Who the heck is MSB? And how come they've come up with the Platinum M200, such a strange, yet wonderful amplifier?

The company based in Aptos, California, has been around since 1986. Although it does make and sell a certain amount of high-end hi-fi equipment, it has never been particularly pro-active in marketing.

Furthermore, a good part of its work has involved working as consultants on specific engineering projects for other brands – work that naturally tends not find its way onto the formal CV.

Most of MSB's activities are concerned with various digital audio techniques and its website claims a whole succession of 'firsts' in the gradual development of different digital formats and techniques over the years.

The current product portfolio includes a considerable and indeed somewhat confusing collection of DACs, ADCs, upgrade packages and suchlike, nearly all related to digital audio. The iLink looks particularly interesting, for its potential ability to turn an iPod into a high quality music server.

This M200 Platinum monoblock power amplifier is one of relatively few analogue components in the catalogue and MSB describes it as, 'built out of desperation'. The blurb continues: 'Designing the Platinum DACs, we found there was not an amplifier available that could let us hear everything that our DAC is capable of... We needed a Reference amplifier and that is what we built!'

That seems as good a reason as any for embarking on a project to design and build an amplifier. The questions that need to be answered are why a digital audio specialist thinks it can create a superior analogue amplifier and what original thinking it can bring to the party. The answers are seen clearly enough in the amplifier itself.

The M200 Platinum is unusual in a number of respects, some more obvious than others. To start with there's the cylindrical shape. Perfectly logical in its way, but ill-suited to mounting on the usual equipment rack. it's not unique in this respect; ironically, the last standalone power amplifier we reviewed in this very journal was Musical Fidelity's similarly cylindrical 550K Supercharger amplifier.

However, other than the shape and the need to place them on the floor, these two amplifiers are very different. Whereas the Musical fidelity cost £3,000 per pair and weighed 12kg each, this MSB device is an altogether more substantial device, weighing some 40kg each and costing £13,656 per pair (recently and substantially increased due to the drop in the international value of sterling).

Furthermore, it delivers 200 plus watts into eight ohms and can double this into lower impedance loads. The M200 Platinum is, therefore, a very serious amplifier indeed.

The shape might be a little unconventional, but the build and the price put it firmly into the 'highend' category of amplification – nowhere near as costly as some of America's more pretentious offerings, but at least as costly as any UK solid-state devices.

The finish is unconventional, too, though undeniably attractive in its own rather individual way, dominated by the considerable area of metallic-anodised blue heatsinking that surrounds the gilded amplifier section. And because it's probably going to sit on the floor, a circular gilt cradle is supplied, with tri-cone coupling to the floor and some foam damping for the heatsinks.