Prøve GULL - Gratis
Michi by Rotel M8
Stereophile
|July 2021
MONOBLOCK AMPLIFIER
In an April 2020 press release, the McIntosh Group announced that its subsidiary brand Sumiko, which was co-founded by the late Dave Fletcher and distributes Sonus Faber and Pro-Ject among other high-performance brands, had secured distribution rights for Rotel Electronics in the US and Latin America. That press release prompted memories of a Rotel RP-3000 direct drive turntable I once owned, fitted with a Lustre GST arm. On that ’table, Rotel put a massive AC direct-drive motor—not quartz-locked—fitted with a lightweight, not-particularly-well-damped platter mounted to a rudimentary wood plinth and sold it for a very affordable price. It was an atypical Japanese product that could be heavily modified and improved, which many buyers did.
I filed away the Rotel news until recently when a press release announced the American rollout of the stylish, powerful Michi M8 monoblock amplifier. With the M8, Rotel resurrects the “upscale” Michi subbrand first introduced in the 1990s. According to Rotel, the design directive was to push the tech envelope with no budget or time restrictions.
Once I got the go-ahead from Editor Jim Austin, SumikoBdispatched a pair of what I expected to be modestly sized, modestly heavy amplifiers. As happens with online dating (not that I’ve used it, but I’ve heard stories), the amps that showed up at my door were considerably larger and heavier than expected.
The music bounced like a quarter does on a well-made bed with hospital corners.
The Michi M8 monos weigh 130.3lb. Each. I should have known that a class-AB amplifier said to deliver 1080W into 8 ohms and 1800W into 4 ohms would be
Denne historien er fra July 2021-utgaven av Stereophile.
Abonner på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av kuraterte premiumhistorier og over 9000 magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
FLERE HISTORIER FRA Stereophile
Stereophile
Life in the emerald beyond
If you find yourself in Monaco on a Sunday night, make your way to La Note Bleue, a cozy restaurant and music bar on the beach by the Avenue Princesse Grace. There, you're likely to find a legendary world/fusion guitarist sitting in with a group of young jazz musicians eager to cut heads with the acknowledged maestro of inner awareness and otherworldly spirits. Forever known to some as “Mahavishnu,” you can call him by his birth name, John McLaughlin.
3 mins
December 2025
Stereophile
36 sides of late Bowie
I Can't Give Everything Away is the sixth and last of the Bowie box sets that survey specific periods in the artist's career. The first was Five Years 1969–1973, released in September 2015. That was followed by Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976), A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982), Loving the Alien (1983–1988), Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001), and finally the new set. Together, the six sets are an impressive testament to a musical giant—a heavyweight tribute figuratively and literally. You could use this last installment to pump up your biceps.
3 mins
December 2025
Stereophile
Is this the ultimate old-school analog move?
Dedicated readers know that lately in this space I’ve been on something of an analog kick. Two months ago, in the October issue,¹ I wrote about refurbishing and modding my old McIntosh FM tuner. Last month’s column (November) was on the much-discussed but little-understood topic of the skating force on a phono cartridge stylus.²
4 mins
December 2025
Stereophile
STEREOPHILE'S 34TH ANNUAL PRODUCT OF THE YEAR 2025 AWARDS
Stereophile's Product of the Year Awards were first published in 1992.1 I decided at that time that, in contrast to other publications' awards schemes, we would keep the number of categories to a minimum.
21 mins
December 2025
Stereophile
DeVore Gibbon Super Nine
LOUDSPEAKER
11 mins
December 2025
Stereophile
Some marketing claims are true
None of the amps I build are better than the others,” Justin Weber of Ampsandsound told me not long after we met. “They are just different.” I may have smirked inwardly. According to his company’s website, Weber makes no fewer than 23 amplifier models, many capable of driving both headphones and speakers, ranging from the $2700 Kenzie OG to the $38,000 Arch Monos. Are they really all equally good?, I wondered. Surely this was just a clever Buddhist ploy to distract us from some of his amps’ high prices. Doesn't the extra $35k spent on the Arch Monos buy you something more desirable than the performance offered by the little Kenzie? Writing for an audio magazine means I hear a lot of marketing claims, some more risible than others, and I have learned to take them with an entire seabed worth of salt.
11 mins
December 2025
Stereophile
Lotti Golden
Her life became a whirlwind. Taking the train in from Brooklyn to Manhattan to pitch songs and experience the East Village scene, she landed a song-publishing deal at age 14. In 1968, at 18, after a chance meeting in an elevator, a legendary songwriter/record producer was interested in assisting her in making her debut album. Released on Atlantic Records in 1969, Lotti Golden's Motor-Cycle was wildly experimental and ahead of its time. Seemingly poised for success, the album and her career suddenly vanished.
4 mins
December 2025
Stereophile
Baby you can drive my car(tridge)
While I was coming to grips with this month's review subject, the idler drive Garrard 301 Advanced, I began to think about the various methods that have been used to spin turntable platters over the years. Since the transition a century ago from windup clockwork to electric motors, there have basically been three ways to spin a turntable platter: idler drive, belt drive, and direct drive. True, there have also been a few designs that go their own unique ways, such as the rare, water-driven Oasis made by David Gillespie of Saturn Audio in the late 1970s and the gear-driven H.H. Scott 710 I once owned and foolishly sold. But almost everything made since the 1950s uses one of the three main drive systems. Even the Omega Drive system, which was used by Wilson Benesch on their extraordinary GMT One turntable, is at its core a direct drive design.
10 mins
December 2025
Stereophile
Audio Research Reference 330M
MONOBLOCK POWER AMPLIFIER
19 mins
December 2025
Stereophile
MANUFACTURERS' COMMENTS
MoFi Distribution would like to thank both Ken Micallef and John Atkinson for their time and effort reviewing the HiFi Rose RA280 integrated amplifier (November 2025, p.93).
2 mins
December 2025
Translate
Change font size