power amplifier of choice. This means that the M3 could...can…be used with any power amplifier, whether valve or transistor.

As I observed in my last review here on AA (http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?forum=general&n=345133&review=1), becoming an Audio Note user has been a process for me, rather than an event. I was beguiled over time into migrating to a wholly Audio Note system. That the M3 can co-exist with 'conventional' solid-state components was proved powerfully when I received the full demonstration system described in the article behind the link in this paragraph. So timid and sceptical was I that I opted to substitute components one by one, rather than simply unplug my own system straight away. The M3 was the first Audio Note demonstration product to go in, replacing a Bryston BP25 pre-amplifier. The effect on my pair of 600 Watt Bryston 7BST power amplifiers was jaw-dropping: until then I had thought them to be very good, but now I heard them deliver, for the first time ever, a passable impression of music. There was unfamiliar air, harmonics and a feeling of wholeness and rightness that was quite alien. Had I been on a budget – what am I talking about…I WAS on a budget – I would have stopped right there and been overjoyed with the result. The M3 had tamed and civilised the brutal Canadian horsepower and was making it deliver a level of musicality that I had previously thought impossible. I was therefore highly doubtful that swapping out the 7Bs in favour of Audio Note P4 power amplifiers – all 18 watts per channel of them – could further improve things. But just how wrong is it possible to be?

The M3 is available with line stage only, or with a magnetic cartridge phono section that uses three 6072A double triodes in a cascode input configuration. Both the line and phono stages are object lessons in elegant simplicity – each adhering to the Audio Note philosophy of mucking about (my term, not Audio Note's) as little as possible with any input in order to retain what musical integrity exists in the software. This formula – in essence the same behind all Audio Note products – was so successful that the M3 must be among the most widely sold of the more esoteric preamplifiers.

In its original form the M3 certainly delivers a truly remarkable level of transparency and, if there is such a thing in so-called high-end audio, value for money too. This is why the M3 was produced over the span of 10 years with no real changes to speak of. Oh, the rear-panel phono sockets were changed from gold to silver plated and the make of valves probably differed at some point depending on what Audio Note had in stock at any one time – but these relative insignificancies apart, the M3s made early last year were the same as those made a decade ago. I asked Audio Note's Peter Qvortrup about this: "We have a fundamental confidence in our R&D and in how we want our products to sound. Once a product is launched, unless we can make a really big difference, we don't go in for revisions."

In August last year Audio Note unveiled a revised M3. Unchanged cosmetically, the new version uses a different power supply of new design. As in the old version the power supply takes up about half of the overall chassis and, as before, it is physically separated from the phono and line stages by a metal screen that extends from the front of the case to the back. But that's where the similarity ends. The power supply is the reason the new M3 sounds so much better than the original. Oh. I didn't I mention that already? It sounds massively better. In fact Audio Note has achieved the 'really big' difference that Qvortrup promises will always distinguish revisions of AN products.

Isn't it shameful the way we so often get tripped up by things we said yesterday? I'll clean the chicken house. I'll put petrol in your car. I'll be back by 6.45 to cook supper. Just a few examples from the rather sad and predictable life that is mine – but you get the picture.

Last year, when I wrote the review linked above, I promised myself that it was to be my last. I'd finally got myself an audio system that I found satisfying and I wasn't about to spend a penny more on anything but music software. There would be no more reviews because I was off the upgrade treadmill. For the best part of 12 months I kept my word, spending my pocket money on CDs and vinyl records and greatly expanding my music collection. But then I got to wondering…what if I could change my parallel single ended Audio Note power amps for an even more purist Audio Note design? How would that sound?

I mentioned my curiosity to Qvortrup and got a typically forthright response. "Before you even think about changing the P4s you should get your M3 upgraded with the new power supply."

The deal is this. To preserve the value in customers' existing Audio Note equipment, the company is sometimes able to offer upgrades when a major modification finds its way into production. Not every upgrade lends itself to a retrofit, but some do. In December 2003 my Audio Note DAC, then a year old, was treated to a filterectomy. The results were astounding. (Read about it here if you're interested http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?forum=digital&n=77664&review=1 )

Audio Note will similarly upgrade any M3 – both line and phono versions – right back to the very earliest off the production line. At around £1400 for the phono version upgrade, plus tax and carriage, it is a significant sum but, as Qvortrup explains, the modification is major. Audio Note's engineers remove the old input choke LCLC power supply in its entirety and replace it with a new one identical to that used in the current model M3.

The new power supply is a development of the one in the top of the range M10 pre-amplifier, simplified to fit in the M3 chassis, but with, claims Audio Note, most of its properties. My immediate impression upon switching the new M3 on for the first time was of unbelievable quietness. There was so little background hiss that I put my ear to the speakers, not believing at first that things were working as they should. When the music started, it came out of void that was blacker than a very black thing. So there's the most noticeable change: the new M3 – or an 'old' one with the modification – has a much lower noise floor. Some 20dB, claims Audio Note. Figures aside, what flows from this change is a greatly enhanced ability to resolve low-level detail. It's rather like comparing two cars; one a car with its sunroof open, the other an open-top sports car. With the former you get a sense of what's going on outside. With the latter you are a part of it. The M3 allows more of the subtlety of performances to emerge. This is on good recordings, of course, where such detail exists to be retrieved. The downside is that such paragons of sound engineering make poor recordings sound poorer still because the contrast is thrown into sharper relief.

I think the second most noticeable improvement offered by the new M3 is in the area of speed and emphasis. I played a load of comfortably familiar material in the first 48 hours or so and was constantly surprised to be hearing new information about the way the instruments were being played. It's perhaps most apparent with percussion. The M3 reproduces rim shots, for example, with make-you-jump realism. But listen carefully and you can hear the new speed with which the M3 reacts on pretty much everything, including vocals. The M3 delivers music with a swing and a swagger that is terribly addictive and hugely enjoyable. I don't think we as consumers generally give due credit to the importance this kind of information has for our understanding of recorded music. If you listen to the leaden presentation of most other amplifiers it is hard not to conclude that the mainstream audio industry is equally clueless.

The third major improvement wrought by the new power supply is in the area of the bottom, if you'll excuse me. Low frequency events such as bowed bass, left hand piano and whatever else you fancy have an emphatic authority about them that is fundamentally very satisfying. I'm not talking about a colouration here or fat and lazy boom, but an ability to deliver genuine bass information with tightness, weight and great subtlety.

In all the new M3 illustrates well the refreshing way in which Audio Note goes about its business. As a new-buy, the M3 with its changed power supply is a very fine high-end preamplifier indeed. The deal under which existing owners of M3s can have their pride and joy upgraded is both enlightened from the customer relations viewpoint and, if I might say so, a genuine audio bargain.


Product Weakness: N/A
Product Strengths: Music-maker


Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier: Audio Note
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): Audio Note
Sources (CDP/Turntable): Audio Note + Voyd + Helius
Speakers: Audio Note
Cables/Interconnects: Audio Note
Music Used (Genre/Selections): Anything but rap
Time Period/Length of Audition: 1 month
Type of Audition/Review: Product Owner




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Topic - REVIEW: Audio Note M3 Preamplifier (Tube) - KevinF 09:59:11 12/6/05 ( 18)