So, what has all this got to do with audio? As stylish as the P1800 undoubtedly was, it also flattered to deceive. With input (or at the very least, influence) from Italian design house Ghia, the long, low bodywork and swooping lines were both attractive and suggestive, hinting at a speedy thoroughbred. But below the glossy coat, the P1800 was more carthorse than racehorse. The beautifully sculpted body simply sat atop the virtually unmodified chassis, engine and running gear of the original 122 four-door sedan – a car whose engineering and performance was best and most charitably described as solid. Don’t believe me? A P1800 holds the official, verified mileage record for a single vehicle – a number approaching 3.2 million miles/5.1 million kilometres. Not exactly the DNA of a tuned to the limit, high performance sports car. Instead, it’s living proof of just how deceptive outward appearances can be – no matter how superficially attractive.
The trappings of performance
These days, companies like Audi and Mercedes (amongst others) regularly offer stock models dressed up in the visual trappings of their sportier versions – just without the engines, transmission or suspension upgrades to go with them. Plenty of buyers seem happy to have the AMG or RS trappings, without the go faster mods, but once again, the resulting car is flattering to deceive, promising performance to the casual observer that it’s in no position to deliver.
Looking instead at audio products, we have to acknowledge that the ‘display’ aspects of ownership are far more limited than with cars, in which you quite literally parade in front of your neighbours and the wider population. In the case of an audio product, the value of a deceptive appearance targets a completely different audience – the purchaser as opposed to the third-party observer. Making matters worse, the absence of the reputational value that is attached so firmly to car ownership just increases the importance of ultimate performance when it comes to audio equipment.
Back in the mid-‘80s, when Musical Fidelity wanted to join the ranks of the US-built, heavy hitters, they did it with a model called the A370, a big, brutally styled box of an amp, with deep heatsinks adorning the sides of the chassis and slender, full depth handles on an otherwise plain front panel. Following the classic trickle-down playbook, the company first undercut the opposition with their flagship and then introduced a smaller, half-priced version, the P270, to trade on its reputation. Styling on both amps might have been a bit basic, but that was a central part of their schtick, a pared back version of the look that dominated the aesthetics of those ‘over-priced’ imports. Both of the MF amps, but particularly the more affordable model, sold like hot cakes…
But then, several years passed and it became time for a product ‘facelift’ (as they’d have it in the motor trade). The flagship got swanky new brushed and anodised chassis panels, screen-printed style lines and a huge logo on the front-panel and, most important of all (at least in the eyes of the potential buyer) a pair of really beefy new handles, all heavy machining, angles and attitude. The re-styled A370 was a resounding success, nailing the stylistic trends of the day and aesthetically leap-frogging most of its competition. What more natural then, than to extend the same essential style to the P270 volks-amp? The P270-2 duly appeared: same heavily brushed and anodised casework; same dressed-up front-panel and logo; similar, beefy handles to its bigger brother. The only problem was that the improvements in the outer appearance were bought at the expense of reducing the quality of the output devices and the available reservoir capacitance! The end result? A new model that was undoubtedly prettier on the outside, but which didn’t sound as good as the original, more prosaic version…
