John Michell founded Michell Engineering in 1966. The company had humble beginnings, starting in a garden shed, but soon moved to a dedicated industrial premise in Borehamwood, which sits just north of London.
Initially, Michell focused on general engineering work, though it did make high-quality scale models as a sideline. That expertise led to John meeting Stanley Kubrick and ultimately building the ‘Discovery’ spaceship model used in the classic sci-fi film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The company subsequently went on to make models and components for the early Star Wars films too.
It wasn’t until 1969 that Michell Engineering got involved in hi-fi. Initially, it made record player parts for a brand called Transcriptors and later on the complete decks under licence, badged ‘By J.A. Michell Eng.Ltd’. The brand’s first in-house-designed turntable, the Reference Electronic, was introduced in 1977, followed by the now legendary Gyrodec five years later. The Gyrodec has evolved over the years and remains right at the core of the company’s turntable range, flanked by its entry-level Tecnodec and high-end Orbe siblings. The company also now makes arms, cartridges, power supplies and various hi-fi accessories.
However, an important part of Michell’s history has started to fade from the collective hi-fi consciousness, and that is the decade or so that it also made amplifiers. Fabulous amplifiers.
It started with the delectable Iso phono stage in 1989. This acrylic-cased unit was about the size of a paperback and one of the first outboard phono stages on the market. It dazzled with insight and transparency that was well beyond anything suggested by its £393 price tag. The Argo line-level preamp (£689) was released a few years later, with the Alecto mono power amplifier (£1875 per pair) following a little after. All garnered excellent reviews.
The electronic design of the Iso phono stage and Argo preamp was done by Tom Evans (now of Tom Evans Audio Design) while Graham Fowler (of Trichord Research) designed the Alecto power amplifier in both mono and later stereo form. John Michell was responsible for the industrial design of all the products.
Over the years, the lineup was revised with both the phono stage and preamp being replaced by Graham Fowler designs, called the Delphini and Orca respectively. These too were received well. Michell stopped manufacturing electronics in 2001 when John Michell fell ill and passed on production to Trichord Research, which continued to make the products for several years.
This is a real treat. We’re sitting in our main What Hi-Fi? test room and before us is an Argo preamplifier with a matching pair of Alecto monos. Our samples were John Michell’s own set, and that makes them truly special regardless of performance. Given that they were manufactured around three decades ago, we can forgive the fact that the preamp has a noisy volume control. It emits loud grumbles through our ATC SCM 50 speakers every time we move it.
We are less tolerant of its split concentric volume control arrangement. The two sections of the control can be moved separately to adjust the balance between the left and right channels; there is enough friction between the two so that they move together when changing the volume level. However, the two channels don’t track together well on our aged sample, so a volume change now requires the balance between the channels to be readjusted every time. That gets tedious. A remote control would help, but while some rivals had such a feature, the Argo kept things simple. Its replacement, the talented Orca, did have one though.
Elsewhere, the Michell preamp has a good amount of connectivity with six single-ended line-level inputs, a pair of tape-outs and two preamp outputs. Thoughtfully, Michell printed the connection labels so that they can be read the right way up if you are peering over the top. Useful.
Purist preamps didn’t tend to feature headphone sockets at the time so it comes as no surprise to find it omitted here, and the partnering Iso meant that a phono stage didn’t need to be included either. High-quality preamps were all about line-level simplicity back then and the Argo reflects that.
Overall build quality is good. The pre’s wooden casework is completed by a glass front panel and traffolyte back plate; the Argo feels light but well made for the time. The use of non-metallic materials in the casework avoids the build-up of unwanted electromagnetic effects around the sensitive audio circuits, which helps to optimise sound quality. There is certainly a strong cottage industry vibe about this preamp, but we don’t mind as it is generally nice to use. Its controls are solid and precise, while the layout is logical.
Outlandish as they look, there is logic to the mostly acrylic Alecto power amp’s design too. Their huge toroidal mains transformer is shielded in a round metal case while the main audio board sits away from it, mounted vertically on the large, diecast heatsink. This arrangement not only keeps signal paths short (always a good thing ) but also reduces any adverse impact caused by any stray fields and vibrations generated by the toroidal. We also note that there is a sturdy pointed foot directly below that transformer to direct any mechanical vibration into the ground rather than through the sensitive audio electronics. This is precisely the kind of clever and practical thinking John Michell excelled at.
Being a monobloc, the Alecto has just a single (single-ended) input and two pairs of high-quality speaker terminals to make bi-wiring easier. These are powerful Class A/B MOSFET beasts, rated at 100 watts into an 8-ohm load, but they sound way more powerful than that.
This impression is rammed home when we listen to any piece of music that requires authority and scale. Prokofiev’s Montagues and Capulets is a firm favourite of ours and the Michell pre/power does a superb job with it, delivering the music with real heft and power.
Once we get past just how muscular and meaty low frequencies sound through this amplifier, our attention is grabbed by its strong dynamics and reassuring sonic stability. Nothing ruffles its composure, so controlled does it sound even at high volume levels. This impression is helped by a wonderfully smooth tonal balance and an enviable level of refinement. There is a notable lack of harshness and hard edges to the sound, which is impressive given the amount of punch on offer.
Reviews of the time speak of valve amp-like fluidity to the dynamics and rich instrumental textures, and those ring true. We can’t help but be impressed by the top-to-bottom coherence of the amplifier’s presentation; it sounds all-of-a-piece in a way few amplifiers we’ve heard manage. You can add to that a superbly rendered soundstage that couples the precise lateral location of instruments with an excellent sense of image depth. The sonic stability we spoke of earlier applies to the stereo imaging too. Nothing wavers or blurs even during more demanding sections of Prokofiev’s excellent work.
The Michell pairing’s appeal holds firm as we work through our music collection. Eric Clapton’s Unplugged set comes through superbly, with the pre-power capturing the subtlety of his guitar work beautifully. Few amplifiers, even today, capture the initial pluck and harmonic envelope of a guitar string with such grace and elegance. It all sounds natural and unforced. The same applies to Clapton’s voice, which comes through with delicacy and a convincing sense of body.
Switching to Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft set reinforces our impression of an unusually lucid presentation, but also shows a slightly subdued and closed-in feel to the higher frequencies. It is perfectly possible that age has caught up with our test samples and maybe a proper service replacing degraded components would improve this aspect. Our memories of hearing these products in the '90s certainly don’t include such characteristics.
Elsewhere, rhythms come through with slight reticence rather than real verve but this trait still doesn’t manage to throw the sound off track when it comes to conveying the easy-going momentum of tracks like Blue. One of our team likened the Michell’s smooth, rich and fluid presentation to the taste and texture of sticky chocolate pudding. That sounds about right – but with no hint of thickness or sludge to the delivery. It is as articulate and agile as we would hope for.
However, much as we adore this pre-power, there is no denying that time has caught up with it in some respects. Its resolution is good but falls short of current high-end integrated amplifiers such as PMC’s excellent Cor. A swift comparison shows that the PMC offers greater transparency, dynamic expression and rhythmic drive but that the Michell counters with greater authority and lucidity. Build standards and ease of use have improved much over the years too.
Yet, as we sit listening to the Argo/Alecto in our reference system, it is hard not to admire its distinctive range of talents. In a market packed with me-too products, these Michell designs offered something brave, distinctive and sonically class-leading. For that, Michell has to be applauded, though we find ourselves wishing the company had continued to plough this particular furrow more than it eventually did.
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