McIntosh - is it that great?

JULES

out of everything i have ever saw wrote about mcintosh gear & how it sounds or what kind of buyer mac gear appeals to your comments are right on point.

mike.

You have to like their styling. I don't.

Regards,

I'm beginning to believe there is not much difference in any SS amplifiers/ Let me qualify that by saying that the Teac and a few other bottom feeders do sound pretty rough, but I really think that Sherwood (best sound for the money) and up sound pretty darn good. I would like to have a bunch of people who really think there is a huge difference, do double blind listening tests and see what the results are.

I have ownen and still have Bryston, McIntosh, Luxman, Rotel, Hafler, Fisher (Sanyo), Scott, and others, and other than reliability, I don't think there is a huge diference in sound. It's mostly about the speakers, and the room acoustics and synergy between the pieces in the system.

Tubes are definately better sounding than SS, on average, so I think it boils down to synergy and asthetic appeal.

Boy, this will start a flame war, but that's my 2 cents worth.

My friend has a system using a cheap Panasonic reciever only for the preamp and processor functions, using old Haflers for power and we both use Linus Arrays, built at the same time as front speakers, I'm using a Denon AVR-8000 pre-pro, with Bryston power amps and the same Linus Arrays as fronts. His system sounds better...synergy and room acoustics...

I use a Sherwood reciever and a DIY Seas speaker system for my TV and it sounds excellent...in the TV room..

Bedroom Panasonic reciever and DIY Eton system does not sound as good..

Speakers, room acoustics and system synergy...

Mac does hold it's value though...want to buy one?

Can't say I agree with the above comment at all, but we all hear what we hear, I have found electronics can make a huge difference in the sound. Speakers, in my opinion are last in the chain, they certainly can change the sound but do they make it better?? I believe higher performing speakers can make the sound better as long as you have the proper source and electronics to do so.

I mean if you hook up a 20 yr old cd player and a 100 technics reciever to say the 10,000 Martin Logans...you will get a sound...will it be good ?? I doubt it.

The store that I frequent ( and they carry Mac) does an intersting demo, they have in their low end room, small speakers...nad,denon etc, they play that thru a pair of pioneer bookshelfs around 200/pr...not bad....then they take the same speakers down to their hi end room and fire them up with a stack of Mac.....man what a difference, much better sound, the stands the speakers are on are more expensive than the speakers.

Anyway I use my Mac gear on a small pair of B&Ws around 900/pr....it just sings.

I own and have tried a fair amount of electronics thru those speakers, there are differences, some small some huge.

Autoformers on pwr. amps in the 21st century. Who da thunk it? Guess it takes time for the news that transistors are low impedence output devices to reach Stone Age Binghamton.