McIntosh vs. NAD vs. Audio Control

Audiotroy 

Yes the Audio Control Maestro M9 is quite spectacular for movies and is no doubt superior sounding to both the McIntosh MX122 & the NAD M17 v2. 
It'd be interesting to see how the Maestro M9 would stack up against the Lyngdorf MP-50 & the McIntosh MX160 and other high end processors. 

For my reference theater room setup I recently traded in the Lyngdorf MP-50 for the Trinnov Altitude and is definitely a step up performance wise. Before I had the Lyngdorf MP-50 I had been using the Classe SSP 800 for years and it was phenomenal sounding pre pro for both stereo music and surround movies. But I had been using it strictly for HT movies. 
The reason I sold the SSP 800 and bought the Lyngdorf was because I wanted Dolby Atmos, DTS-X. 

Gee Caphill we must get together some day, love your perspective.

Yeah we tested a lot of processors and the service and sound quality fo Audio Control are in an class by themselves.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Agreed with Audiotroy. 
Out of those 3 HT processors listed above I would say the Audio Control Maestro M9 would sound better than the other two processors. 

We sell both the NAD and the Audio Control.

The Audio Control is the superior sounding of the two products, the quality of the dac, and power supply design of the Maestro puts it into the class of one of the best sounding processors on the market.

We have over the years had many processors in our reference theater room, the Anthem Statement D2, the Statement D2V3d, The Marantz 8002a, the Anthem AVM 60, and the Maestro,. 

Sonically the Maestro made you aware of low level details that you just didn't hear, the sound stage was more defined and it was just more realistic and engaging. 

The NAD we have in our second a/v room and the NAD is really good just not as clean as the Maestro.

We have never been Mcintosh fans, their amps have always been better than their processors.

Please reach out to us for a much more indepth discussion.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ