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A foreign Melody distributor who also handles WLM speakers wrote in that "the SP9 I have here has a blue LED above the volume control to indicate power status - probably an update since the unit you have was built. This amp is a clear best buy in the Melody range because it offers a full size chassis, four inputs and 50 watts for only a small premium over the SP3. I have listened to the SP3, SP9, I34, I2A3, H88 (old model), 1688 Signature, M2A3 and CD-M10 now. The M2A3 monos are better than the I2A3 integrated you have - faster and with more authority.


"The I34 is a sleeper in the pack. It has great sound and is significantly cheaper than the I2A3 but doesn't give much away in terms of sound quality. It is warmer sounding than the KT88 amps (SP9 and H88) but in my view conveys more emotion. I find the KT88 amps a little dry, more solid-state like. The I2A3 has more transparency but if you did not hear it back to back against the I34, you would not feel you were missing anything with the cheaper amp. With the WLM Divas it is a no-brainer combination and the 45 watts mean you can play very loud if you want.


"Compared to another, far more expensive EL34 integrated you reviewed, the I34 is more fleet of foot and agile. However it does not convey the same feeling of limitless control and power. Build quality is also not in the same league but then neither is the price [€ 6,500 for the other amp - Ed]. I think that the I34 offers tremendous value. I think you would like it a lot."

This EL34/KT88 juxtaposition is as good an opportunity as any to segue into SP9 commentary. As an ex-Audiopax man who has owned series-connected SET monos with KT88s, I've declared my allegiance long ago. If direct-heated 45 triodes won't work because the speakers need more power -- 99.9% do -- I've so far favored KT88s over the pin-identical EL34s, 6550s or 5881s. That's a purely personal call, also to do with my preference for toneful warmish speakers like Zus and WLMs. Where others pick very neutral speakers and then warm to taste with electronics, my unpremeditated journey has delivered me at the feet of old-fashioned, stiffly hung 10" paper-cone widebanders augmented by active bass systems and auxiliary tweeters.
Such highly sensitive drivers excel at tone and dynamics. Add-on warmth by way of a preceding amplifier, for this type of listener, isn't required as it might be with leaner modern speakers. Hence the comparatively cooler demeanor of the KT88s over their EL34 Blues brothers suits me just fine. Given that, the SP9 proved no exception. With it, you're indeed getting an awful lot for your money. True, my Melody I2A3 with JJ 2A3-40s has more harmonic finesse and filigree which you'd notice playing Jacques Loussier's Impressions on Chopin's Nocturnes [Telarc 83602]. Tone is more ravishing. But you'd also note that the 50 watts of the SP9 go farther when the man leans into the left. There was more substance and impact to bass lines over the SP9 when leashed to my WLM Divas run full-range, i.e. without benefit of the Duo 12 subwoofer otherwise crossed in at 80Hz. Incidentally, with Chopin, Loussier has
recaptured his early Back groove. For my tastes, his Satie, Ravel, Debussy and Vivaldi exploits often ventured into ill-fitting crossovers. Chopin without left-handed arpeggios may sound odd on paper but it works in a charming Charlie Brown fashion. And, Impressions does away with Loussier's customary drum'n'bass accompaniment. Try it.

Clearly, the SP9 isn't a lit-from-within triode amp. But neither does it punish with designer coin or wimpy power. No, the SP9, unapologetically but suavely, is a mainstream valve integrated that'll drive the piss out of any 88dB mainstream speaker likely to be owned by anyone whose radar even registers a €1,680 valved machine. Hell, at 11:45 on the dial, even my monstrously inefficient 82.5dB 4-ohm Mark & Daniel Ruby monitors were as loud as I could stand - and that from a 1V max-out source. And never mind loud enough. With the 4-ohm tap, bass was positively massive yet admirably damped. This once again completely defied the speakers' demure dimensions, even on material like Natasha Atlas' Mishmaoul [Mantra 1038] whose sinuous opening track "Oully Ya Sahbi" is the epitome of chill-out bubble gum and sports the requisite bass groove while later numbers mix in Rap and Dub.


While it doesn't weigh quite as much as my I2A3 whose transformers are bigger yet, I actually prefer the fascia styling and maintenance-free silver lacquer of the SP9 over the high-gloss Piano black lacquer of my more upscale Melody amp. That accumulates finger prints like mad and then soaks up swirl marks in their removal if you're not exceptionally fussy.


The SP9 is anything but fussy. Turn it on, lean back and let it rip. The treble isn't the sparkliest but it completely avoids hash and whiteness. The vocal band lacks the come-hither seduction of bona fide triodes but beats most equivalently priced transistor integrateds by quite the margin of saturation. Unless the load is copasetic, the lower bass naturally won't be as vigorously damped as it will be with a Class D amp's barely-there output impedance - or, for that matter, my Duo 12 sub powered from 500+ watts of silicon muscle. Yet the SP9 more than makes up for that with image density, the driving ballsiness one gets from the better push/pull valve amps with sufficient power and overall mass.
To get more detail magnification, separation and between-the-strands unravelling while holding on to all the output power and image density the SP9 doles out costs dearly. At the 50-watt valve marker, you'll probably be looking at a paralleled 211 SET. Or one of the exotic high-power beam tubes Wavac likes to roll. That's big money regardless and completely outside any realistic assessment involving the SP9 or other amps like it. While, ultimately speaking, Sting's well-worn pipes, on John Dowland's Baroque Songs from the Labyrinth [DG 06025 170 3139], were a bit chestier, rugged and redolent than we know them to be, this was arguably a boon rather than liability. Plenty of reverberant ambience survived this minor thickening action to render Edin Karamazov's arch lute nicely against the surrounding boundaries.


For more heartfelt suffering than songstress-sorceress Charvela Vargas poured into Cupaima [Tropical 68.856] -- the companion DVD makes clear the extent to which drugs played a major and freely indulged role as well -- you'd be hard-pressed to come up with a Delta Blues man to equal her. It's psychological terrain unhealthy as hell to spend any prolonged time in. But as a borrowed short-term experience, it's stuff to slip into for size and shift your viewpoint. The usually festive cancions and saucy rancheros are turned inside out and made over into something darkly Shamanic.


All this the SP9 conveyed rather well. Ditto for casting a laterally ample stage for the many indigenous rattles, shakers, wood blocks, body percussion and Latin guitars that surround the wrinkled singer who adopted Mexico as her spiritual and material home. It's this prized emotional connection to the tunes which good tube amps provide for more readily than their transistor brethren - and the SP9 showed how it's done affordably yet persuasively.
Yes, Duski Goykovich's muted trumpet and flügelhorn on Samba Tzigane [Enja 9489-2] didn't exhibit the same bite my 2A3s or 45s
manage so beautifully while leaving the wallpaper intact. But then, none of those can drive my Mark & Daniels worth shit. C'est la vie audiophielle. The samba/Fado voice of Céline Rudolph on the Villa-Lobos tune "Melodia Sentimental" naturally didn't mind one bit the deeper cleavage from the extra pounds. The real question became, how would the SP9 hold up when faced with complex, densely layered, rhythmically trick fare like Juan Carmona's tribute to Morocco and Andalucia called, fittingly, edges/borders or Orillas [Harmonia Mundi 274 1445]?
Harmonically advanced, stylistically modern -- a blend of Flamenco, Gnawa, Jazz and Arabian modes really -- Orillas is high-order music on many levels. It's also literally symphonic in places by harnessing the forces of the Moroccan Orquesta de Rabat. In short, it's a prime justifier for owning a superior hifi. And it's here that the SP9 betrays its entry-level roots with a bit of taffy clumping up between the various instrumental layers; with sacrificing ultimate space, speed and separation. Again, at this price level, you either go for overtly colored and all over the place; resolved but underpowered and hence colored all the same; resolved but lean and pale; or full-bodied and vigorous. Getting it all plus superior build quality is foreign to me. While the above may appear to list quite a few limitations, those should be expected. They're completely normal characterizations in the affordable valve integrated sector.

Importantly, the SP9 is neither lean, whitish, flat or flat-out colored. To boot, it's very quiet in operation even on highly efficient speakers. And it's got real power and enough gain for even rather inefficient speakers. That ultimate resolution and insight into the deepest layers of the music would have to be sacrificed to sidestep all the usual pitfalls in this component class is simply unavoidable. That it's a bit fatter than rare triodes is a given. How all this has been pulled off in the final voicing is smart and perfectly fitting. In short, this is a very realistic machine, on all fronts. Hence it deserved a realistic rather than overblown commentary that would miss the bigger context. (Which, in my heart of hearts, murmurs that if one needs more than 10 watts, one has picked the wrong speakers to begin with. But that's an extremist point of view and clearly not shared by the majority of manufacturers and buyers.)
If you're shopping with an equivalent +/- €1,500 budget for a matching CD player, I'd recommend one without valves. Feed the SP9 a low-fat lean diet (with the supplied non-stock tubes, I found the CD-M10 a beast of similar colors and hence, a bit too much of a good thing). Or, if your speakers already fall on the Sonus Faberish side of fence Neutrality, some zippier silver cables with speed and extra shimmer might suit. You get the drift. It's a matter of balance.

In conclusion, the Melody Valve Hifi SP9 is a cannily conceived, expertly realized push/pull amp of real power, with tube rectification even, beautifully built, linear, dense and full-bodied, fairly priced -- a screaming value more like it -- and thus of interest to the broad mainstream rather than fringe sector. In fact, Melody and WLM teamed up at the 2007 Munich HiFi show which, considering that the Austrian speakers begin their prices where most of Melody's stop and ascend from there completely outside anything Melody covers, rather suggests once again that the Chinese electronics punch above their class. After all, no manufacturer spends money on a trade show to deliberately underplay the performance and perception of his wares. If Melody was good enough for the Austrians, enough said.


The only aspect that could seem slightly beyond the pale is the SP9's fixed biased scheme. That will require a screwdriver and voltmeter to monitor and adjust. For the most power from a given circuit's valve complement however, that's indeed the ticket and shouldn't cause any anxiety. If you can screw in a light bulb and top off your automobile's engine oil, you can operate the SP9 in perpetuity. Another thumbs-up component then from Melody - and a probable Best Buy in their line when one considers trim level, features, performance and sticker. Perhaps Melody does indeed deserve its reputation as the premier supplier of affordable valve hifi from the Far East? Based on their showing in these pages -- in Melody, Onix and Genesis guises -- plus the above sighting and implied meaning in Munich, it sure appears that way. CD-M20 commentary next when a unit has been delivered.

Addendum: We subsequently learned from Mr. Wang, CEO of Melody, that the CD-M20 mentioned above was a prototype not approved for final production. It was shown at the Munich HiFi Show 2007 without Melody's knowledge and appears to have been shown once again at the Brussels Hifi Show later in the year. Should any such units now be marketed under the Melody brand name, they're counterfeits. They are neither built nor designed by Melody, not supported by Melody's warranty and not to be confused with the sound and build quality of genuine Melody product. For reasons of inferior sonics, Melody has rejected the original CD-M20 platform which now appears to be circulated through Melody's former vendor while unfairly profiting from Melody's carefully cultivated brand image. Readers with information on CD-M20s offered for sale are requested to contact Melody's website in China to assist Melody in solving the fraud issue.
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