is McIntosh known for good dynamics?

Agree with @stereo5; find a demo that reveals what you are looking for. I have a McIntosh MA352 IA paired with Dynaudio Contour 20s playing mostly Jazz, Classic Rock, R&B, Pop and Classical.

I find that the system adapts nicely to genre, but room dynamics and speaker placement all apply so best the check out live demo systems and see for yourself.  Especially optimal if you can arrange a home demo.

@magon 'Dynamics' is a tricky word. Most of the time audiophiles use it when they are talking about distortion which can cause things to sound more dynamic; IOW if you replace the word 'dynamics' with 'distortion' in audiophile conversations the meaning of the conversation is usually unchanged.

Actual musical dynamic contrast comes from the signal itself. The amp should have nothing to do with it. You'll find that SET owners talk about the amazing dynamics of their SETs but what they are really talking about is distortion (SETs make a lot of that).

So to answer you're question, its no worries insofar as Mac is concerned!

OP,

Good to hear your comments on a WA7. I’ve never heard one. Sounds like venturing into a DAC was not a great idea for them.

Just a note. I own an WA6 and a WA6 SE as well as a WA5 LE. The WA6 and WA6 SE are very good natural sounding, musical, low powered headphone amps. But are nothing like the monster WA5 LE. Not in performance, power, size and weight or cost. The WA 5 is what I am talking about. With some awesome Takasuki 300B tubes it is a religious experience.

@ghdprentice Yes I understand you were describing the WA5 LE and I went and looked it up on Woo’s site. It is clearly enormous, requires a lot of tubes (which can get pricy if you use NOS), etc.

I’m glad to know that Woo’s ultimate achievement stands so high. It means their philosophy is onto something and their designers know what they are doing.

I haven’t heard the WA6 SE in ages but I am about to receive one as a gift so we’ll see if it works well with my system.

Is the WA5 a SET? I think the WA6 and WA7 are, but not entirely sure.

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front): This is a long description of my strange trip, and it responds to the OP only within the domain of vintage Mc tube gear. I don't expect my experience to be any kind of "guide to absolute truth", but it is one data point.

I LIKE MCINTOSH SEVERELY

I used to use Mc60 (tube) amps, and now have Mc225 and Mc275 tube amps. I rotate the 275 with four other solid state Mc amplifiers, including the revered Mc7270, so I think I understand the Mc sound. I surely agree with atmasphere, that the amplifier should have *nothing* to do with the sound one hears. However, that is an ideal which I myself have not approached. Source, Speakers, and room do have more "going on" with what I hear, but I hear the Mc power amplifier sound too. The point of this paragraph is that I am an Mc fan for sure, although I do not insist that their products are perfect.

MOST OF MY SPEAKERS ARE VINTAGE

Speakers I have used for a long time in my homes include Altec VOT (four, no less), Dahlquist, Maggies, even Bose (for a time), Electrovoice, and now, most usually, Martin-Logan electrostatics and Vandersteen 2ci. Looking back, the Altecs I had -- in a somewhat huge room -- did not provide the best experience where clarity and dynamics are concerned.

CLASSICAL IS NOT ATOP MY STACK

I do not often listen to classical orchestra music, but I do have a handful of favorites; some/most of those are pressings from 1950s recordings. Fanfare and 'Burana come to mind. My impression of classical music reproduction is that low-amplitude (that is, low SPL) passages are very usually reproduced incorrectly; that may ruin the genre for many people. On my SS Mc systems, very quiet passages seem too loud and lack tonal quality throughout the spectrum. I attribute this to a choice of design values held for the last sixty years or so at McIntosh. I'm not trying to do any bashing here -- maybe I listen with a too-low volume setting to begin with. This is my experience, and of course yours may vary a whole lot.

I remember that on a winter day maybe thirty years ago, I played classical music through the Mc60s (alas the Mc60s are now in storage) into (passive) Magneplanar MG1s. The room was maybe 16' x 24', with a cathedral ceiling and dense carpeted floor. I had one of those stopped-in-my-tracks moments that evening. The dynamics were correct. The soft passages were soft -- not crushed into grunge. No solid state amp -- Mc or other --- has come close to that experience.

My experience with "high SPL dynamics" is quite a different story. Through my Vandersteen 2cis, I hear the hardest undistorted hits and the most intense loud passages clearly when I drive them with my Krell KAV-300i. Go figure that. For high intensity, that 300i does better with the Vandersteens than my KSA-250 or my KSA-200S.

So what. Vintage Mc60s, driving vintage planar electrostatics provided the most correct dynamics -- and thus the most involving musical playback -- I've experienced, but only for one night in memory. Vintage Krell is not what the OP wanted to know about, and except for the Martin-Logans, my speakers are all very old.

I do think my equipment hygiene is good; I make distortion and power measurement tests, balance listening tests, and I've funded two excellent techs through their careers.

Enjoy the music.