This is the new Musical Fidelity A1 FBP – a fully balanced preamplifier designed to be used with the company's 550K and 750K Superchargers, which are also designed to function as conventional power amplifiers.
The new two-box preamp uses an external power supply, and thanks to its fully balanced design is said to be able to drive any length of cable to the power amps.
The A1 FBP has two balanced inputs, a moving coil/moving magnet phono stage, a USB input, a home cinema bypass connection (for use when it's combined with AV amps or processors) and both balanced and single-ended outputs.
The fully-balanced layout is designed to give the preamp wide bandwidth, low distortion and low noise. Meanwhile the external power supply keeps electromagnetic interference from the transformer and power supply circuitry away from the audio signals in the preamp.
It also uses four-stage choke filtering to further condition the AC power before it gets to the preamp.
Available from August, the A1 FPB will sell for £1499.
Technorati Tags: balanced, hi-fi, Musical Fidelity, stereo preamp, Supercharger