Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 600.2 Integrated Amplifier

A 160 Wpc hybrid amp based on Nuvistor tubes with massive dynamic ability paired with Musical Fidelity's legendary smoothness

Like all Musical Fidelity products, the Nu-Vista 600.2 measures like a dream but sounds incredible. It is silky smooth with enormous transients and an effortless feel that is at once relaxing and involving. Of special note is how the Nu-Vista 600.2 projects images between the loudspeakers so that you can almost touch them.

The Nu-Vista 600.2 builds on the respected 600, with reworked circuitry and power supplies, a new display, and remote. The 600.2 adds Musical Fidelity's TITAN power amplifier design, which mounts a large capacitor near each output transistor to allow for more immediate access to stored energy, with much lower impedance. This results in better transient response and provides improved ripple filtering at higher currents.

The main supply capacitors are situated right on the rectifiers, also decreasing supply impedance and keeping rectification noise and hum away from the high-gain power amplifier circuit.

The preamplifier, Nuvistor, and input circuits are now fully dual mono, with separate left and right power supplies. The 600.2 also gains a laser-trimmed volume control, relay input switching, a second balanced XLR input, and a balanced XLR preamp output.

Heroic Build Quality

The Nu-Vista 600.2’s mechanical construction is uncompromisingly rigid and solid in typical Musical Fidelity tradition. The massive front panel and side panels are milled from extruded aluminum profiles. The Nu-Vista 600.2 is designed to resist environmental vibration as well as electromagnetic interference. The massive aluminum case also shields the rest of your components from the electromagnetic fields generated by the Nu-Vista 600.2.

Nuvistor Tubes

Nuvistor tubes were invented in the 1950s to solve the many shortcomings of conventional tubes. Nuvistors offer very high reliability, low microphony, low noise, great consistency from batch to batch, small size, relatively low power consumption, and excellent technical performance.

One famous application was in the Ampex MR-70, a costly studio tape recorder whose entire electronics section was based on Nuvistors. Another limited application of this very small tube was in studio-grade microphones from that era. The AKG/Norelco C12a, which employed the 7586, is a good example.

As transistors became dominant, it was “game over” for Nuvistors. Musical Fidelity later revived their use in its ground-breaking Nu-Vista series. These legendary, limited-edition products sold out in a matter of months. Today, they command very high secondhand prices because of their beautiful sound, build quality, and longevity.

Features

• A work of audio art using incredible Nu-Vista circuitry
• Two balanced XLR inputs
• Fixed line and variable RCA and balanced XLR preamp outputs
• Color display with optional VU meters
• 160 Wpc into 8 ohms, 300 Wpc into 4 ohms
• TITAN power amplifier design with locally decoupled output stage
• Cutting-edge technical performance with the magic of Nuvistors
• Dual mono power amps, preamplifier, Nuvistor, and input circuits
• Superb design, heroic build quality
• Extremely flat frequency response, low noise and distortion

Specifications

Power (8, 4 Ohms): 160 Wpc, 300 Wpc

Peak Power (2 Ohms): 500 Wpc

Voltage: 36 V RMS

Current: 50 A peak to peak

Damping Factor: 100

Output Devices: 2 pairs per channel

Input Impedance: 100 k ohms

Inputs: 4 × stereo RCA line, 2 × stereo balanced XLR

Outputs: 1 × stereo RCA line, 1 × stereo RCA preamp, 1 × stereo balanced XLR preamp, 2 pairs of 4 mm speaker banana/binding posts

Consumption (Standby, Idle, Max.): <0.5 W, 75 W, 600 W

Dimensions (W × H × D): 19.02" × 7.36" × 20.08" (483 × 187 × 510 mm)

Weight: 79.37 lb. (36 kg)