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Reviewer: Srajan Ebaen
Financial Interests: click here
Source: 27" iMac (3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, 16GB 1.333MHz RAM, 2TB hard disc, 256GB SSD drive, ADM Radeon HD 6970M with 2GB of GDDR5 memory), PureMusic 1.87; Amarra 2.3; Audirvana Plus 1.2.1; April Music Eximus DP1; Antelope Audio Zodiac Gold & Voltikus; Esoteric/APL Hifi UX1/NWO-M with Audiophilleo 2
Preamp/Integrated: Wyred4Sound mINT, Bel Canto Design C5i
Speakers: Everything But The Box Terra III with Amphion Impact 400 subwoofer,, Aries Cerat Gladius
Cables: Complete loom of Zu Audio Event, Entreq & Ocellia USB cables
Stands: 2 x ASI HeartSong 3-tier, 2 x ASI HeartSong amp stand
Powerline conditioning: 1 x GigaWatt PF2, 1 x Furutech RTP-6
Sundry accessories: Extensive use of Acoustic System Resonators, noise filters and phase inverters
Room size: 5m x 11.5m W x D, 2.6m ceiling with exposed wooden cross beams every 60cm, plaster over brick walls, suspended wood floor with Tatami-type throw rugs. The listening space opens into the second storey via a staircase and the kitchen/dining room are behind the main listening chair. The latter is thus positioned in the middle of this open floor plan without the usual nearby back wall.
Review Component Retail: $955 CND for Model 1 integrated; $995/pr CND for Model 1 speakers
Mass Fidelity exhibit at 2012 Montreal show
Good things take time to ripen. Rewind exactly one year. Now you are the proverbial fly on the wall while Benjamin Webster of Mass Fidelity riffs to me about his plans for an exciting new hifi brand.

Early concept drawing of what since has become the Model 1 speaker
22 March 2011 22:12: "The speaker matches the amp's height profile at 4" tall and is 10" wide and 10" deep. Each speaker has two midrange units, one tweeter and one 5" woofer. The cabinet has two independently tuned enclosures and was designed and optimized from the beginning with our new amplification stage. In 2009 I was chatting with an old associate who specialized in high reliability/efficiency/low-noise industrial power supplies.


" Much of their business had been focused on powering hydro-acoustic products like sonar systems and seismic exploration instrumentation. He was convinced that we could double or better the power output from our Doosey amp without any degradation in sound. He flew from Norway to Toronto and met with us to discuss the possibility of customizing a power supply to our requirements and introduce us to the new president of their American operations.


"After quickly going over our engineering specs, the two looked at each other and offered something I wasn't expecting at all.
L'il Doosey of 2009
    
  "They'd had a skunk works program going for some time that leveraged their power expertise. It used a proprietary semiconductor device made only for them by International Rectifier. The gist of the pitch was "a class D amplifier that behaves like class A/B". "Fine, I'll bite!" They ended up sending us pre-production engineering samples of the product. It was quickly clear that they were on to something special. While the Doosey was a master when it came to high-efficiency designs, this power and amplification stage took anything you'd throw at it. It gave you the feeling that regardless of source material or load, it maintained complete ownership of the transducers. I couldn't break it. Believe me I tried. 


"So this new integrated is conservatively rated at a glorious 45wpc at 8 ohms and 90wpc at 4 ohms. The speaker was intentionally configured to run at 4 ohms so the little guy is basking in juice. The preamp inside the Phy runs differential signal paths from each and every input all the way to the output stage. The new Doosey mono amp rocks an amazing 180 watts at 8 ohm with a 360-watt peak. I've pulled a couple of engineering drawings of what the Phy and its partner speakers will look like. The different colors on the speaker just indicate different parts of the assembly. The idea is that they'll be finished with the same paint colors as the Phy and Dooseys." - Benjamin Webster, Mass Fidelity
Early concept drawing of the Phy precursor to today's Model 1 integrated
The above had been in response to certain questions I'd asked Ben after he'd dispatched a short announcement for our news pages. I'd initially communicated with him in 2009 when the Li'l Doosey had its first public showing at the Canadian Montreal show. After that Mass Fidelity had disappeared at least from my consciousness. Now I knew why.

Early concept drawing of the Phy precursor to today's Model 1 integrated
There had been more: "The Phy is an integrated amp with both balanced and unbalanced pre-outs.  The Doosey is a monoblock with both unbalanced and balanced inputs. The speaker has a d'Appolito configuration and the sub is top firing. If someone wanted to stand it on its side it won't hurt my feelings though. The finish will be paint over machined aluminum for the electronics and speaker grill and a matching job on MDF over the speaker enclosures. Gloss? Not sure. I'm kinda partial to matte to be honest. We'll see what looks better after we experiment a bit. 
Production Model 1 in black and copper finish
"To be honest, pricing has been one of our biggest challenges. Our goal is to put high-quality products into the hands of lots of music lovers. The problem we keep running into when discussing this with dealers/distributors? They're telling us that the prices we're presenting to them are too low. "You're selling yourselves short!" While I'm sure we underpriced the original Doosey, I don't want to put our products into a category where the average Jane can't afford them. It's been one of the big motivators for me over the years and keeps the product development process very challenging."
Production Model 1 speakers in black/silver
with Model 1 integrated amplifier in silver

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