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The unexpected unfair advantage
Once you know something, you can't not know it thereafter. That's the very devil which rode the amps shotgun during their stay. Nelson Pass' unusual FirstWatt F4 power buffer leveled the playing field in rather more cost-effective fashion. But first things first. Cost in general. The Achilles heel of the M100s is price. Nearly $8,000 should be a misprint. Given origin, it seems arbitrary and divorced from the formula that priced the stable mates. While the C200 is slightly narrower, this series of components shares the same chassis bits. That expense thus factors evenly across the board. Even granting a surcharge for the massive transformers -- output transformers on good tube amp are traditionally the biggest expense after the enclosure -- one must keep in mind that Mark O'Brien at Rogue Audio can employ US labor and bring in his 150-watt KT88 M-150 monos at $4,000 a pair. Through dealers. The pricing of the M100s seems unjustified. On the other hand, such matters have never yet stopped a review. Point made, onward ho.



Not quite. The hulking 200 lbs question I cannot address is how the M100s might compare to the 200-watt Rogue Audio Zeus with its 16 x KT88s. The Zeus sells for essentially the same coin. Its doubled power rating equates to 3dB of headroom, not necessarily a Raysonic deal breaker but something shoppers in this sector would rightly call an asset for the rogue. Ditto for its maker's established track record. Raysonic is the newer kid on the block. For added buyer's comfort at this level of financial commitment, I asked for background. Raysonic Inc. was founded in 2000 by Steven Kam Leong Leung who had been involved in the electronics industry for a long time as well as being an audiophile. His keen interest in audio had him set up his own company to "design some of the highest quality products in the industry." Design in Toronto, manufacture in China is so "our products will become more competitive in the market. Raysonic's products include CD players, a preamplifier, power amplifiers and integrated amplifiers. Our design engineers are both well trained and experienced. Our upcoming products include a modular high-end CD player, phono preamps and more tube-based amplifiers. We employ more than 30 workers in our Chinese production facility. We also have our own CNC machines to meet all design and production needs and our output and power transformers are also hand-crafted by us. We hope that our new products will be accepted well by more and more audiophiles and that by earning their support, we will be able to create more new products to suit their tastes and needs."



Besides years of trading, there's another peace-o'-mind feature the M100s lack which Rogue's bigger amps have adopted - power tube fuse protection. Shortly into early listening sessions with the Raysonic amps, one 5881 flashed at me like an ambulance. This was accompanied by sharply popping transients through the connected speaker: Blink, blink, blink, pow, pow, pow. Fortunately I was present to power down quickly. While I awaited replacement tubes -- I stock WE 300Bs but no 5881s if you can believe the snobbery -- I inquired with Steven Leung what to expect should a power tube arc and short out. With a grand total of 16 power pentodes per pair, something seems bound to give eventually. I had my cherry popped within the first 50 hours.


Steven dispatched replacement bias resistors with four spare 5881s: "If a power tube malfunctions, it will become an open circuit and the tube amp will stop working. By the same token, if a biasing resistor blows, it will become an open circuit and the tube amp will stop working. Choosing fuse protection is a matter of preference but I can assure you that our amplifier is extremely safe in every respect." Replacing the flamed tube showed that the mains fuse had blown as well. No resistor swaps were required. The light show and FX sounds had been all bark, no bite. Whether a resistor would have blown had I not been in the room to shut down the amp within seconds, I can't know. I certainly wouldn't find sacrificial parts replacements involving soldering acceptable at this level. It's well possible that pentode failure would involve nothing but a plug'n'play tube swap. Receiving a set of three different-value replacement resistors for different junctures simply suggested that one of them could have failed.



The unfair advantage of the competition occurred by way of tests in which the Rays were driving the DeVore Fidelity Nines. For context, I swapped them out for the $1,700 Trafomatic Audio Experience One boosted by the $2,500 FirstWatt F4. That combo essentially halves the monos' cost yet significantly eclipsed their performance. This warrants a brief explanation. The Trafomatic is a no-feedback direct-heated triode amp running valve-rectified 2A3s. The F4 is a class A no-feedback power buffer than can take its input from the output of a micro-power SET. The SET gets loaded by a resistor for stability (in my case, an 8.3 ohm, 2 watt job) and the transistor follower with zero voltage gain lowers the SET's output impedance to 0.2 ohms and provides current far in excess of what tubes are capable of solo.



This became the "once heard, can't pretend not to have" curse. By comparison, the M100s' bass was indistinct, lacked punch and pop and was somewhat attenuated. Soundstage depth was compromised. Everything got thicker, fuzzier and less articulate. The top end shaded and the midrange congealed. The presentation was distinctly less resolved, open, energetic and exciting. It felt slower and skewed. All this seemed to prove a few items. First, regardless of output power (100 tube watts in this context were rather overkill), superior damping factor and current in the bass take home the bacon. Two, the paralleling (and auto-bias matching) of output devices in this push/pull circuit with feedback lacked the clarity and separation power at least in the low-power band tapped by the 91dB DeVores. To check on that assumption, the Mark & Daniel Maximus Monitor's 85dB/4-ohm load stood in. Since the unfair advantage had plenty of gain between the 20dB Raysonic C200 and JJ 2A3-40s in the SET, one F4 remained sufficient on those speakers, putting the Rays at the same financial disadvantage as before.



Prior to the F4 -- Musical Fidelity now has a similar product called the SuperCharger, albeit intended for 50-watt+ amps it seems -- most single-ended amps could not have driven the kind of speakers Raysonic's monos were designed to power. Applying superior SET sound to Maximus-type speakers as a kind of model expectation hence wasn't in the cards (so what you didn't know wouldn't hurt you). Now, however, a direct A/B comparison was possible. What it showed did hurt the monos. Even where they should have shone in their own element, they came in second across the finish line.



They were again thicker, hazier, slower and at a lower level of resolution and insight compared to just one F4 humbucking the 2A3s. Bridged, a pair of F4s on the SET kicked up drive and definition even higher to make the Rays really lackluster by comparison (yet still more expensive). Therein was the rub. Without the F4s on hand, I'd not have known. I could not have driven the Mark & Daniels with anything single-ended on hand. Alas, once heard, I could not claim ignorance.


To be sure, this was an unexpected windfall. Unintentionally, it flattened the M100s' sails which never really recovered. Once their particular sonic action had been identified, I recognized it on other speakers as well. During their break-in transformation, Esoteric's MG-20s start out lean looking for body. The pentodes' high colors and coziness of rendition at first made a comfortable partnership - until the Tannoy-built tall boys were fed a different amplifier diet to show again how the M100s left resolution and control under the table.
Least forgiving was the showing over the DeVores. An easy load and capable of surprising slam and growl on Marcus Miller-style bass -- I used a Randy Tico CD instead -- the big tube monos lacked feistiness and grip to portray the vigorous pop on bass attacks and subsequent
heaviness of the fundamentals fully developed. After all, better bass is one reason for powerful amps. Additionally, Earth Dance on Higher Octave is a superb studio recording of reference demo material. There's far more recorded dimensionality than the M100s recovered. While beautifully styled and commendably quiet in operation, my above encounters suggest that performance of the M100s isn't yet commensurate with their ambition and pricing.


And while I've justifiably feted cosmetics and build quality, there are other niggles: because the frontal controls on the preamp and monos are translucent to show the LED backlighting, they eschew the usual set screw/s on the switch shafts. They simply slip on. Hence there's some play whereby the controls turn a bit before they engage. The switches making electrical contact are high quality but the controls actuating them are loose. That diminishes perfection perception. Additionally, the preamp's volume control lacks even a basic marker to confirm setting. There's no way to visually know how high or low the volume has been set before hitting 'play' on a source. That should be rectified. You wouldn't want to fire up your system for coronary shock just because someone changed settings without your knowing (or you've become forgetful where you left off).


Besides the lack of input XLRs on the C200 to match the disc spinners' XLR outs; and being limited to just three inputs; besides the full display mute of the CD-128 not having migrated to the CD-168 (it dims in three stages, lacking the black out); besides no means to turn off the big blue controls that turn somewhat garish in the dark - that's it for nitting. There's no mechanical transformer hum even on above-spec AC line voltages on any of these components. Operational heat despite the forest of tubes on the monos is surprisingly mild. Apparently the tubes aren't pushed hard.
Which brings us to the CD-168.
The CD-168 is far more similar to the CD-128 than not yet the welcome addition of the variable outputs; the auto-TOC feature triggered by a depressor in the load well; the defeatable backlighting; and taking far less time than the CD128 to go operational round out at a price that realists will admit the older machine could have rightfully been all along. One would think that the candid acknowledgment of this similarity even by the maker could eventually lead to the 128's outright replacement. If so, I'd buy a CD-128 while available and apply some of the savings to a nice set of upgrade fire bottles. To ferret out how these machines diverged if at all, I ran both into Coda's 0.5X preamp, then to Coda's CX 450-watt monos via a balanced lead for a very high-resolution, dynamic and super low-noise setup. Well-done digital these days is more and more closely spaced in performance and these two machines are not only from the same maker but share actual circuit elements.


The CD128 is a brilliant performer for its price and a set of NOS bottles even kicks that up a few notches to make for very happy ears indeed. And in fact, I preferred its treble over the CD168, thinking it a tad more lit up. Mind you, this could be appreciated in a direct A/B but, as a feature, receded into the background as quickly as half a track, in this case "Valse Triste" on the brilliant Waltz King by Café Noir [Carpe Diem 31012-2] who unfortunately haven't released anything else this stupendous. The album navigates Austrian chamber music Tzigane style, meaning violin, viola, upright bass, clarinet, accordion, mandolin, Manouche guitar and vocals - gorgeous stuff very well recorded that holds up strong under the kind of intense repeats this exercise required.

I could bore you with endless details but the upshot of the comparison was simply such a minor offset as to be far less than what tube rolling will shift in various directions. If your preamp has no remote control, the CD168's variable outputs hit that nail on the head. If you're a fan of black-out listening session, the CD168's halo-off feature will be preferable. If you fret over numbers -- one chip versus another -- buy the 168 and feel smugly superior. If money is tight, buy the 128 and know that those numbers mean nothing when the rubber meets the road in the kind of system context I image these players would find themselves in. In short, the CD168 is a feature-wise dolled up CD128 which sonically takes nothing away (not always a given). It thus justifiably shares the 128's prior Blue Moon award as a very slick, dialed machine and powerful recommendation in this sector. For details, refer to the CD128 review.

Last but very much not least, the C200
Stepping on stage in the wake of the Coda transistor preamp, the C200 right away justified its valved existence with more intense tone colors, more spray on plucked string attacks and bigger ripples of dynamic shading within a phrase. To move beyond the readily expected, I set up ModWright's SWL 9.0SE against the Raysonic. With the former extensively reviewed to act as easy reader reference, this would quickly establish proper context for the newcomer. Unlike with the digital machines, this analog juxtaposition netted readily obvious differences. The ModWright was cooler and sharper, a bit more transistory in its portrayal of the leading edge, with less bloom on the follow-thru than diehard tuboholics may expect. The Raysonic was more padded with tone and thus apparently a bit darker but still fully capable of distilling the transient glitter from out of the mix - that blistery shine on a sharply plucked guitar string that zings through the air.
Where the 9.0 is dimensionally dry to be soundly beat by its bigger LS-36.5 brother which adds space and inter-note ambience in buckets, the Chinese contender sets up camp in-between. It handles ambience and tonal fullness with equal aplomb. During its early stay, I thought the C200 to be too dark and slow but plenty of play during the FirstWatt F4 tests took out the cork and completely reshuffled first impressions. At the end of the day, this ultra-quiet, tidily styled preamp led these three new components from Raysonic on the resident excito-meter with the biggest bang. As a lover of high-sensitivity speakers, my listening biases are big on dynamics and timing. Components which suppress those qualities get me less excited. Yet if tonal fullness gets sacrificed to achieve an extra measure of apparent speed or incisiveness, system voicing runs away from long-term pleasure. That's where the extra tone color of the C200 over the smaller ModWright scored highly in the above setup.

A great test for resolution can be Chinese martial arts soundtracks for The House of Flying Daggers type epics where snapping branches, rain fall and other nature sounds occur against acoustic instruments. Because my main rig doesn't do DVD, I reached for Katchina by G.E.N.E. [IC 720.143] to hear things like a motor boat approaching, dropping anchor, then rising bubbles and a faux underwater ambience; native American dancers and drums; thunder; rain; birds and crickets; foot steps across a forest path; and various acoustic and electronic instruments superimposed for tasty ambient soundscapes.
Especially with rain fall and snapping twigs being such common noises that won't easily fool our senses, it's the startle factor of mistaking playback for the real thing that can be telling. The C200 scored highly on such percussive noises to show that it had the necessary rise times to crack when necessary. I didn't detect any softening of bass either when the e-bass snarled and snapped and the big frame drums set up a heavy tribal groove to move serious air - which admittedly is predominantly a function of the amplifier/speaker interface but preamps will clearly affect it, too.


At $2,700, all Raysonic's C200 really lacks for universal appeal is remote control (that's where the CD168 comes in if you go Ray twice) and an HT bypass for joint movie/music duties. Being pure functionality items, they don't take away one iota from sterling audible performance. They simply have the C200 miss an award nomination in a price class where these functions are standard elsewhere.


Concluding
Raysonic has embarked on the uphill path of serious fi. The new CD168 and C200 are ambitious yet fairly priced machines with elegant cosmetics where the only puff of miniature cloud is the lack of a dimmer on the preamp's back-lit controls which might strike some as too nouveau-riche at night. For those not in need of the CD168's volume control, the CD128 remains sonically virtually identical for less money and thus the go-to piece for the savvy shopper. The C200 is directly competitive with the accoladed ModWright SWL 9.0SE. It simply adds more overt (but just right apportioned) tube virtues to become the preferential choice when you want to hear more of the tubes you just inserted in your signal chain.


Final judgment on the expensive M100 monos is best left to someone who will compare them against equivalent offerings by Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, Manley Labs, Rogue or VTL. The M100s are such an aesthetically dialed product that one cannot help but root for them. My personal excursion with them was bedeviled by exposure to an unusual, just spawned alternative that should rebalance expectations in this sector. (Market drag being what it is, however, I don't expect that enough people will pay attention to Nelson Pass' efforts at his FirstWatt kitchen to really upset the apple cart.)


With two out of three a hit on this assignment, Raysonic clearly is going places. This is a company that should be watched closely and definitely merits user support. Let's hope their future offerings continue to concentrate on the price-performance balance that's so smartly embodied by the CD128, CD168 and C200. There's always room for nicely styled, impeccably executed, reliable and good-sounding components a lot of people want to own and can afford. For the most part, Raysonic is certainly walking that talk - in silver and black threads no less. Molto bene, with special recognition for the CD168 which shares the CD128's award.


Quality of packing: Full foam clamshells inside double boxes, seemingly impervious to regular shipper abuse.
Reusability of packing: Can be reused at least once.
Ease of unpacking/repacking: Very easy.
Condition of components received: Perfect.
Completeness of delivery: Complete.
Quality of owner's manual: Basic but sufficient.
Website comments: Has all the necessary specs and basic photos.
Warranty: 3 years.
Human interactions: Quick e-mail responses to all questions.
Pricing: CD168 and C200 are priced attractively, the M100 monos are inexplicably expensive.
Comments & suggestions: An LED dimmer or off switch on the C200's and M100's back lighting would be an attractive future feature. The preamp could benefit from the addition of remote control and an additional input configurable as HT thru-put. The CD168 lacks the full display mute of the CD128.
Manufacturer's website