New McIntosh MA252

New member and first post.  

I've had mine for a month or so and I'm so impressed with it.  I sold a Musical Fidelity A5.5, which I really enjoyed, and I have no regrets.  Originally I was using a pair of Tannoy Precision 6.2 LE (mass loaded), which sounded wonderful but I just upgraded to a pair of Focal Aria 926.  Wow, I'm blown away.  I have no complaints.  The Arias have such a balanced sound, a little more than the Tannoys. I find the Tannoys needed a precise seating position to get that sweet spot and the Arias don't demand this.  The main difference, imho, is the bass. The Tannoys impressed me with its bass, when I first go them, but with the Arias there is simply no comparison.  Lower and tighter... Jazz bass lines wound so authentic, and this is coming from a musician for over 30 years.

For those who own the MA252, I have a question.  My Cardas cross speaker cables have spades that are too narrow to fit onto the Mac's posts.  So I purchased Cardas locking banana plugs, which work wonderfully.  What quality!  But in order to use the banana plugs I had to follow the MAC instructions which states you need to: finger tighten the post, then using the MAC wrench turn another 1/4 turn.. or 90 degrees.  I did this for all 4 posts, however one of them seemed to have "let go".  What I mean is that now when I want to loosen the post, the entire post is coming out, which will no longer allow spade use.  The other posts work like they're suppose to.  I've tested the speakers, one side with the other, and I don't hear any difference.  Is there something that I can do if I pop the cover off?  It doesn't affect the speaker so I guess I can leave it that way, but it is really bothering me.  

Any constructive thoughts?  Thanks everyone.

I remember reading in the MA252 manual about giving the speaker terminal nut an extra quarter turn after snugging it up but I didn't want to force it, so I left it like that. If I were in your shoes and it bothered me that much, I'd contact McIntosh to see if they've dealt with this before. The only issue I would wonder about is if the terminal needs to be tightly bonded to the chassis for grounding purposes.

Thanks for the input route-66.  I contacted McIntosh and they directed me to a local technician.  I was going to call him but decided to take a peek under the hood.  It was simple.  The nut that should have been "squishing" the lock washer, was almost at the end of the bolt.  Probably another rotation and a half and the nut would have fallen off.  So a 9mm ratchet did the trick.  All is good.

I was going to suggest that you pop the top off yourself but I didn't know if you'd be comfortable doing that. I'm glad that you were able to take care of it yourself and won't be losing sleep over it tonight. :-D

I tried it with Focal Kanta 2's.  It's all solid state sound.  Even the dealer said he thinks they just put the tubes in there for looks.