"Son of Titan"
When Musical Fidelity launched its limited-edition flagship Titan back in 2008, the British company set new standards for power amplifier performance. But Titan's immense power and size – not to mention its premium price tag – put it beyond the reach of many audiophiles. So Antony Michaelson and crew set out to scale down Titan's cutting-edge technology to a more accessible size and price point. The successful result is Musical Fidelity's new M8 700 700-watt monoblock power amplifier.
England's What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision magazine dubbed the M8 700 the "son of Titan."
The M8 700 offers a compelling combination of fully balanced circuitry, extraordinary technical performance, exquisite sound, quality fit and finish, and high value for the price.
"Peeling Myself Off the Back Wall"
"This enormously powerful [M8PRE/M8700m] pre/power combo sounds extremely refined, tracking dynamic swings in recordings with consummate ease," reports John Bamford in his January 2013 review for England's Hi-fi News magazine. "Rickie Lee's live rendition of 'My Funny Valentine'… had me peeling myself off the listening room's back wall."
It is the true heir to the Titan, delivering near-identical quality sound, with exceptional clarity and dynamics. The M8 700 can create a huge soundstage that's almost holographic in its width and depth. From the most intimate acoustic recording to full-scale orchestral works, the performance is perfectly placed and never feels limited.
Pair it with Musical Fidelity's matching M8 preamp, and you have awesome amplification fit for any system.
Massive Power Delivery
As its model number suggests, the M8 700 packs a huge 700 watts of power into its sleek black casing. That's 700 watts RMS into 8 ohms, and it approaches an absolutely massive 1300 watts RMS into 4 ohms. These figures approach the powerhouse performance of the 1Kw Titan amplifier itself, and measurements show that in action there's only about 1.25 dB of difference between the Titan and the M8 700.
Extremely Low Distortion
Like its Titan forebear, the M8 700 is engineered for extremely low distortion – typically 0.001% at 1 kHz and below 0.005% at 20 kHz. "Even at the ridiculous level of 50 Hz, distortion is a mere 0.02%, creeping up to around 0.06% at 100 Hz," Musical Fidelity Founder Antony Michaelson reports. "They may be unreasonable figures, but they prove a point. The M8 700 has significantly less distortion than rival designs."
Again, like the Titan, the M8 700 is a low-noise power amplifier. It boasts a minimal signal-to-noise ratio of -120 dB, A-weighted.
Extremely Low Distortion
The combination of the huge power reserves, low distortion, and low noise contributes to the M8 700's extraordinary, effortless performance. It sounds almost undistinguishable from the Titan, displaying the same ability to deliver anything from massive dynamics to delicate detail with incredible speed and precision.
"Whatever style of music you want to listen to, the M8 700 serves it up in a spacious soundstage, rivaled only by the Titan – or by a live musical performance," notes Michaelson.
Its power and balance means that the M8 700 can drive just about any speaker you choose, backed by flexible connectivity options. Two sets of speaker terminals make bi-wiring simple, and the M8 700's outputs can be 'daisy chained' to bi-amp suitable speakers.
The M8 700 has a balanced XLR input and looped out, an unbalanced RCA input and looped output, a selector switch for choosing balanced or unbalanced connections, a trigger input, and a trigger output. | 
