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Micromega M-150 Integrated Amplifier

Micromega M-150 Integrated Amplifier

Not long ago, when I definitely should have been doing something else—like working on my review of Micromega’s M-150 integrated amplifier—I was watching old commercials on YouTube. Onto the screen came a dimly familiar 30-second spot from 1984 for Prego pasta sauce. A young man, home from school for the holidays, approaches his father who is stirring something in a pan on the kitchen stove.

Son: “After a whole semester of college food…homemade spaghetti sauce!”   
Father: “No, Tommy. This is Prego.”
Son: “Sauce from a jar? What about all that great stuff Mom puts in her homemade sauce?”    
Father: “It’s in there.” 
Son: “Even bits of herbs and onions and garlic?”
Father: “It’s in there!”
Son: “Well, what about homemade taste?”
Father: “Look, professor—it’s in there!”
Tommy samples the Prego from Dad’s wooden spoon and is completely won over.

The ad seemed to resonate with my own skepticism about integrated amplifiers, despite ample evidence at the last couple of audio shows I attended that this is a product category that manufacturers and consumers alike are taking very seriously. The concept is certainly appealing—fewer boxes, fewer cables, no impedance mismatching or other such incompatibilities, lower cost—but will there be something left out? Perhaps the audio equivalent of homemade taste? Spending a few months with the Micromega M-150 seemed like a good way to find out.

Rated as delivering 150 watts into an 8-ohm load and 300 watts in 4 ohms, the $7499 M-150 is the more powerful of the two integrated amplifiers in Micromega’s M-One range. (The $4499 M-100 has power ratings of 100Wpc and 200Wpc into 8 ohms and 4 ohms, respectively.) Externally, both models are examples of striking industrial design. The M-150’s chassis, which measures 16.9″ wide by 13.8″ deep by 2.2″ tall, is machined from a solid block of aluminum, the edges artfully beveled, with two triangular indentations running from side to side on the top surface that add to the product’s svelte appearance. With the standard black or silver anodized finish, the M-150 costs $7499; with one of four enamel “automotive” finishes, the price increases to $8499. The review sample was an attention-grabbing Nogaro Blue, which my two car-buff nephews who were visiting immediately recognized as the preferred color for Audi’s RS sedans. Other custom finishes can be had for an additional surcharge. For most users, the M-150 will sit on a horizontal surface but one can also mount the amplifier vertically on a wall. With that possibility in mind, there are readable-from-across-the-room displays located on both the front panel and top surface of the component.

A look at the M-150’s rear panel gives a good idea of the unit’s comprehensive functionality and connectivity. Starting at the left, there’s a jack for the supplied room EQ microphone and then three sets of analog inputs: phono (switchable between 110 ohms and 47k), high-impedance unbalanced line RCA inputs, and balanced XLRs. Next to a pair of “trigger” in/out sockets are the digital inputs: coaxial, optical, AES/EBU, USB Type B, and then two I2S inputs (for use with “future Micromega products”—the M-150 isn’t configured to accept a data stream via HDMI). There’s a LAN input for a network connection and two USB Type A ports to facilitate software updates. The M-150’s analog outputs include a pair of five-way loudspeaker binding posts, a pair of XLR terminals with variable output, and an RCA out for a subwoofer (the upper limiting frequency set at 400Hz). A fuse and an IEC receptacle for the power cord complete the back panel. Out of view is a Bluetooth aptX receiver that can store as many as eight connections to compatible devices. The M-150 has a 3.5mm headphone jack discreetly placed at the bottom of the front panel display. A “binaural” process is applied to the headphone output to provide an experience that’s more like listening to speakers.

It must be said that making connections at the rear aspect of the M-150 is challenging, especially if you’re standing in front of the amp when you’re trying to accomplish this. The top surface extends beyond the 150’s back panel by two inches which not only makes it impossible to see what you’re doing, but also pretty much guarantees that inserting and removing cables will be awkward, if you have normal adult-size fingers. At least for me, removing the Ethernet cable required the use of a flat blade screwdriver to press down on the release mechanism. I recognize that actual consumers will be doing a lot less wire swapping than reviewers do, but still—for the sake of your sanity—I’d strongly recommend employing banana plugs rather than spades as terminations for the amplifier end of the speaker cables. 

 

More than one audiophile, upon spotting the M-150 for the first time and noting its modest dimensions, assumed it was a Class D amplifier. It isn’t—this product operates in AB. What the M-One integrateds have that allow for their form factor and an AB topology are LLC resonant power supplies, a subclass of the switch-mode power supply (SMPS) that is common in Class D amplifiers, but one that generates less EMI. The greater efficiency of the switching supply is seen—the power supply is considerably smaller and lighter than the toroidal transformer(s) of a traditional linear PS producing an equivalent amount of power. The Class AB output stage avoids the nonlinearities of Class D operation, including increased total harmonic distortion and intermodulation distortion. A significant amount of heat does need to be dissipated and, without large external heat fins or perforations of the unit’s top surface, this design challenge is handled elegantly in the M-One series amplifiers. An aluminum forced convection cooling “tunnel”—coupled thermally to the enclosure—runs from one side of the amp to the other, warm air coaxed to the laterally placed vents by an ultra-quiet fan that turns on when needed. The top of the unit feels quite warm to the touch when the M-150 has been running a while. That’s a good thing: Heat is making it to the outside world and temperatures inside the M-150 remain optimal for electronic function and semiconductor longevity.

The M-150’s DAC is the well-regarded AK4490EQ, a 32-bit device that supports up to 768kHz PCM and 11.2MHz DSD digital inputs. Micromega decided to pass on licensing full MQA decoding. From the DAC onward, the signal path in the M-150 is fully balanced, converting to single-ended just before the amplification stages. For those connecting the component to an external power amplifier, the signal remains balanced all the way to the XLR line-level outputs.

The M-series integrated amplifiers feature Micromega’s own DSP room-correction software, known as M.A.R.S. (Micromega Acoustic Room Correction). A high-quality calibrated microphone is supplied and the process addresses both frequency response and phase/timing aberrations caused by system/room factors. Micromega’s design team decided to keep the application easy to use: Only three microphone positions are required and correction is limited to the bass. According to Adrien Hamdi, Micromega’s Sales & Marketing Director who was in the U.S. to attend RMAF, the feeling at the company is that electronic manipulations higher up in the frequency spectrum would change the sonic signature of the system. There’s no adjustability at all to the range of frequencies that M.A.R.S. can be applied to, something I’ve found to be advantageous with the Anthem Room Correction software I’ve used for years, and one cannot view the before-and-after response curves. But the application does work, with better bass clarity and top-to-bottom focus after a calibration has been performed.

The well-designed remote control—a device with pleasing heft, but not usable as a murder weapon like some high-end remotes—allows the user to turn on the amplifier, select sources, change the display, and adjust volume, but full functionality of the M-150 comes with downloading the Micromega app onto an iOS or Android smartphone or tablet. In addition to replicating most of the remote’s functions, one can rename inputs and adjust balance, maximum volume limit, and sensitivity. With the M-150 connected with an Ethernet cable to a network, a user can visit the vast universe of Internet radio and has facilitated access to Tidal, with Qobuz to follow in the near future. One can connect to music stored on a server or NAS.

The Micromega M-150 was in and out of my audio system over the course of more than two months. In addition to auditioning the product in an analytical mode, I used it for reviewing recordings and for casual listening. In all of these contexts, the M-150 was a welcome companion, whether it was driving the T+A Talis 300 loudspeakers, the Marco Serri Design Shoebox/Boot satellite/subwoofer system, or my reference Magico S3 Mk2s. Using the various digital inputs, the amp revealed itself to have both refinement and, when required, sufficient muscle for a wide range of music. The M-150 delivered the high-octane drive of the opening cut on Lyle Lovett and His Large Band while at the same time resolving subtle details of the arrangement. Just as impressive was the Micromega’s correct scaling of each of the Danish String Quartet’s four instruments on the ensemble’s recent ECM New Series release programming Bach, Shostakovich, and Beethoven. 

The excellent performance of the phonostage was an unexpected bonus. One could be excused for assuming that, in a component as versatile in the digital domain as the M-150, the inclusion of a phonostage might have been an afterthought. Not so, not by a long shot. Playing records on my modest analog rig—a VPI Scoutmaster with JMW Memorial tonearm and Sumiko Blue Point Special Evo III cartridge—with the input impedance set at 47k ohms, the noise floor was gratifyingly low, even with ten-foot interconnects from turntable to Micromega. With orchestral music, massed strings were silky smooth and woodwind timbres were beautifully characterized. There were plenty of the detail and nuanced dynamics associated with good vinyl playback.

 

The more I listened, the more it became apparent that the Micromega M-150 was not a component that left any residue of its own character on a recording or the loudspeaker it was driving. The walking bass line so musically critical to “LTMBBQ” from jazz pianist Wayne Horvitz’s album Sweeter Than the Day ought to evoke for the listener the image of a large and powerful acoustic instrument, recorded with a sense of its volume and mass—and it did. For several years, my preferred orchestral recording for auditioning speakers at audio shows has been Bernard Haitink’s 2010 recording of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15. I heard believable massed string sonorities, and the snare drum (with or without the snares on) was reproduced in such a way that it was obvious that a stick was hitting a tightly stretched membrane. Favorite jazz, rock and pop voices, captured in their prime—Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Tormé, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Freddie Mercury—sounded utterly like themselves. And although the M-150 didn’t editorialize, neither did the amp homogenize: It didn’t obscure the fact that the T+A and Marco Serri loudspeakers gave different accountings of familiar recordings than the Magicos did.

But we don’t make decisions about what stereo gear to commit to in a vacuum. It’s noble to compare the sound of a loudspeaker or amplifier to a theoretical ideal or a recollection of the real thing but, ultimately, one has to choose one speaker or amp over another. So I made some direct comparisons.

I had on hand for several weeks another French integrated amplifier that’s perhaps the most obvious competitor to the M-Series gear: Devialet’s Expert 120 ($6495). If the goal is to get a piece of high-end gear into your Significant Other’s designer-decorated living room, the Devialet may be your best shot. A mere 40mm in height, with a gleaming chrome-plated aluminum enclosure, the Expert 120 makes the Micromega look positively clunky. Accessing its rear panel is much less exasperating, as the back portion of the top panel can be removed to make connections. From the standpoint of electronic design, the Devialet is groundbreakingly sophisticated. But I preferred the sound of the M-150. Linda Ronstadt’s voice on “When You Wish Upon a Star,” from one of the several albums she made with Nelson Riddle, was notably more focused and dimensional. It was less synthetic-sounding, more convincingly produced by a flesh-and-blood human being. To my ears, there was a cardboard-cutout character to the Devialet’s imaging with less continuity to the soundfield. My impression was that the Expert 120’s long-term listenability might not hold up nearly as well as the M-150’s. Is the Devialet’s Class D amplifier section responsible? I don’t know. Switching amplifiers are getting better and better, and Devialet is certainly a leader in advancing this technology. But for the deepest kind of listening, my preference was for the Micromega.

On the other hand, I also compared the Micromega to the combination of a T+A DAC 8 DSD digital-to-analog converter and Pass Labs XA 60.8 monoblocks, a pairing that’s roughly twice the cost of the M-150. Playing many of the same selections I’d enjoyed with the Micromega through the T+A/Pass electronics resulted, for me, in a meaningful improvement. I heard subtler dynamic gradations, and simultaneous complex musical events were more coherent. The sound seemed more organic. It’s an old story. There’s a point of diminishing returns as the gear gets more expensive but often there is a return. It’s up to an individual music-lover to decide on the value of such incremental differences.

So, much of what an audio enthusiast with broad technological and musical proclivities will want from his or her electronics is “in there”—“there” meaning inside the compact chassis of Micromega’s M-150 integrated. A Class AB amplification circuit, DSP room correction, an excellent phonostage, a DAC with true DSD decoding, and compatibility with popular streaming platforms, Internet radio, an advanced app to run the thing—even a headphone output. Not much is missing. The lack of an HDMI input will trip up a few users, and I wish the app allowed for some rudimentary bass management for those attaching a subwoofer. And it would be great if getting at the rear panel connections were less of an ordeal.

But the Micromega is undeniably impressive in its scope of operation. I guess the M-150 qualifies as a “lifestyle product”—it’s versatile, easy to use, and visually appealing. There’s no question, however, that musical values were the top priority of the engineers who built this sophisticated machine. Adrien Hamdi mentioned to me that there are 2000 parts within the confines of the Micromega’s attractive case, and my sense is that every one was carefully considered. A powerful high-end sensibility informs the design and performance of the M-150. It’s in there.

Specs & Pricing

Type: Class AB integrated amplifier with DAC and phonostage
Power output: 150Wpc into 8 ohms; 300Wpc into 4 ohms
Analog inputs: RCA, mm/mc phono, XLR, room EQ microphone
Digital inputs: USB Type B, coaxial, optical, AES/EBU, two I2S
Network and wireless: LAN Ethernet, AirDream (wireless) compatible, DLNA/UPnP compatible, Bluetooth 4.0 aptX
Formats supported: PCM up to 32-bit/768kHz, DoP, DSD up to 11.2MHz
Phonostage loading: 47k ohms (moving-magnet); 110 ohms (moving-coil)
Dimensions: 16.9″ x 2.2″ 13.8″
Weight: 20.5 lbs.
Price: $7499 (black or silver anodized aluminum finish); $8499 (glossy aluminum finish in black, Carrara, Imperial Red, Electric Orange, Nogaro Blue)

AUDIS MICROMEGA 
13 – 15 Rue du 8 Mai 1945 94470
Boissy-Saint Léger, France
micromega.com

DANIEL JACQUES INC (U.S. Distributor)
313 Rue Marion, Repentigny, 
QC J5Z 4W8, Canada
djacques@plurison.com
contact@micromega.com


 

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