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Craig Chase
Roughly 30 different speakers or subwoofers have been tested through our various systems since early 2021, with speakers being the focus of over half of the reviews I have conducted at Secrets.
Legacy Audio, Sonus faber, Diptyque Audio, Harbeth, Martin-Logan, Definitive Technology, SVS, and DALI are some of the tremendous speaker manufacturers whose products it has been a pleasure to put through the paces. Each of these speakers presents a different challenge to an amplifier.
As an audio lover for close to 50 years, I have been an avid reader of multiple magazines and online publications for decades. From the late ’70s until the late ’90s, the monthly wait for The Audio Magazine was part of life. Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, The Audio Critic, and Sensible Sound were all read with gusto. In early 2000, I first found Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity while I was participating in some independent subwoofer tests. Dr. John E. Johnson provided some wonderful technical knowledge to go along with his love of all things audio. Another online publication, Hi-Fi News, became a must-read about a year before COVID-19 hit. It was an article and review there that ultimately led to the reason for this article.
As I was discussing with then Co-Editor (and now Editor-in-Chief) Carlo Lo Raso the possibility of being a staff writer for Secrets, Hi-Fi News had published an excellent review, complete with measurements, on a new power amplifier. Rated at 500 WPC into 8 ohms and 800 WPC into 4 ohms, this amplifier had everything a growing boy needed in terms of power and performance. On the test bench, this behemoth managed to deliver 670 watts per channel into an 8-ohm load, 1,170 watts per channel into a 4-ohm load, and even pounded out a dynamic output of 1,780 watts into a 2-ohm load. In simple terms, this amp not only matched its specifications, but it also blew them away!
This amp had a measured output impedance of 0.016 Ohm @ 20 Hz (which is a measured damping factor of 500) and distortion of under 0.01 percent at almost all listening conditions. It was a big, 135-pound Class AB amplifier that had no practical limits. After practically memorizing this review, I scoured the various publications for additional material in both subjective reviews and bench testing. It became clear that this was no Junior Varsity Stereo product, but rather, in all seriousness, it was going toe-to-toe with amps costing up to ten times its asking price!
It was also one of my first purchases after I had nagged Mr. Lo Raso into hiring me. That amplifier is the Michi S5 power amp (which was $7,500 in 2021, $8,500 in 2025) along with the matching Michi P5 pre- amp. Both took over the reins of being the power source for future speaker reviews.
In the four years since obtaining the Michi S5, a lot of amps have gone through our system. NAD, McIntosh, Cambridge Audio, Rogers High Fidelity, PrimaLuna, and a host of other amps have been here, with most of them staying as reference products.
The Michi S5 has, through four years of ownership, distinguished itself as the ultimate amplifier for testing the edge of performance for loudspeakers. It is so powerful and neutral, with extensive response curves from well below 10 Hz out to well beyond 50,000 Hz, that I find myself going BACK to the big Michi every time we need to ring out a pair of speakers.
My first loudspeaker review, which featured the S5, was the Sonus faber Maxima Amator floor-standing speakers. Featuring a seven-inch woofer and tuned to about 30 Hz, the marriage of the Michi S5 and the Maxima Amators resulted in pure magic. The amp was so well integrated with these modest-sized speakers that it helped them to secure the Elite tier in the floor-standing category in our Recommended Gear list. While not exactly large towers, the Michi S5 was able to wring out bass from them to well below 30 Hz. Those who have heard this combination of power amp and speaker will attest to the belief that a subwoofer must be in the system.
After a review of the Diptyque Audio 140 Mark II speakers, in which the excellent NAD M33 integrated amp was featured, I swapped out the NAD’s power amp with the S5. While it was not a huge difference, the level of control and depth of the bass were easily heard. The Diptyque’s membrane woofers can deliver exceptional bass down to about 30 Hz, and the Michi S5, with its high current, high damping factor, and vice-like grip on the woofer panels, paid off significantly. To this day, this amp and speaker pairing remains one of my personal favorite music makers.
Reference without an excuse
After over three years of auditioning with a variety of loudspeakers, I asked Carlo Lo Raso (AKA the boss) about adding the Michi S5 power amplifier to our Recommended Gear list. Carlo, after some serious consideration (including thinking about the Michi P5 Series II pre-amplifier’s addition to the reference component award in our pre-amplifier recommended components section), gave his approval.
He did so after I explained how the amp did everything one could ask an amp to do. Carlo has had his own positive experiences with Michi products, including his recent review of the Michi X5 Series II integrated amp. His listening tests with the X5 match up quite well with my experiences with the S5. The Michi S5 has been used with all the following speakers and provided nothing short of state-of-the-art performance with each of them:
- Diptyque 140 Mark II
- Polk Legend 800
- Legacy Audio Focus XD
- Sonus faber Maxima Amator
- Audiovector Trapeze RI
- DALI Oberon 9
- Ohm Walsh SSC-4900
- Harbeth SHL-5 Plus XD
Based on the information provided above, Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity welcomes the Michi S5 power amp into its upcoming Recommended Gear 2025 update, designating it a reference product.