Musical Fidelity X-A200 Amplifier Overhaul

Join me as I overhaul and improve a pair of lovely Musical Fidelity X-A200 monobloc power amplifiers. The owner is very impressed, as you’ll see!

Welcome back, after one of, if not the busiest, months on record here @ Liquid Audio. This is partly because I’ve been feeling better and have been able to power through many jobs, and also because I had a lot here to get through. One of those jobs was for one of my longest-standing customers and was this pair of Musical Fidelity X-A200 power amplifiers.

You might recall that the incredible Sansui AU-8500 I wrote about last was owned by a George. Well, these two Musical Fidelity beauties are owned by another long-standing George, so this is another perfect follow-up article!

I’ve repaired, overhauled and improved George’s other Musical Fidelity equipment, including his DM-25 DAC and his A5 CR preamplifier. I need to write those stories up, along with too many others, but suffice it to say that George was very impressed with the results we achieved with those pieces. With that in mind, we’ve been planning to overhaul his power amplifiers for several years. I’m pleased to report that they are finally done!

On the topic of Musical Fidelity, regulars will know that I’m both a fan and critic, and I’ve been overhauling and improving Musical Fidelity equipment for over a decade, including several of my own pieces. I usually have at least one piece of Musical Fidelity equipment with me, and currently I have a MF KW-500 and a Nu-Vista M3 amplifier in the workshop, awaiting their turn on the bench.

A quick site search for Musical Fidelity using my new live super search in the sidebar will generate many hours of reading, enjoy 🙂

Features

Back in the day, Musical Fidelity made a whole host of components housed in unique chassis, like these extruded aluminium tubes. This set MF apart stylistically because nobody else was really doing this, and the aesthetics really caught on. I remember the ‘fever’ over these and others like the rectangular-chassis Musical Fidelity X-Can V3 I owned back in the day.

The Musical Fidelity X-A200 monobloc power amplifiers are simple designs, both externally, as monoblocs tend to be, and internally, which is more because MF needed it to be this way to fit the amplifiers into this custom extrusion they were using. I’m rather fond of Musical Fidelity as a brand, but this brings us to one of their biggest weaknesses in absolute terms: an obsession with form over function.

Yes, these amplifiers look cool in their aluminium extrusion cases, but this creates issues with dissipating thermal energy and a resultant need for fairly low bias current. The curved sides create size restrictions that limit our ability to use bigger filter capacitors during overhaul. More on that later.

In terms of features, then, there are few, other than two sets of basic speaker terminals and a home theatre line-pass-through RCA connector. No balanced connectors here, to save money and because of the non-balanced design; no attenuators and just one line-level input. You do get a power-on LED, though!

All that said, a power amplifier has one job to do, and that is to faithfully amplify the signal. We ought to care most about how well it does that; function really needs to be the most important element in hi-fi. Sadly, it often isn’t, leading to wooden-bodied DL-103s, Bose 901s, Nakamichi Soundspace systems and hi-fi gear like this:

Musical Fidelity X-A200 Specifications

Courtesy of Google AI

Audio Performance

• Power Output: 200 Watts RMS into 8 Ohms
• Total Harmonic Distortion (THD): < 0.09% (20Hz–20kHz unweighted), < 0.01% (‘A’ weighted), < 0.003% at 1W
• Frequency Response: 10Hz–50kHz (+0.5dB), 5Hz–80kHz (+1dB)
• Signal-to-Noise Ratio: > 107 dB unweighted, > 120 dB ‘A’ weighted

Physical & Power Specs

• Power Consumption: 400W max
• Power Requirements: 100, 115, or 230V AC at 50/60Hz (factory preset)
• Dimensions: 170 mm wide x 175 mm high x 430 mm deep (including feet and terminals)
• Weight: Approximately 10 kg per amplifier unit

Overhaul & Improvement

OK, so back to the reason these two came to me – for overhaul and sensible improvement. That means we want to refresh the pair and attend to any obvious low-hanging fruit in terms of clear signal path bottlenecks, for example. This doesn’t mean they are here to receive every possible upgrade one might possibly apply; that is beyond budget, scope and sensibility for monoblocks like these.

The X-A200 suffers from the other classic Musical Fidelity weakness, and that is cost-cutting in design and manufacture, via the use of low-grade components, most typically Jamicon, Lelon and Teapo capacitors, and other component-saving elements like Darlington transistor output devices.

The power supply filter capacitors in these X-A200s are junk, as are the other electrolytics. The big filters were rattly, which happens as they dry out, and the smaller Jamicon and Lelon electrolytics, whilst actually measuring OK, can be improved from a technical perspective, which is why the pair came to me.

I make strategic improvements to the power supply and signal path to somewhat mitigate the cost-saving measures MF installed in the design. We are, of course, limited by board layout, chassis dimensions, etc, but I’ve never had a customer who wasn’t very happy with the improved performance of their Musical Fidelity equipment after visiting the workshop. So without further ado, let’s get into the overhaul of these two Musical Fidelity X-A200 power amplifiers.

Results

I’m pleased to report that my results with the overhaul and improvement of this pair of Musical Fidelity X-A200 power amplifiers match those I’ve achieved with other Musical Fidelity products. These sounded really rather nice upon completion, and I was hopeful that George, the owner, would agree.

Rather than take my word for it, let’s read what George said about how these freshly overhauled X-A200s sounded in his system:

… It sounds really brilliant, Mike. Thank you very much. And it’s made a big difference to the lower end; the bass sounds really refined, clean, and tight, and the transient speeds are really good. The mid-range and the high frequency, the treble, is also more detailed, clear and refined. So yes, it has made a big difference, and I could tell the difference straight away. 

George F

I won’t pretend that feedback like this doesn’t matter to me; of course it does, it makes all the difference to someone for whom results and reputation are so important. Results like this are a big part of why I do the work, and customers like George are such a pleasure to work with; what’s not to be happy about?!

In terms of ownership and whether you might like a pair of these, if they come up for the right price and you are prepared to invest a little in them as George did here, why not? The X-A200 is a proper 200 Watt mono power amplifier.

A pair of these will literally destroy multichannel home cinema amplifiers and most integrated amplifiers up to many thousands of dollars. A pair of these is probably better than many affordable stereo power amplifiers too.

Performance-wise, these are clean, punchy class AB amplifiers. They don’t produce subterranean bass or magical air, but they are not that type of design. I would describe these as honest, simple designs that should be robust and long-lived if cared for.

Thank You!

As always, thank you for visiting, and thanks to George for entrusting these beautiful Musical Fidelity amplifiers with me and for supporting Liquid Audio over the years. If you’d like me to look at your Musical Fidelity X-series amplifier or any other MF or quality hi-fi amplifier, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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