Expect the unexpected: it will be the first lesson in the book if I ever get round to writing Hi-Fi Reviewing For Dummies. You see, just because something seems like something else, it doesn't follow that it is... Too many times I've stumbled across a speaker sitting in the middle of a range, and apparently using the same recipe of drive-units, that turns out to be a complete outlier - for good or bad - in the way it plays music. The same happens with amplifiers, too. So, just because one model seems little more than a bigger version of another, don't expect it to have the same kind of balance of qualities, only 'more so'. Take, for example, the Michi X5 we have here. It's the £6300 'big brother' of Rotel's £2000-more-affordable X3 model [HFN Apr '21], and outwardly seems to be the same amplifier literally writ large. It occupies the same 485×452mm footprint, but is 45mm more imposing, at 195mm tall, while the weight is up a hefty 14.9kg, from the substantial 28.9kg of the lesser model to a full 43.8kg. In every respect, this is a big and impressive-looking integrated amplifier, even by the standards set by the imposing but svelte X3.
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