McIntosh to Luxman?

I have friends who manage what use to be Magnolia and sorry, I wouldn’t let them set up my system. When it comes to Plano design with Best Buy, at every store, the setup is the same.  They don’t deviate from one store to another. In the room where they set it up with the McIntosh MC1.25 Monoblock amplifiers, the room isn’t established properly.  Making a room look decent isn’t the same as setting it up properly to get it to sound good.  The sound bounces around all over the place and it seems hollow.  For that room size, the blade 2’s would be better for that size room but still would need to be dialed in.  Also, one Mcintosh amplifier doesn’t have the same signature sound as another model.  Each model has a different signature sound. I have friends and family members that own a McIntosh/ KEF Blade 1 & 2 combination and their setup sounds amazing.  It takes a while to truly dial in the Blades. I have McIntosh as a theater setup but my listing room is Boulder.  Just my 2 cents worth due to all of the gear I’ve owned in the past 40 years.😀

When it comes to Plano design with Best Buy, at every store, the setup is the same. They don’t deviate from one store to another.

@decathlon1991 While that may be true with your basic Best Buy that’s just simply not true when it comes to Magnolia. In NJ I have four Magnolia stores within a half hour from me, and none of them are set up identically and differ in their number and setup of individual listening rooms. In point of fact, my Magnolia had one separate room set up for only the Blades driven by very high-end Mac electronics including massive monoblock amps, and the other Magnolias did not have this. So that’s that.  Also, I wrote professional reviews of high-end audio equipment for 17 years and have heard Blades in several different systems and all sounded markedly better than the setup at my Magnolia — not even close.  So yeah, I kinda know what I’m talking about here. 

A few years ago when I was shopping for an integrated I narrowed my choices down to a Mac MA2275 and one of the Luxman SS.  After reading a number of posts comparing McIntosh and Luxman, I went for the 507ux.  I am very happy with mine.  The phono section is really good.  I think I would have to pay over $2000 to significantly better it.

That being said, McIntosh generally hold their value much better than Luxman but since you are buying used, that shouldn't be an issue.

The one thing that bothered me about my unit is that it developed a slight buzz after I had it for about 6 months.  The sound comes from the unit itself-it is nothing you hear through the speakers during playback.  It is not very audible but it did bother me.  It seems to be a fairly common issue-something to do with the way the transformers are mounted is what I have read.  Luxman has no interest in addressing it so far as I know.

If you have read my post,  I was only speaking about the Magnolia Best Buy stores only. I’m in Southern California and trust me, growing up on the east coast, sSouthern California have some of the best stores. Most Magnolia doesn’t get the McIntosh MC2KW or McIntosh 1.2KW & 1.25KW.  I’ve traveled all of the world and been to some of the incredible stores during my venture.  As far as you writing for 17 years for a audio magazine, wouldn’t be my decision making on how a system sounds.  As you claim, being a writer and testing systems, you should know systems are room dependent and system synergy.  You may not like the brand or the sound but to say it sounds like crap for an hour or 2 of listening is pretty funny. What you like as appose to what someone else like is called a choice so your point of view wouldn’t matter to them especially if you haven’t heard their system in their environment.  This is why the Audiophile magazines are going to be extinct.  Folks are wising up and thinking for themselves.  Buy with your ears and eyes, not with what someone is telling you to purchase with an article.

You may not like the brand or the sound but to say it sounds like crap for an hour or 2 of listening is pretty funny.

@decathlon1991 I care not where you’re from or where you are now. Your statement that Magnolia stores are all identical is patently false. What’s also false is your assumption that I only listened to the Blades with Mac gear for only two hours. The fact is I got to listen to that system for many months with my own reference recordings I’ve heard on many systems — several of them costing significantly over a million dollars — so I kinda know what they’re supposed to sound like, and the Blades in this dedicated room with top Mac gear sounded like crap. Soundstage was truncated and upper octave details were significantly rolled off, which is absolutely NOT a characteristic of the otherwise excellent Blade speakers. It was a total mismatch. You may like the Mac house sound or you may not, but in my experience hearing several of their models on many different speakers is that they skew toward the warm — and I’d say bloated — side and are significantly rolled off in the upper treble. A lot of people like that “sound” or the attractive blue meters, but it ain’t neutral in the least, which is likely why no reviewers — not one — use them as reference components in their systems. That’s because they only portray their interpretation of the recording and not what’s actually on it, and I think you’ll find the majority of people here would mimic my impressions. But, u do u.

This is why the Audiophile magazines are going to be extinct.

Uh, Rrrriiiiiight. This is your ignorant and warped view of the world. Nuff said.