Private Ear: Amplification

By John Groom

December 2007

City Pulse EF3.01, $599. Music Fidelity X-CanV3, $799.

City Pulse EF3.01

Musical Fidelity X-Can v3

Expectations are strange things, and they can influence reviews in a positive or negative direction. Having had a listen to the bargain basement headphone amplifier from Project, it was timely to move up to pricier sub one thousand dollar products. With the extra cost, the reviewer can set high expectations that make a review too critical with the raised benchmark; alternatively the reviewer can be pleasantly surprised with what is offered at the price. I was curious as to how these two would stack up. I started this review with a positive bias towards both products. With the City Pulse it is part of the Yearn Series imported from China. These products have a reputation of value for money. The X-Can is well known to serious headphone users and has been touted as a good match with the Sennheiser HD 650s that I use.

Think of the Taj Mahal

It is very difficult to fault either of these products on build quality. They are substantially bigger and heavier than the Project. I suspect you could drop either of them without doing too much harm, except to your toes. A solid feeling volume control and a subdued LED all give a sophisticated presentation. No cringe factor here either, with a matt black top and sides a brushed silver front panel. Very nice. A single headphone socket plug is provided, which is all you would normally use, surely. At the back are the usual audio in and out sockets.

Ways to skin a cat

The one obvious difference in construction between the two products was the question of the power supply. The City Pulse has an internal transformer and the usual IEC lead. I found that the City Pulse benefited significantly from using a Chord mains cable as it provided more attack and detail. The X-Can has a substantial ‘wall wart’ that certainly ran warm.

Step up please

On audition of the Citypulse I used my current favourite CD Women of the World: Acoustic. The sound was pleasant and competent, easy on the ear though slightly removed. It was not as warm or as in the ear as the sound that I am used to with my own Perreaux amplifier. The bass is competent and well defined but not as gut-wrenching as the far more expensive Naim product.

The tops I found forgiving but more recessed than my usual reference. The midrange is satisfying and well balanced and quite clean though not as open as some valve-based examples. This is a difficult piece of equipment to review as even after three weeks of running in I never felt it had fully come on song and was a bit compressed in the complex passages.

As indicated in the introduction, this amplifier is much more competent than these comments might suggest. At $599 it is certainly significantly better than the sweet little Project product as it offers more weight to the proceedings.

Next please

On auditioning the X-Can, the first thing I noticed was that I relaxed. Okay it isn’t a valve sound exactly, but it is certainly moving in that direction: gentle and open with an enveloping midrange. Easy listening, but not by sacrificing detail. Those difficult tracks on the Women of the World:Acoustic CD were now easily resolved with no sense of strain.

Okay, it couldn’t dig out the ultimate detail with the Mona track from Algeria but that could easily be a poor recording and would I suspect be solved with a better power supply. The voices were now more present with a fuller, more textured bass. Instruments were well-separated and multi-miked recordings, well layered. The treble is well resolved, verging neither towards thinning nor congestion.

I liked the balance of the sound the X-Can presented and certainly as a reviewer who spends a long time listening, it has a satisfying compromise between forgiveness and detail.

Check-out counter

Both of these products are well made, very competent and appropriately priced. The City Pulse is useful if you want to tame down an excitable sound and should probably be tried with a range of headphones, as I found that it could be flattering to some quite modest products. If $600 is your budget then shortlist this.

The X-Cans should certainly be on the shopping list for those with a budget of $800. A good all rounder, with the potential for development later: by adding the external power supply.

Go on, give yourself a treat for Christmas. You deserve it.

John is an executive coach and mentor who lives on the North Shore of Auckland

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