Kinki Studio EX-M1+ Integrated Amplifier 2022 Review From Pursuit Perfect Systems

The M1+ sounds extremely clean and composed, music has a fantastic sense of organisation and control, even when it becomes very complex. I found this characteristic made a huge variety of music very easy and enjoyable to sit and listen to thanks to the excellent clarity of transients and superb timing, you can track all the elements of the music without straining your concentration.

Treble is smooth and detailed, the vocals are rendered with a pleasing control, composure and tonality. Bass is tight and controlled in the main but is, perhaps, more on the reserved side. I have been wanting more bass authority with some speakers at times, but I am greedy in that regard and like a lot of bass in my music.

I found the M1+ to have a reserved and quite laid-back sound overall that is tensions free. It has a smooth, clean and graceful delivery, favouring sound stage clarity through control and composure over making music have more excitement, energy, boldness or tonality. I occasionally found myself turning the volume up to get more excitement out of the system, which worked to a point. I could turn the volume up a lot, but there was a ceiling. Some more tonality could have also been a good thing, but I could hear, and suspect, that the amplifier has been tuned to balance these attributes, while maintaining an open sound stage obviously at the amplifiers price point.

For many audiophiles, nearly $3,000 for an amplifier will be aspirational level HiFi, and it is impossible for me to judge what is good value for you. Given the overall market, the EX-M1+ offers excellent build and sound quality at a good price and, for me I think it represents excellent value, and it is an easy product for me to recommend. It is not perfect and it is only an amplifier, not a HiFi Swiss Army Knife, but it is a really cracking amplifier which I found a joy to listen to.