I figured now would be a better time than later as I still have the overall character of the gear still fairly fresh in my mind. I don't have the best aural memory so I apologize in advance if I miss something. Please bear in mind these are merely "my" thoughts and I am FAR from an audiophile or reviewer
Melody AN300BThis amp is HEAVY! Seriously, I think it weighs 88lbs if I remember the specs right. It looks absolutely stunning with the glossy wood sides and satin silver. It really looks gorgeous.
Sound-wise, I don't think I've ever heard a smoother amp. The overall tonal character I would describe as buttery. Ok, maybe I am an audiophile b/c that seems like an audiophile word
LOL! Seriously, though, the sound is overall very smooth. It doesn't appear to add or subtract to the music, it just gets out of the way and lets the music come forth. I hooked this up to my Mini's and I know the sound of my Mini's VERY well having listened to them through lots of different sources. My Mini's have never sounded as good as they did with the Melody. The bass response was clearly defined without being bloated. I've heard that tube amps are supposed to be more laid back in character than SS amps (on the whole, obviously lots of exceptions) but I didn't find this to be the case. I found that details on the top end that I had never hear before were now clearly there. I don't have specific examples but noticed it on virtually every track I played.
Melody MK88:The general statements about the AN300B apply to the MK88 but just not to quite the same degree. The biggest overall difference I heard between the two was that the MK88 was more of an in your face sound. It was more rock than jazz if that makes sense. This is definitely not a bad thing. Think of the AN300B as sitting down in a dark room sipping on Grand Marnier whereas the MK88 is black lights with a Red Bull/Vodka. Both great venues and drinks but a different presentation. I REALLY liked the MK88 and thought that for my general listening tastes that this would be a better amp for
me.
ACA Trinity:The suckers are big too! I don't think Hugh does anything little ... I've seen all the pictures of these things but didn't realize how big they were until I unboxed them and got them on their stands. They really are deep! It's not a bad thing at all, just an observation. I personally like the imposing size. Of course, I have Mini's and an X-Voce and I think they're a bit on the small side
Fit and finish is classic Sound Art China (whose building the cabinets for ACA): Beautiful veneer, perfect seams, sturdy, overall very top quality. You'd have to spend A LOT more to get better cabinets.
Onto the sound (what matters). These have an extremely different tonal character than my Mini's. Go figure, they remind me a lot of the Onix REF3's
I will let Hugh give the background of these but basically they were originally designed as a center channel to match with the REF3's, minus the ERT supertweeter. They use the same 7" Atohm drivers and Vifa XT tweet as the REF3's. I haven't heard these with the REF3's yet but I think they would make a much better center than the old REF100 that was the standard center for the REF series.
The Vifa tweeter has much more sparkle and resolution than the top end of my Mini's. At first it appeared to me too bright but after enough listening I realized they weren't too bright but were bringing forth details that were pushed down to almost inaudibility with my Mini's. The bass on the Trinity wasn't as deep as the Mini's (40hz for Trinity vs 27hz for the Mini's) but was much more clearly defined. I've found the Mini's bass to be good at low levels but tends to get too boomy at higher levels. This did not come out with the Trinity as they were much more controlled through the entire operating range than my Mini's. Bass was hard hitting and detailed without getting bloated. I really liked the resolution these presented.
For HT, I have to say my room has never sounded so good. Everyone commented that my room is overly bright as I have no room treatments. With my Bostons that are usually in that room it doesn't appear to me to be much of a problem With the greater resolution of the Trinity, the room did seem to be too bright in certain scenes. Since these were designed originally as a center its critical to know how they do in that application. Verdict: LIGHT YEARS AHEAD OF THE OLD REF100! I used to have the REF100. I liked it as it had great vocal detail. Virtually everything else was very "boxy" in its presentation. It always sounded like the dialog/effects/etc was coming from a box rather than coming from the screen. The Trinity CS does not suffer from this. My eyes were constantly locked to the screen and the sound seemed to naturally come from the center of the screen, not from below the screen as its set up in my room. I have to say, the full setup was incredibly coherent. Panning was completely seamless and they simply presented a wall of sound. I sat mostly off center and it did not appear to me that off axis intelligibility suffered at all. I don't think my room has ever sounded as good as it does right now. I really don't want to send these speakers back!!
