# Melody MK88



## skeeter99 (Jan 24, 2007)

As some of you know, I hosted a *GTG* at my house last weekend for Angel City Audio. I'm a bit of a clean nut and HAD to get my living room back in place so I packed up the speakers and amps and have had them stored in the garage till I send all the gear back next week to Hugh. I did leave the Trinity LCR speakers out in the HT though so I could have more time with them in a HT environment before I sent them back.

Anyway, I decided today to get the Melody MK88 back out and hook it up to my Strata Mini's. As both of my setups are HT based, I have receivers powering everything. My upstairs living room setup usually has an Onkyo 805 powering everything but lately I've had my HK 254 powering it and the Mini's. The sound with both the Onkyo and the HK are both good, but not spectacular. They still image very well and have fantastic detail. I didn't get a lot of time to listen to this Melody on my gear with the Mini's in the prime spot as we moved them to give the Trinity the main spot for the GTG. I wanted to listen (and yes, selfishly I wanted to look at that GORGEOUS black tube amp more too!!) to this amp more on my Mini's so I brought it upstairs and have been listening to a very ecclectic compilation of music (thanks Nhan for the mix-tape, lol!!) along with some Train and other stuff. 

Let me tell you, this MK88 really rocks! I really wish I didn't have to send it back next week! The presentation is so much more cohesive than either of my other amps. Keeping my Rotel RCD-955AX as the source (which I always use) and outputting to the Melody gives an absolutely fantastic soundstage. The speakers really disappear more than they ever have with any amp I've used on them. They present a field of music that is very accurate in placement without being overly analytical. Vocals are presented dead center when they should be or eerily holographic (like with the Pink Floyd: The Wall PT1 and 2) when they should be. Details in the top end are so much more clearly defined its spooky. I've never heard this level of detail out of my Mini's before. They are naturally laid back in presentation and I've always presumed that a tube amp would make them even more laid back but this doesn't appear to be the case. It didn't make them brighter, just brought the detail out that was there before but was being muddied by the amp. I think at first listen that might appear to be making them brighter but I feel its just the detail now being properly presented. In short, ME LIKELY!

Anyway, just wanted to say that I really like this amp. I really need to find a way to get one of these for myself. For those that haven't seen this amp, here are a couple pics from last weekend:





































*Scott*


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## HughACA (Aug 25, 2010)

Thank YOU Scott for the excellent review.


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## skeeter99 (Jan 24, 2007)

HughACA said:


> Thank YOU Scott for the excellent review.


Pretty easy to write about something I like this much. Doesn't hurt that its gorgeous too!

Scott


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## skeeter99 (Jan 24, 2007)

Tim, woofersus, posted this over at AVS and I thought I would post what he said about Melody:

"*Well, I don't have any pics myself, but 6moons did a factory tour with Melody back in 2008 and did a very nice write-up on it with lots of pictures. I share it with the caveat that there is outdated information in the article as the factory has seen some upgrades in the last 2.5yrs and of course there are many products pictured that have been updated since the article's writing and a few that have been discontinued or were never available here. 

In fact, some of the upcoming improvements mentioned at the end have now been implemented and the new high(er) end line they were working on is now here. (you can see the AN300B sitting on Scott's shelf next to the MK88 above)

You can view it here: http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatur...na/melody.html"*

The link is to a review, not another forum so I presume its ok to post.

Scott


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## woofersus (May 6, 2008)

I'd imagine it's fine.


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## class a (Oct 22, 2010)

Great looking gear. I've been bitten by the tube bug too. I just ordered a Primaluna Dialogue 3 on Feb 10th my birthday. Can't wait to hook it up.:sn:


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## tesseract (Aug 9, 2010)

Feb. 10 is probably the best day to have a B-day on. 

Those Melody's sure are beautiful, would be nice to hear them someday.


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## woofersus (May 6, 2008)

class a said:


> Great looking gear. I've been bitten by the tube bug too. I just ordered a Primaluna Dialogue 3 on Feb 10th my birthday. Can't wait to hook it up.:sn:


I've yet to hear a Primaluna amp, but I've heard very good things. Maybe at RMAF they'll be around. You'll notice in the 6moons article Skeeter99 linked above that Primaluna has their new high end Mystere brand built by Melody for them.


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## class a (Oct 22, 2010)

I've been looking for a Tube pre amp w/a HT pass through for a while and the Primaluna seemed to hit all the right notes on what I was looking for. Right now I'm running everything through a Krell Showcase so this should give my analogue a different flavor. The Prmaluna will run my 25yr. old Linn Sondek LP12 and McIntosh MVP-851 cd/dvd player. Amps are a pair of modified Threshold T-50's (100 wpc class a) original owner was a VP at Threshold. Speakers are Aerial 6's. The Primaluna is due this week and I have a spot on my rack already reserved. All three of these companies have real winners it makes choosing very difficult.


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## tesseract (Aug 9, 2010)

woofersus said:


> I've yet to hear a Primaluna amp, but I've heard very good things. Maybe at RMAF they'll be around. You'll notice in the 6moons article Skeeter99 linked above that Primaluna has their new high end Mystere brand built by Melody for them.


There is a Mystere ia21 review in the March 2011 Stereophile. I didn't know Melody was doing the builds.


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## woofersus (May 6, 2008)

tesseract said:


> There is a Mystere ia21 review in the March 2011 Stereophile. I didn't know Melody was doing the builds.


Yep, they are. I have no idea the exact extent of the relationship, though. It's possible that Melody is doing none of the design work for them at all and only building, so we shouldn't assume any relationship in sound. It's possible they are, but I don't know.


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## HughACA (Aug 25, 2010)

Tim is correct.


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## class a (Oct 22, 2010)

Mystere & Primaluna are under the same umbrella. Designed by Durob audio.


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## woofersus (May 6, 2008)

class a said:


> Mystere & Primaluna are under the same umbrella. Designed by Durob audio.


Yeah that's what I expected. Melody only being contracted out for the builds. Thanks for the confirmation.


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