Richard Marsh
In more than 30 years, Richard Marsh, author, lecturer, engineer, and inventor, has shared with other designers the art of perfecting audio circuits. He has designed a high-performance capacitor specifically for audio & video application, and two lines of award-winning, acclaimed power-line products still sold today by prestigious companies. A designer’s designer. His goal now is to bring you his accumulated experience -- in the service of the music.
In the five years of its existence, the Marsh Sound Design team has built its products to the most exacting standards of design and construction, coupled with simplicity of use, long life, and timeless quality. Your investment in a Marsh product means you can forget the hardware and focus on years of enjoyment.
So - set your course for the music . . . and leave the rest to us.
Goals:
Marsh Sound Design: Not Just another Hi-fi Electronics Company
After 30 years of building his own High End systems (from preamp all the way to speakers, including wire), and designing and consulting for other companies, Richard Marsh started his own firm in 1999. Marsh Sound Design is dedicated to developing electronics that represent the distillation of his years of experience and research in audio.
The Marsh Sound Design Philosophy
“Marsh Sound Design, or MSD, has two aims,” Richard Marsh says. “The first is to build the best, simplest, and most reliable line and power amplifiers possible, using top-quality modern parts and the most elegant circuit designs. Our second aim is to offer these products at prices all music lovers can afford. This is a challenge today, when fine audio products cost as much as a small house, and the ‘trickle down’ designs are either not well built or hopelessly compromised to reduce cost.”
Marsh Sound Design’s motto is: Complex on the inside; simple on the outside. The complexity, Marsh explains, reflects his decades of circuit design (he invented the popular Servo Control circuit and many innovations in the concepts of power line conditioning, some patented by other companies). Simple on the outside reflects the choice of elements the listener really needs in his audio and video systems. “We believe in performance, not gimmicky features,” Marsh says. “A good preamp and amp form the heart of a long-term system. An Marsh Sound Design amplifier will allow the listener’s system to grow. It will bring out the best not only in small speakers and inexpensive front end units, but in the finest associated equipment.”
“The most important aspect of any new business is the team,” Marsh goes on. “It has taken me 20 years to find the right team: Pongtorn Malakul of Bankok is our manufacturing partner. He brings us years of experience in building fine components, and a construction crew that is, in my experience, without peer. Vern Smith is our marketing partner, with years of experience at Monster Cable Products, Inc., where I have also worked for a number of years.”
“I’ve always wanted to represent products by a single top-flight designer,” Smith says. “This is a sure way to bring fine sound to a broad base of customers.”
“For me, this is a dream come true,” writes Pongtorn Malakul from his offices in Bangkok. “In the world of hi-fi, American products are the Thai's dream. I have spent 12 years building audio products and selling them in the East, but never the US and European markets. I knew we would need something special there. I made the acquaintance of Mr. Smith through Monster Cable, and when he told us he knew Mr. Marsh, I was very excited. . .we knew his work, you see! I admire the American's creativity. I want to make good products for everybody, more than I want getting rich. Though I don't mind both if they happen at the same time!
“We are trying to make the best product at the most modest price,” Mr. Malakul continues. “When I was young I dreamed of having Audio Research or Krell or Jadis in my home. But I couldn't afford them. Now is my chance to help my kind of young people - who appreciate the virtues of music - to afford the best products: Japanese price/American quality! That makes me happy.”
Marsh Sound Design’s first products were a tube-hybrid line amplifier, MSD P2000t; a solid-state line amplifier, P2000; a 400 watt stereo power amplifier, A400s; and a 200 watt power amplifier, A200s. The line now includes many more exciting audio/video products. Go to the menu above to see them for yourself.
Amplifiers
MSD amplifiers have been received with critical acclaim and won prizes for design & performance -- most important, they have taken their place in the lives of music many lovers.
Four Power Amplifiers
Models: A450 (monoblock), A200 (Stereo), A400 (Stereo), HT500 (Three Channel)
Four Power Levels
All use a High End circuit with extremely low-noise FETs, made even more linear by a balanced, cascoded, complimentary differential input circuit.
Marsh Sound Design A450M - Recognizing the growing need for greater dynamic range in home theaters and to match the capacities of the new music-recording formats -- 96kHz/24bit and higher and SACD -- Marsh Sound Design has designed two monoblock solid-state amplifiers that will deliver all the impact of film scores and full orchestral music, and at the opposite extreme, all the nuances of the soft word, the small, dynamic changes in a singer’s voice, a violin pizzicato, a harp arpeggio, even the whisper of fingers on a guitar string.
Traditionally, such musical precision has always been expensive. With what one reviewer* has called “great engineering,” designer Richard Marsh has brought to life the old proverb that “a great engineer is one who can do for a dime what anybody can do for a dollar.”
The circuits are stabilized for optimum music detail resolution, by use of special balanced "tracking" regulated power supplies. The power supplies are fitted with the designer's own components (visit www.capacitors.com for information on the AudioCap and Exotica capacitors), chosen for fine products worldwide.
Pre-Amplifiers
Model MSD P2000t - Hybrid/Tube Line Amplifier
The triode tube, one of the most linear devices ever developed, provides extremely low distortion. Here it is combined with the FET, creating a new and entirely modern circuit called the "Trans-mu amplification stage." This brings out all the benefits of the triode tube in audio applications - extremely low noise, wide frequency response, low-distortion - and eliminates the triode’s drawbacks.
Each channel uses two triode tubes with a push-pull output for low output impedance. The P2000t is able to drive even the longest cables without deteriorating the music signal.
The filament voltage is direct voltage through a powerful C-multiplier filter, which ensures the lowest noise and the longest, most reliable operation. How low is low? Dead quiet - so you can hear even the most subtle elements in the music.
Marsh-designed capacitors provide great accuracy and high resolution of details - for the most realistic music reproduction possible and for reliable, long-life performance.
Model MSD P2000 High-Performance Line Amplifier
The MSD P2000 is fitted with remote 12VDC control for custom installation and easy on/off control of other equipment in the system.
In sum - complex on the inside; simple on the outside. Beautiful sound, ease of use, reliability. Marsh Sound Design products provide years of music enjoyment - right at your fingertips.
Marsh Sound Design’s logo comes from an ancient Native American petroglyph, pecked in stone high in the Sierra Nevada. Long ago, small, self-sufficient groups of people moved about the mountains, hunting and gathering and celebrating rituals, leaving behind little about themselves except these rock figures, a few stone tools, and rare, hidden burials. The mark we found, created thousands of years ago, could have been a sun sign, a map, or a symbol of focus and concentration - or yet some mystery we today cannot imagine.
We asked Lorenzo Baca, an Isleta-Apache artist and musician, to interpret the symbol for us in more modern form -- a reminder to us to keep faith with the principles of simplicity and truth.
Complex? Yes, but elegant and effective. |
