Focal Musical Fidelity M8XTT | TURNTABLE Focal Musical Fidelity

The M8xTT is a high-end turntable with radical concepts and innovations originating from its legendary predecessor.

Antony Michaelson‘s idea of music was big scale, warm and mighty with details in colours. His amplifier creations are a rare expression of this sound character. In 2002 Antony asked Mr. Lichtenegger to help with a design with all these attributes. Also, the design was very important and should match the mechanically stunning amplifiers. The Musical Fidelity M1 was born and a great success. The base idea was to combine the inert mass of metal alloys with zero resonating acrylic. The motor was effectively decoupled from the tonearm and platter with the dual chassis construction. The new M8xTT is following the same design philosophies with even more expressive technical features.

The Tonearm

The 10-inch tonearm is a complete new ultra low resonance Musical Fidelity design with transparent acrylic bearing ring and conical aluminium tonearm tube. The tonearm is fully VTA and azimuth adjustable and comes with two counterweights to use it with cartridges from 6 to 20g. The counterweights are TPE damped to prevent resonances. On the back you can find standard phono RCA outputs, as well as balanced XLR sockets which gives you ultimate flexibility for your phono preamplifier choice.

The Motor & Platter

The motor is sitting in on a special foam in the lower level acrylic plinth to decouple it from the platter and the tonearm. The electronic speed control allows you to switch between 33 & 45 RPM. A silicon belt connects the motor and the two floor TPE damped platter, which is made of aluminium with additional inserts to improve the flywheel effect.

The Feet

Four heavyweight TPE damped aluminium feet with magnetic support connect the two acrylic plinths with teflon spacers in between. You can adjust them in height by turning the riffled middle part of the feet to level the turntable.

In The Box

You will find a heavyweight full aluminium puck in the box to stabilize your records while playing to achieve the best possible tracking. A leather turntable mat is also included, which is a superior base for your vinyl records. You will benefit from less noise and a special sound characteristic. To connect your M8xTT to your preamplifier, a semi-balanced phono interconnect cable with gold-plated connectors is included as well.

The M8xTT in Brief

Technical Specifications M8xTT

• Speed: 33, 45 (electronic speed change)
• Drive principle: belt drive with electronic speed control
• Platter: sandwich aluminium platter with aluminium inserts (10 kg), both floors with TPE damping
• Platter bearing: Inverted bearing with ceramic ball tip
• Tonearm: 10‘‘ Musical Fidelity tonearm
• Effective tonearm mass/length: 17g/254 mm
• Overhang: 16 mm
• Wow & flutter: 33rpm: +-0.05%, 45rpm +-0.04%
• Speed drift: 33rpm: +-0.11%, 45rpm: +-0.10%
• Signal to noise: -78 dB
• Dimensions: 533 x 245 x 413 mm
• Weight: 31,5 kg