MC352 owners

Lesvan, is the amp always that warm or only after a real work-out at high volumes? I do have the 402, but when not listening or only at low levels, it does not even get warm to the touch, only when I run it at 40 watts on large symphonies or rock do I feel the heatsinks to be warm.

Once I left it on for a few hours but it was idle, no music and it was up there with the temperature....... Mcintosh guy said to leave it on with no connections to troubleshoot other issues........ but it still gave off some noticable heat, it's warmer when hooked up and having music run through it. I noticed the transformer and heatsinks were warm, the autoformers were not. It was a demo that sat around for 3 years with out being used, out of the box but never connected or turned on.

Mine runs cool at my normal listening volume and only gets warm if it's run hard for a while. It's never been hot to the touch. I think it runs very cool compared to other amps. Have you eliminated an impedance mismatch as the culprit?

I used to have one, and I don't recall it being that warm when idle, only when being pushed did it begin to get hot. However, I had it in a well ventalated/open location.

I have had mine in a cabinet with about 2-3 inches clearance above and 2 inches on each side. I use a infra-red thermometer to check it and it has gotten to 105 degrees. I spoke with Joe at McIntosh (Chucks counterpart) and he said that it should not be an issue at all. He said as long as it maintains a good convection and disapates heat evenly that I should not worry. It is 4 1/2 years old and no problems. Except for the bulbs that burn out about every 30 months. I used to have a Yamaha M85 that would get as hot as 138 degrees and it never had a problem. I beleive that the McIntosh should actually shut down if it over heats. I could be wrong on that but check with them on it.

I had the 352 and the 402. Idle neither were ever warm. After 4 to 5 hours or more of moderate sound level mine were always room temp and if warm not by much at all.
Heat was never an issue.

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback........I did not check my speakers with a meter yet, they're supposed to be 4 ohms....... I'll rest easy now, it seems some run hotter than others and the amp has a good protection system, so I'll just let it be........ I will say the heat is even on both sinks now, befor the checkup and bias only the left heatsink was hot, the right was very cool.