Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista Debut – North American Launch Event
June 2nd & 3rd, 2023 turned out to be an exciting day. It was the day I attended the North American Launch Event for the new NU-VISTA by Musical Fidelity range, hosted at EQ AUDIO VIDEO (130 Saunders Road, Barrie, ON, CANADA). The event in no small way, was to celebrate the introduction of the Nu-Vista PRE, PAS and PAM, Musical Fidelity’s flagship and cost-no-object amplifier products.
EQ Audio Video together with Focal Naim Canada was sponsoring the event, the former a dealer for Focal Naim products, including Naim, and the latter the Canadian distributor. Beyond demonstrating the performance of the new Nu-Vista PRE and PAS, the event offered door prizes, including: the new award-winning Focal Bathys, premium wireless Bluetooth active noise-cancelling headphone C $999; as well as, the Musical Fidelity MX-HPA tabletop headphone amplifier, along with several other prizes.
Francois Cauchon and Iain Richardson from Focal Naim Canada, attended this event; there to provide information and answer any questions on the Nu-Vista range, as well as accompanying Focal Naim products. There was a relaxed social atmosphere to the event, lending to listening and socializing with fellow audio enthusiasts and Musical Fidelity fans. The hospitality of the hosts extended to providing food and refreshments, including beer, wine and fine offerings of single-malt, whiskey, and rum!
The Nu-Vista system, on demonstration, included the PRE preamplifier C$30,000 paired with the PAS stereo power amplifier C $34,000, each with its matched separate power supply.
Loudspeakers in play were the Focal Sopra No. 3 C $33,799 / pr with a digital source comprised of: a Musical Fidelity MX Stream C $1,429; M6X-DAC C $3,249; Roon Nucleus+; Tidal HiFi music streaming and; Audience (frontRow/Au24 SX) cabling.
Ed put on some choice tracks for my critical listening, in particular:
Man In the Long Black Coat / Bob Dylan – here I heard an immensely deep stage with well laid out and defined soundstage. The tone was warm with engaging details, with lovely string tone and textures evident.
Mad Fingers Ball / Bjorn Berge – proficiency with speed was evident with a punchy and sprite delivery that was warm, rich, and smooth. The pressure of the strings on the fret was well revealed.
Kiss In Blue / Yellow – vocals were open and natural, while well separated and defined. The percussion exceptionally natural in tone and palpable, with a wraparound soundstage, combined with an overall ease of expression.
Deeper / Peter Balasco – lovely flow, expansive with a very solid well controlled bass rumble.
La Fong / Opiuo – very tight controlled electronic bass, room-filling soundstage with remarkable height, ‘a discothèque feel with champagne clarity’.
The NU-VISTA by Musical Fidelity Products launched for North America were:
Nu-Vista PRE | PRE AMPLIFIER (C $30,000) a fully balanced, discrete Class A Preamplifier with separate chassis power supply, based on our excellent Nu-Vista 800.
Nu-Vista PAS | STEREO POWER AMPLIFIER (C $34,000) a fully balanced, discrete stereo power amplifier with separate chassis power supply based on the Nu-Vista 800 circuit. Based on the Titan 1000 W stage, it delivers its first 5 W in Class A, while delivering 300 W / ch / 8 Ω or 500 W / ch / 4 Ω with 1000 W peaks / ch / 2 Ω in stereo operation, with a THD+N rating of < 0.003 %, 20 Hz to 20 kHz.
Nu-Vista PAM | MONO POWER AMPLIFIER (C $28,000 / each) a fully balanced, discrete mono power amplifier with separate chassis power supply. Based on the Titan 1000 W stage, it delivers its first 5 W in Class A, while delivering 600 W / 8 Ω or 1000 W / 4 Ω with 1500 W peaks / 2 Ω, with a THD+N rating of < 0.003 %, 20 Hz to 20 kHz.
More about EQ Audio Video
EQ Audio Video as mentioned is located north of Toronto, in Barrie, Ontario. This dealer had its start back in 2014, when company founder / owner Ed O’Herlihy began operating out of the company’s current location, above his friend’s shop. Ed and his wife Michelle collaboratively run EQ Audio Video and here’s the dynamic duo:
Entering the location, you make your way up stairs and enter the first demonstration room, the James Room. This room is named after Ed’s friend who owned the shop below but who unfortunately passed away 3 years ago. The room itself was built by the late James and is a tribute to him. In this room, a home theatre and two-channel setup was playing, and included the venerable and sought after Nu-Vista 800.
In 2019 / 2020, EQ Audio Video saw its first big expansion, with a new Focal Powered by Naim luxury store added, one of only two such exclusive stores in Ontario, Canada. Focal Powered by Naim luxury stores, provide customers an opportunity to experience the brands within modern spaces, private listening rooms, headphone bars and other living spaces.
In keeping with that, EQ Audio Video has a cozy and contemporary space to listen to Focal headphones with Naim. The space includes a beautiful spalted maple epoxy resin headphone bar counter and nook seating.
Moving further along, we finally make our way through a display area, in which an array of products are arranged, along with a fine offering of liquor. Here also is situated the home theatre rack, including top tier products from Kaleidescape, and TRINNOV.
This brings us to the main attraction, what EQ Audio calls their Focal Utopia Room, a multi-channel / home theatre and acoustically optimized two channel listening room. This room features Focal 1000 IWLCR Utopia 3-way in-walls for the three front channels, with a pair of Focal 1000 IWSUB Utopia subwoofers and Focal 1000 IW6 surrounds, along with a Stuart Harmony 150” acoustically transparent screen.
And on the back wall of this room sat on static display some gorgeous gear including Focal Kanta and Naim Classic Series.
Well, that’s it for my coverage of this event but be sure to look up EQ Audio, call them and get yourself in to hear their well-appointed demonstration rooms.
