is McIntosh known for good dynamics?

@magon "I’m wondering if the McIntosh signature sound is known for good dynamics and microdynamics."

Absolutely, McIntosh typically specs any of their amplifiers as having at least 1.8 dB of dynamic headroom and independent tests reveal they easily exceed that. I’ve included an excerpt of John Atkinson’s technical analysis of the McIntosh MAC7200 receiver Larry Greenhill reviewed in the December 2020 issue of Stereophile and attached the link to the article in it’s entirety for you to read if you so choose.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mcintosh-mac7200-stereo-receiver

Figs.5, 6, and 7 plot the percentage of THD+noise in the MAC7200’s speaker output from the 8 ohm tap into 8 ohms, the 4 ohm tap into 4 ohms, and the 2 ohm tap into 2 ohms. In each graph, the THD+N continues to drop as the power decreases below actual waveform clipping, due to the distortion lying beneath the noise floor and the fixed level of noise becoming an increasing percentage of the signal level. The receiver’s maximum power is specified as being at least 200W from each of the output-transformer taps. Using our definition of clipping, which is when the output’s percentage of THD+noise reaches 1%, the 8 ohm tap clipped at 255W into 8 ohms (24dBW) with both channels driven, the 4 ohm tap at 235W into 4 ohms (20.7dBW) with both channels driven, and the 2 ohm tap at 283W into 2 ohms (18.5dBW) with one channel driven. More power was available when the load impedance was lower than the nominal tap impedance. For example, with its 8 ohm tap driving 4 ohms, the McIntosh clipped at 340W into 4 ohms (22.3dBW, fig.8).

Fig.5 McIntosh MAC7200, 8 ohm tap, distortion (%) vs 1kHz continuous output power into 8 ohms.

Fig.6 McIntosh MAC7200, 4 ohm tap, distortion (%) vs 1kHz continuous output power into 4 ohms.

Fig.7 McIntosh MAC7200, 2 ohm tap, distortion (%) vs 1kHz continuous output power into 2 ohms.

I measured how the MAC7200’s distortion changed with frequency at 20V output, which is equivalent to 50W into 8 ohms and 100W into 4 ohms. The THD+N percentage was very low into both loads (fig.9) and didn’t increase at the top of the audioband. As suspected from the clipping graphs, the measurement was being dominated by random noise, which can also be seen in the waveform of the THD+N spuriae (fig.10). A hint of second harmonic can be just made out in this graph, which was confirmed by spectral analysis (fig.11). Intermodulation distortion was also vanishingly low (fig.12).

Fig.9 McIntosh MAC7200, 8 ohm tap, THD+N (%) vs frequency at 20V into 8 ohms (left blue, right red) and 4 ohms (left cyan, right magenta).

Fig.10 McIntosh MAC7200, 8 ohm tap, 1kHz waveform at 100W into 8 ohms, 0.0043% THD+N (top); distortion and noise waveform with fundamental notched out (bottom, not to scale).

Fig.11 McIntosh MAC7200, 8 ohm tap, spectrum of 50Hz sinewave, DC–1kHz, at 100W into 8 ohms (left channel blue, right red, linear frequency scale).

Fig.12 McIntosh MAC7200, 8 ohm tap, HF intermodulation spectrum, DC–30kHz, 19+20kHz at 100W peak into 8 ohms (linear frequency scale).

@magon Happy it's all working out for you and you enjoyed the review.  Carry on! 

@faustuss thanks, those look like incredible specs. 

Now that I replaced the tubes my MHA200 sounds dynamic. I didn't realize how problematic my custom 12AU7/FET headphone amp was; now I'm enjoying all sorts of less-than-pefect recordings again.

The question is the clarity and musical impact of the dynamics. Take clarity. In a live classical concert, I can hear them varying their dynamics, even when a little bit. If they get suddenly quiet, the intensity of the passage doesn’t disappear.. it’s just as intense and compelling. If they get suddenly loud, it has startle factor.

@magon I would call that transparency, which is a function of low distortion; the lower the distortion the more transparent the amp. If its not low distortion it has less chance of revealing the nuances in the recording.

@atmasphere Baloney!  It’s about noise floor or signal to noise ratio or "dynamic range".  It was revelatory that at CD’s appearance on the scene with a dynamic range of 96 dB or signal to noise ratio which had never been available in a consumer format previously.  It’s best-case distortion is limited to .22% due to 16-bit quantization noise.

@faustuss Oddly, many digital titles do not have the dynamic range of their analog counterparts for the simple reason that the digital release has expectation of being played in a car while the LP version does not.

Distortion obscures low level detail. The dynamic range you're talking about isn't the same thing as 'dynamics' to which so many audiophiles refer. The latter tends to be caused by distortion rather than actual dynamic range.

So as a result lower distortion amplifiers tend to sound less 'dynamic'. This is simply because the ear uses higher ordered harmonics to sense sound pressure. If this is coming in the form of distortion it can have the effect of greater 'dynamics'. This has absolutely nothing to do with the dynamic range of the recorded media.

Dynamic compression is nothing new, it has been used routinely since the beginning of electronic recording and the signal to noise ratio of the recording medium, tape, vinyl, CD, SACD, MP3 etc., is truly the only limiting factor.  With the exception of classical music and maybe acoustic jazz, popular music and rock is recorded routinely with only but a few decibels of dynamic range simply because its just loud or compression is used as a matter of course from an artistic effect and the type of limiting or brick walling you're referring to on CDs is relatively recent occurrence due to the fact that iPods and low bit streaming have taken over as the format of choice by most listeners over the past couple of decades. The intent being that the louder the new hot single is the more attention it gets. Commercially produced CDs often contain exactly what crescendos, subtlety or nuance the artist, producer and the engineers intended depending on what type of music and audience they intend to market to. Sometimes the studio executives decide otherwise and the release formats are mastered differently.

@steve59 Damping factor, typically is an indicator that an amplifier has a low output impedance, generates high current and can drive more reactive speaker loads and is also less likely to have variations in frequency response as a result. Mcintosh uses autoformers which mitigates those effects and allows their amps to drive any load to full power.