McIntosh's Most Powerful 2CH Amp Ever Unveiled!

Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
"I think they're mostly more hobbies than businesses."

Just hobbies acting as companies, well that is interesting. It's a bit like candle making I suppose. I wonder if guys like Robert Harley know this?

I still remember looking at that Krell 2-channel system in an audiophile showroom recently and being aghast by the price. It's good to know it's just a hobby for the manufacturer and has no profit-margin.
I don't know about "no profit margin". I'm guessing the Krell dealer has a 40% margin on MSRP. Like I said, just a guess. Maybe less on the cheaper units. As of 2015, Krell revealed it had 15 people employed in manufacturing and test. Since all of the units are hand assembled, I doubt there's a lot of unit volume being produced. And Krell is one of the bigger companies. Even Harman appears to be out of the manufacturing business altogether for the Mark Levinson products; they even tell you Mack Industries assembles them on the ML website. And Levinson is a pretty "big" brand, bigger than Krell in distribution, and they couldn't justify a factory of their own. Some ML products have been out-sourced to companies like ATI for years. In so-called high-end audio, who is making a lot of money, net? In fact, I'm wondering, are there any independent high-end audio companies with revenues of $100M/yr or higher? Maybe a few of the speaker manufacturers... B&W? KEF? Martin Logan? McIntosh?
 
killdozzer

killdozzer

Audioholic Samurai
It's a lot of money to pay for a 2-channel amplifier with a poor damping factor of about 40. Why don't they get rid of their output stage autoformers?
They missed that. They should hire you. Probably walking back and forth along the research lab thinking; why didn't we ask Verdinut first, now we must unload a pile of these for 9k each and they can't even control the speakers well. Damn, this business gets the better of me!! E-very time this damping, damping... Oy!

On a price related note, I respect other aspects of quality. And I found out that the more money I have, the more I respect those other aspects.:) Every time I touch the volume knob of my higher than MC462 damping mid level Yamaha I want to slap someone. When I feel those 2g of plastic that have some wiggle room even before affecting the volume (like not being tight enough), my soul suffers.

I said this before, there's a notion of respect you feel with well build products. Respect shown to you. You feel like the engineers didn't think; aah, he's a Crocks wearing white trash, he won't notice anyway, just cram a lot of DSP effects, dazzle him, put gazillion channels and he'll be happy. Feature, features, features... lower-middle class loves me some features.

While building quality gear, engineers and designers think more along the line; if we mess up one little screw, he'll surely notice. You feel this attention. And then there's all this: pride of ownership, almost everlasting, holding the high price, even raising the price over time...

And when all our pathetic little 27 channels YamDenMara AVR's end up in some poor beasts belly poisoning it and killing it (because 28 channel is out) for the sake of Ayn Rand's wet dream, this Mc may play the last farewell filling our lungs with air, making our hearts big and drawing a tear to ones eye making it painfully clear and obvious why it did actually matter all along.
 

TechHDS

Audioholic General
What? If you had $500 Billion, you wouldn't buy some $250K amps? :D
I would! And two of them speakers shaped like an hour glass that’s about 6 ft tall,:eek: you know the ones that have that bellows that breathes in and out in the middle. They go for about 250K each too! :D
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
I would! And two of them speakers shaped like an hour glass that’s about 6 ft tall,:eek: you know the ones that have that bellows that breathes in and out in the middle. They go for about 250K each too! :D
I can actually get you those $225K KEF speakers too. :D
 
killdozzer

killdozzer

Audioholic Samurai
I would! And two of them speakers shaped like an hour glass that’s about 6 ft tall,:eek: you know the ones that have that bellows that breathes in and out in the middle. They go for about 250K each too! :D
MBL?
 
WineOfTheVeins

WineOfTheVeins

Audioholic
Beautiful piece of machinery, these McIntosh's have that industrial, high-tec look to them. I'll stick with my Anthem, she's a beast. :) Besides, they under-rate the power on them, I've plenty than to know what to do with.
Thanks for the read. I sent it to someone I know with a McIntosh preamp.
 
Cjamrr

Cjamrr

Audioholic
Beautiful piece of machinery, these McIntosh's have that industrial, high-tec look to them. I'll stick with my Anthem, she's a beast. :) Besides, they under-rate the power on them, I've plenty than to know what to do with.
Thanks for the read. I sent it to someone I know with a McIntosh preamp.
Which Anthem do you own? I am demoing an Anthem MCA325 connected to my new Focal Kanta No2.
How do you like your amp.
 
D

Defcon

Audioholic
Another overpriced component made for rich folk who buy based on brand name and don't really know or care about performance.

This will be sold by salesmen on commission at high end audio shows and paired with low efficiency speakers with $$$$$ cabinets and $$ drivers, $$$ cables and other snake oil.

There's a market for everything.
 
mpitogo2000

mpitogo2000

Audioholic Intern
So interesting, what motivates people like to take good products and drag it into the gutter.
 
Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
So interesting, what motivates people like to take good products and drag it into the gutter.
In this case, because I can't stand marketing cliches turned into product engineering compromises that add no value.
 
mpitogo2000

mpitogo2000

Audioholic Intern
My opinion, McIntosh makes great quality equipment for a particular mainstream segment along with for example, Classé, PeachTree and PS Audio. It’s a relative bargain compared to some other esoteric brands, Boulder, Constellation, D’Agostino, Goldmund.

I own entry an level MA5200, a C47/MC452 and also have a handful of other bands but the McIntosh sound with the autoformer is my favorite.
 
ryanosaur

ryanosaur

Audioholic Overlord
I can actually get you those $225K KEF speakers too. :D
Do you make commission on that? :p

I’m with @Danzilla31, where’s the tipping point at? 3-4K still seems absurd for any one piece of equipment save the speakers. Then, anything above 5k. I don’t need nautilus, muon, or ulfberts. ;) (I might want, but that’s another story!)
 
Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
I own entry an level MA5200, a C47/MC452 and also have a handful of other bands but the McIntosh sound with the autoformer is my favorite.
I am not a member of the all-electronics-sound-the-same club that a bunch of posters on this site are senior members of, so I think it is possible that the MC452 does indeed sound better in some tangible way than lesser amps. It is one of the McIntosh's "quad-balanced" designs, and increasing the equipment's CMRR is a technically sound way (pun intended) of reducing distortion. Nonetheless, IMO, those Autoformers are not adding any value, and, worse, they don't even do what McIntosh claims they do. They couldn't possibly. And while I don't feel as strongly as Verdinut does about damping factor, one of the objectives of good amplifier design is near-zero output impedance (as is near infinite input impedance), and I'd much rather have it. If your speakers have impedance that drops to two ohms or less at certain frequencies the MC452 might not be a good choice for maintaining a really flat frequency response.
 
Cjamrr

Cjamrr

Audioholic
I heard both the Anthem STR power amp and the McIntosh MC462 amp hooked up to a McIntosh C2700 tube preamp. Both sound nice.
I prefer the McIntosh.
just my dumb ___ opinion.
 
Pogre

Pogre

Audioholic Slumlord
So "quad balanced", is that the same design as the Quad amplifiers @TLS Guy has high regard for? If so, where you at, doc?? I'd be curious to read your take on this one.
 
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