McIntosh MX-130 MX130 Pro Logic only for ambience?


O Ye Men of Wisdom:

This piece is too old for me to find much on the internet, so I am asking for the benefit of your knowledge please.

I do my serious listening in stereo but back in the 1980s I did enjoy using Dynaquad for symphonic music. I have enough space now for rear channel speakers.

I have vague recollections of people saying they enjoyed playing stereo recordings in the "hall" mode on their HT system.

Will this unit provide rear channels from stereo recordings? Has anybody used this with satisfactory results?

I know this unit is old but there is a good Mac repair guy here who could fix and recap it. I am very attracted by the many convenience features.

Would I need to add a MAC 3 surround decoder to do this?

Many thanks!
hifigeezer
Sacdlee, in order to connect you SACD six channel output to the MX130 you MUST have the six chanel input. There is no other way to my knowledge that it can be done. Sorry.
Hi,

I just bought a one MX130. This is one without the multi-channel analog input, but it has balanced out (not balanced in). Nice to have a stereo pre-amp. But how can I conenct multi-channel inputs from sacd player or dvd player to MX130? Can any Mcintoshmen help in this. The great value of MX130 seems not utilised.
Happy with this unit. Note that there are apparently several versions on the market; some have balanced connections but mine does not. The video switching capabilities are obsolete now (2011, no HDMI or component video) but it has great functionality as a preamp. Sounds better to me than the Adcom GFP-750 it replaced. My only complaint is that it is too large! Just the thing for your McMansion. I haven't tried the phono section. Still hope to try the surround function eventually. Looks glorious if a bit over-the-top. :-)
FWIW if you are in Louisville Kentucky there is somebody selling one of these on Craigslist. He won't ship it and got it from a storage locker. Wish I could snag it but I'm not there! I'll post how mine works out; I expect to buy the MX today.
Thanks all. Dynaquad sent the Left-Right difference signal to the left rear speaker and the Right-Left signal to the right rear speaker. It was all done at the speaker level with no delay. Since reflected sound in a concert hall is delayed, adding a delay to the rear ambience channels was said to add realism.
As I am not familar with "Dynaquad" but have owned a MX130 I ask a question. Does the "Dynaquad" have 4 out put leads? If so then use the Front and Rear of the 6 channel inputs on the MX130. Otherwise you have the answers above. You will have ProLogic to divide 2 into four or 6 if you wish, but you will need additional amplification for each channel added. Hope this helps.
Found the manual online at:

http://akdatabase.org/AKview/albums/userpics/10004/MX130%20Owners.pdf
Again as I recall, you may have to use another amp, or a multi-channel amp for the rear channels, as well as the front channels. I don't think the MX130 has any internal amps.
As I recall, you can indeed use rear speakers, but it will be Pro-logic surround that is extracted from 2-channel. If that's all you need, it will work fine. To add Dolby Digital, you would have to use the decoder you describe.