As an audiophile, I swing both ways: I love vacuum-tube amplifiers for their delicate musicality, but I also crave the visceral thrill I get from solid-state components. I am not sure how Musical Fidelity did it, but the company’s latest––the kW Tube Line Preamplifier and kW 750 stereo power amplifier––somehow satisfy my schizoid desires. Together they serve as a definitive control center and powerplant of a passionate music lover’s stereo system. The dynamic duo is a study in excess, casting aside the constraints audio manufacturers normally face when creating new components.

Musical Fidelity’s founder Antony Michaelson immodestly claims his kW preamplifier is “technically perfect.” Those are strong words, but he is referring primarily to the preamplifier’s vanishingly low level of distortion, and the promise that it will always perform “exactly as it should.” He goes on: “The kW preamplifier is so extraordinarily powerful it can produce up to 100 watts for a second.” This would be a remarkable achievement for a preamplifier, because preamps are usually expected to deliver less than one thousandth of a watt in normal use. A more practical application of the preamp’s more-than-ample reserves might be to drive fiendishly long interconnect cables for power amplifiers located at the opposite end of a large estate. Yes, this preamplifier is overbuilt, but that is part of its allure.

The kW Tube Line Preamplifier has unbalanced RCA-type inputs for five source devices plus an extra input that lets you integrate the preamp into a home theater system. A loop-through output is also provided for recording; main outputs are also unbalanced-only. (Click image to enlarge)

Michaelson also believes, “The kW 750 is, in effect, an amplifier without limits.” Its 750-watt-per-channel rating is rather conservative—the amplifier can actually deliver closer to 850 watts per channel. Once again, Michaelson’s goal is simply to produce a product that never runs out of power. When you are listening at moderate volume levels, most speakers demand only a few watts of power. But large listening rooms, high volume levels, and highly dynamic music all rapidly conspire to escalate wattage demands. No matter what the listening level, the kW and kW 750’s sound remains exquisitely lucid, with no hint of strain or harshness. I wish this level of über audio was available in a smaller package, but it is not. If you are looking for lifestyle-friendly audio designs, Musical Fidelity’s unabashedly over-the-top kW electronics will not do. Keep looking.

The styling echoes the recent Chrysler 300; the kWs and Detroit’s hemi-powered beast are both overtly muscular and resoundingly solid-looking. This tactile element is part and parcel of the high-end experience, and I regularly succumb to the urge to fondle the kW preamplifier’s super-sized machined-metal volume control. Turn it, and you feel like you are truly at the helm of something special. This knob and a tiny row of power and input selector buttons comprise the unit’s control set. Down below, the “feet” supporting the kW components are anything but pedestrian. Hit the power switch and they put on a floor show—the feet first glow red, then turn amber, and finally turn blue after 45 minutes. The light-fantastic tootsies look especially cool at night.

This is a really big preamplifier, larger than many full-size power amplifiers. It has five stereo inputs, including “HT Direct,” which bypasses the unit’s volume control, but I cannot imagine many kW components will ever be integrated into home theater systems. They will more likely be positioned in separate music-only systems. As the British ever so charmingly put it, “Different horses for different courses.” Cheers!The kW components lack RS-232 interfaces for touchscreens or even something as prosaic as a 12-volt trigger for automated power on/off. Those vital functions are instead carried out “digitally”—with your index finger applying pressure to the buttons! Which reminds me, the kW preamplifier’s black plastic remote may be Musical Fidelity’s only aesthetic lapse; it controls volume and input, but it looks and feels like a refugee from an inexpensive A/V receiver. It works well enough, though. Except for the remote, the kWs are handcrafted in jolly old England.

Unusually, the kW 750 is a two-box affair: The large main unit is the amplifier proper, while a smaller, identically styled chassis contains the amplifier’s power transformer. By the time you read this, the kW Super Audio CD player—a natural companion to the kW preamp and kW 750 amp—will be available.

I know this will sound like one of the oldest audiophile clichés of all time, but the kW components will make your speakers sound bigger. I am not about to tell you these components’ bass reaches down to the center of the Earth, but my speakers’ bass does sound more lifelike when they are connected to the kW series gear. The bass has the sort of texture and palpability that eludes more mortal audio electronics.

As I listen right now to trumpeter Jon Faddis’ Remembrances SACD, I have to tell you the sound is extraordinarily real. The most amazing thing about the kWs’ sound is the way it reproduces the sense of space. I can hear the “spaces” between the musicians. So the kWs sonic finesse is what fascinates me, but when the mood strikes and I want to rock out with the Ramones, fuzz-drenched frenzies take on a life of their own. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s blues have the sort of blistering edge that gets my blood pressure up; his music’s unbridled excitement requires serious power, and the kWs are happy to oblige. But my late-night revelries with classical guitarist Sharon Isbin’s CD J.S. Bach: Complete Lute Suites displays the kWs’ softer side. The rendering of the guitar’s sonorous timbre is perfect.

Antony Michaelson warns me that the only real obstacle of living with the kWs is the inevitable letdown that occurs when you return to everyday components. “Once you get used to the sound of the kW, you cannot unknow it,” he says. That sounds like a marketing line if there ever was one, but it turns out to be true—my reference system still sounds fine, yet distant and less exciting than with the dynamic kW duo. The kW Series components are offered as limited editions, so interested parties should not mull over the possibilities too long. Get ’em while they’re hot!

PRICE: kW preamp $4,500; kW 750 power amp $10,000

CONTACT: 704.391.9337, www.signalpathint.com or www.musicalfidelity.com