100W, 200W, or 300W?

One can always take the stance that ’too much is Never enough....'

A pair of Crown PA amps, capable of running a kilowatt a side...

Into a floor to ceiling line arrays, anchored into both....

’Dropping the needle’ might break the windows, but Hey...

Nothing exceeds like excess...;)

Something to note. A huge amount of speakers are 88 Db. Krell or some other amplifier manufacturers make the wattage ratings on some amps seem overstated -or are Krell et al understated I cant remember. The power supply is an important feature to consider when driving difficult loads. I’m with Erik Squires 1 step at a time. Try getting your maximum benefits with what you have now by using room treatment speaker position in relation to walls and your hot seat. Let your Ears be the judge. Calculations only take you some of the way. As for the Blue meters its an aesthetic choice which may be at odds with the sound you are after.

May I follow up on @almarg advice above and suggest you hold on to your new speakers which are excellent.
Amp: consider an ATC S(?) 150 integrated. It retails far below the Macs and, all things considered, it sounded excellent driving the model up from your speakers (804).
The driving power and clarity and subjective feeling of control were top-notch.
ATC is known for their speakers -- and I love their top 2-way and their 3-way models, but I was hardly expecting them to turn out so capable electronics... a totally unfounded bias as it turned out!

My room is a little smaller than yours: about 15x15x10 high. Sub is eventually on the TODO list to fill in the bottom end - but after amp and streamer upgrades.

@eisenb11 If your room really is these dimensions then I don’t think you’re going to need all that much power since your room isn’t that big. If you are not overloading your old harmon kardon then this is all the proof of that you need. But you do have a different problem- your room is square!

It is very difficult to get the bass to work properly in a square room! The most elegant solution is to employ a Distributed Bass Array and to correct minor problems, add room treatment. Standing waves are a huge problem in a square room, and room treatment won’t fix it on its own. You’ll need to break up the standing waves (otherwise you’ll have one-note bass with the rest of the bass almost non-existant).


If this were my system I would be looking at this issue first, rather than looking at increasing amplifier power! You need that amplifier power to make bass notes without distortion, but if they are being canceled out by standing waves in your room, no amount of power will fix that- because the more energy you put into the bass is irrelevant if it simply cancels itself.

The best distributed bass array system I’ve seen is known as the Swarm and is made by Audiokinesis in Texas. Essentially it is 4 subs, each about a 1 foot square by 2 feet high. You place them directly against the walls. Two are in front, and the other two are asymmetrically placed elsewhere in the room, maybe one to one side and one in the rear; by doing this standing waves are broken up and you get even bass distribution in the room down to 20Hz. They do not operate above 80Hz so you can feed them a mono bass signal (so they can all be fed from the same bass amp) and as long as they do not go above 80Hz then the main speakers will convince you that bass drums and bass guitar is in front of you since their harmonics will be coming from the main speakers.

I am very unconvinced that you need more power. In particular, if you took the bass notes out of the main speakers (some subwoofer crossovers do that) then you’ll find your amp has plenty of power.

@auxinput Being new to this, I'm still figuring things out - but that's why I came into this thread with an open mind - despite wanting a Mac, I'm now seriously considering other options and doing research on the many things that are being written in this thread - learned/learning a ton. After all, what would be the point in me asking for input if I didn't care what you all had to say! Keep the info flowing! :)

@ei001h Yeah, that's what I'm laerning - after listening to the videos, I really liked the detail from the Luxmans. Also, they seemed to tame the tweater without being overly mellow. My concern with the Macs now, if they may be a little bit too laid back for my taste. As you mentioned, I have a highly resolving speaker and I'm looking for something that will pair well with it, without overdoing it and getting me fatigued - currently with work-from-home in full swing - I'm listening to the thing all day!

I'm located in Redondo Beach, which is a suburb of Los Angeles. With COVID in full swing (and beyond) over here, I've been trying to limit going out for the time being.

What do you think of the Levinson integrateds? Haven't done much research into that brand yet, but I know that they've been around since I was a kid.

Did some initial searching for Luxman, but they seem hard to find used, in general. The few that I found appeaer to be Japan imports that need a step-down converter. Is this the norm? Or am I looking in the wrong places to find these?

@atasphere those are the general dimensions of my room, but it's more square-ish because there are things jutting into it like a closet, offset door, entry way, etc. I do have acoustic panels on the way (eventually) from GIK, but they're super backordered. Expect them at the end of the month. I have corner traps up to the ceiling to take care of an open corner. The other corner, can't fit corner traps, so I have a 6" monster trap that will go against the wall near that corner. 6" monster trap on the wall across from the speakers in the center. 6" alpha traps with some diffusion on either side of the wall across from the speakers. And two quadratic diffusors to go between the speakers. Should be interesting!

So I’ve been thinking about this more, and I think @atmasphere has a point - maybe watts really isn’t a big deal for me. After all, I have 100 wpc right now and I can’t crank it, as is, without going deaf. Probably the room acoustics of my small room. 
Assuming that’s the case, is there any advantage of considering a smaller Class A as well? Say a Luxman 590 instead of a 509/505?

I think it’s 100% given at this point that, unless I stumble on a crazy deal that I need to jump on, I really need to wait until I have my acoustic panels up in a few weeks before buying anything - need to see how they affect things as my room is probably magnifying sounds right now (it’s echoey). 
I still haven’t ruled out Macs because they still do sound good and their integrated, unlike Luxman, has a DAC (And upgradeable to boot!) which covers 2 of my wants vs one. I also like that they have more tech on their side as the Mac can be more easily integrated with Roon through USB - that gets me volume control through the Roon interface that I primarily use (when I swap my Sonos for a USB streamer). 
Lots of good info in this thread - you all are awesome. I’m learning a ton and considering paths that I never would have considered.

Keep it coming!

@eisenb11  If you can't clip your existing amp then possibly yes to a class A amplifier. High end is all about nuance!

'Echoey' isn't good- that makes the room more lively and harder to enjoy at higher volumes. So you may find that once the treatment is in place that you need more power. My advice is to sit tight until the room treatment comes in and you've had some time to fiddle with it to see what works. You may find at that point that more power will be useful, as that room treatment will absorb some acoustic power and has the ability to tame harshness in the room; both will cause you to turn the volume up higher.

A mark of a good system is when you can't tell that its playing loud; that it sounds relaxed and effortless, yet if you try to talk to someone right next to you, you find that you have to yell.

So... after tons of continued research, I think I’m honing in on a game plan.


First, to address my power concern: 100W is fine. Doing the math, 2m listening distance, at 88.4 dB (measured on stereophile) sensitivity, with a desired volume of 102 dB (loud! I’m not actually going to go near this high) needs 92W. At 100 dB target, drops that to 58W. And that’s not counting amplifier headroom so I think I’m ok with any choice.

I expect the room treatment to have a drastic impact on sound, but I don’t expect it to change the math behind the power needs. That’s because I suspect my room is echoing and magnifying the sound currently which is why I play at lower volumes. Once treated, I suspect that the volume dial is going to go up (which aligns to what others have said in this thread) because I’ll lose the freebie (but poor quality) amplification from the room so that’s what it’ll take to hit the same volume level. That’s why the calculations above are important - that’s direct volume so those are worst case numbers. The volume knob only goes down from there.

I think I’m going to go the organic route and grow into this - as mentioned I’m new to this, so need to temper what I do with whatever little level of restraint that I have. As I just bought a new house and with the economic uncertainty of the zombie apocalypse in play it would probably be prudent to exercise at least some semblance of restraint on my part! Ha ha

That said, I’m heavily leaning towards the MA5300 route right now. Still considering Luxman, but I think the value proposition may be higher on the Mac side (for me).

What’s attracting me to Mac are a few things: they look nice (glass w blue meters!), 1.8 dB headroom leaves plenty of power, the high resale value makes it easier to do the organic jump if an upgrade comes later, and the value proposition - the MA gets me a new amp, has a pre, and also comes with the DA1 which is a decent DAC. Throw in $1k later, and I can jump to the DA2 DAC. I also like the Roon ready capability since I’ve drunk the Roon Kool-aid.

The next thing I had to work out was autoformer vs no autoformer and that discussion seems to lead to a holy war on the forums. Both have their merits, but after listening to a ton of videos and doing a lot more research it appears to be a wash to me... it’s just preference... one choice is not inherently better than the other. My take on it is that it seems to give a more tube like presentation at the cost of bass control and possible some accuracy - I think that’s why the Luxman videos were really shining on me. Digging through the Mac specs it appears that their own direct coupled design has 5 times the damping factor of the autoformer design. While it seems debatable if damping factor beyond 250 has real-world gain, these values seem to be within the “it might matter” range since they’re within the 0-250 range. No single amp design is perfect - you need to make your trades.

That said, that’s why the MA5300 is looking interesting to me. It has the wattage needed for my small room (it’s my home office), has all the toys so I upgrade everything at once, has some growth potential, Roon ready, looks nice, good resale if I change my mind or want to upgrade, and because it’s directly coupled should have performance closer to the Luxman side of the house sonically.

I’m not sure if it’ll sound as nice as a Luxman, but I need to see where things land when I make my trades. The 509 and 507 are really nice! In the end, I don’t think I want to deal with the high power consumption (heat!) of class A, so the 590 is out.

If my room was larger, my sitting distance would increase and that would change everything. During my research, I found the math for dB reduction as a factor of distance and it’s very significant. Just my 2m distance comes at a cost of around 6 dB! That’s huge!

One other factor that I’ve taken into consideration is that my speakers also don’t have crazy bass as they’re 2-ways and they’re size limited. The frequency response bottoms out at 42 Hz. All of the sub options I’m looking at for future growth have built-in class D amps so they’re not affected by what I choose here.

So I guess my saving grace is that my home office isn’t very big! :)

Any ways, just thought I’d share my thoughts so far!

I just looked at the MA5300, I think you are making a wise choice. I don’t know anything about digital beyond CD’s, so I have no idea what it doesn’t have, but the MA352 appealed to me when I saw it’s a tube/ss hybrid, remote control, still has blue meters for you, additional power, (for the future, I agree with you, 100 watts are enough)

I don’t know the price of either one. Buy a used one? McIntosh comes with 3 year warranty, is it transferable? In any case, they are essentially bullet proof, so if you find a good deal on one you can return, or, one you can buy an extended warranty, i.e. square trade, I would go for that.

You didn’t mention, but both of these have MM Phono Input, you will get there some day!

I didn’t see a remote control for MA5300 (many OEM’s forget to show or mention them), MA352 has one, I would want remote volume, and remote balance to improve imaging of CD’s and LP’s, some of which are not quite spot on. A very slight balance adjustment can make a surprising difference.

My office, I went Vintage: some nice 2 way bookshelf speakers from B&W, and a self powered Velodyne sub, a Carver Cube Amp, Reel to Reel, TT, and my computer sound for YouTube, Pandora, CD, DVD, ... Monitor dead center, wonderful imaging, audio or audio/video. I control inputs, volume, balance via my Chase Remote Line Controller, RLC-1, I would never live without one, that solves any amp/preamp with no remote control.

and have set myself up with a perfect equilateral triangle listening spot, wow, terrific. I had to rebuild my office bookcases and desk to make that happen, so glad I did.

Adjustable Crossover, external or built in the sub like mine is, removes low bass before the bookshelf speakers, so they don’t try to make bass they cannot do without distortion and poor volume levels. That helps them shine. Sub just to add a bit, not too much, not aware of it unless I turn it off. Same thing with the sub in the home theater, primarily there for Jurassic Park Dinosaur Stomp.

Digging through the Mac specs it appears that their own direct coupled design has 5 times the damping factor of the autoformer design. While it seems debatable if damping factor beyond 250 has real-world gain, these values seem to be within the “it might matter” range since they’re within the 0-250 range.

@eisenb11 It might interest you to know that no speaker made needs more than 20:1 damping factor and many sound better with less! So more damping factor, if that is the only metric, totally does not matter. Damping factor looks better on paper than it sounds in real life- again, given that such is the only metric. Distortion is far more important, both the distortion that an amp makes and also that which it does not. In general with most amps these days higher distortion is often a sign of lower ordered harmonics to which the ear is relatively insensitive. OTHO very low distortion might only be higher ordered harmonics and the ear is keenly sensitive to those and interprets them as brightness and harshness.

@eisenb11

I recently purchase Sonus Faber Sonetto Vs.  I really like them and they are a significant upgrade from my Sonus Faber Venere 3.0s

Hi all, latest update:

The amp I ended up buying was... none on my list! I bought a McIntosh MC152. 150W/Ch w 2 dB headroom so no power concerns and also has the autoformers. Nice and laid back, seems to have tamed my tweeters a bit. Only had a chance to play around with them a couple of hours. Those meters are really fun to watch - better than staring at the wall while the song is playing.

Wasn’t in a big hurry to pick something, but a deal dropped in my lap that was way too good to pass up.

Congrats!  And buying something not on the list sounds like you were able to identify additional options.

The meters are a bit like fire - hypnotic!

@mrklas Thanks! I was able to cross off more boxes by going with separates, so I changed my plan a little bit. I didn't know about the MC152 which basically got me what I wanted without having to go as big as the MC302.

I've been having a lot of fun. Replaced my speakers, then the amp with that new one. Afterwards, my acoustic treatment finally came in so I put that up. Last week, finally got around to making a new convolution filter with REW for my new amp+acoustic updates and loaded that into Roon. Incredible difference from where I started!

The Sonos Connect which I'm using for streamer and DAC is now the weak point in my system. Time to weigh some options for when my wallet recovers a bit...

Hi OP,

I bought a brand spanking new Mac integrated a long time ago because I had always wanted those blue meters. Turned out it was entirely not the sound I really desired not fit with the speakers I found out I liked.

Better to find a dealer who will let you listen to as many different amps as possible. They might let you home audition older, used gear, which will give some sense of what the latest and greatest from a manufacturer may sound like.

Thanks for listening,

Dsper

To be blunt, but not rude, the listening fatigue factor of B&W speakers, matched with the homogenized sound of Mac amplification, will find you back on a forum again in no time. Many of your audio peers, myself included, have gone down the path you are on regarding these two over-marketed and hyped products. In regards to Mac, I was always able to sell my gear easily and for a fair price. B&W-good luck!

My recommendation for your foray into high(er) end audio: Go listen to a pair of similar sized Focal, Dynaudio, or even Harbeth, and pair it with a Luxman SS integrated. This will keep you satisfied, and sound a hell of a lot better, IMHO.

I suggest you listen to the 805 with the latest Krell integrated, K300i sounds amazing