Opinions on McIntosh MHA200?

From what I understand, it's a very good headphone amp; I'd check out online and YouTube reviews and see if there's any kind of general consensus. Also check out forums on head-fi.com as there is almost no headphone action on Audiogon forums. That said, Mac gear does have a 'paying more than you should because of the name' thing, according to many folks. 

Given Mac products can be very polarizing and often have a particular “sound” I personally wouldn’t buy their headphone amp unless I could hear it first.  I would give Linear Tube Audio a call and ask them if their new Velo amp has sufficient power for your headphones, and if so they offer a return policy so you can try it at home with little risk.  Their headphone amps always get stellar reviews.  Hope this helps, and best of luck. 

First time I have heard a supposedly legendary brand brag that their technology is 80 years old.

McIntosh certainly knows how to market.

There's a reason that Best Buy is selling them.

@tony1954 - From what I've seen on another thread, Bose just recently pulled the McIntosh line from Magnolia stores.... 

@larsman 

I did know that. That was my error in not saying that "Best Buy was previously selling them".

I just bought a pair of KEF R11’s and my sales person confirmed that McIntosh is pulling out of Magnolia at Best Buy. Further he stated they are not even flash sale for demo products but are buying them back as well.

Guess they’re gonna have to find another brand to tame those aggressive B&W tweeters. 

Here’s another amp you might wanna consider, and like LTA they also offer a trial period.

https://soundnews.net/reviews/amplifiers/laiv-harmony-hp2a-review-the-one-that-challenged-the-many/

@soix

Thanks. I skimmed the review, but boy does Sandu Vitalia (the writer) desperately need to learn to edit. 

To narrow down the choices, I think I'm going to stick with tube amps. This HP2A amp is complete overkill for me, as well, given that I don't have low-sensitivity headphones.

Mike

I just received the MHA200 from the private seller. He said it would come with Gold Lion upgrade tubes; however, the amp specifies 12AT7 and he put Gold Lion 12AX7 in there. Will this create a problem?

EDIT: I sent an email to McIntosh support but not sure if they will answer correctly or just say some boiler plate like "wrong tube."

EDIT 2: It’s been warming up for 30 minutes. The seller said the tubes only have about 10 hours on them. So maybe too soon to evaluate. It has elegant sound, but very flat dynamics. Really not impressive at all at this point. Maybe the whole amp including the transformer wire has to burn in.

@magon How are you getting on with the MHA200 by now? I wanted to love that amp but felt pretty much how you described it, pretty flat sounding. Also I don't think it has enough guts for more difficult loads. It does sound pretty in a way though.

I much much prefer the big MHA100 and nearly identical MHA150. I know, very different animals as those are integrated speaker amps with onboard DAC and headphone outputs. But they do seem designed primarily with headphones in mind, and the speaker outputs are more of a bonus. Most integrated amps are the other way around. 

@v-fi 

I replaced the tubes and suddenly there were dynamics. I'm burning in the new tubes now. I used JJ for the 12BH7 and Electro-Harmonix for the 12AT7. 

I think it's a good sounding amp in general, but my complaint is the tonal balance. Through my AKG 712 and LCD-X headphones (both about 80 ohms; using the 80 ohm tap on the transformer) the amp is bright and hot in the sibilance region. It's not a flattering sound to many recordings, especially violins. I tried the other transformer taps and it only gets brighter.

I don't know if this is a function of the tube choice.

I have never seen 12at7 and 12 ax7 tube’s interchangeable in any product I have owned. 

@magon Unfortunately I think that's just the general sound of the amp. It can be tweaked by rolling darker tubes but you'll probably never get completely free of that signature. 

I think a better fit as far as tonality would be an LCD-2 with the more rich, smooth presentation. But even so I find planar magnetic headphones like more current than the MHA200 has available, before they really "come alive". 

Hopefully you find a way to make it do what you want. If not, I guess the beauty of a McIntosh product is that you can usually resell it easily with minimal loss. 

@v-fi 

Just a couple hours ago I tried my LCD-2 headphones and yes, the sound is darker (mostly a good thing) but there is a treble resonance that's quite awful on certain high piano notes. Note sure if this a phenomenon of the LCD-2 impedance and the output impedance or freq response of the amp, or what. I haven't noticed this resonance using my other amp with the LCD-2 (a custom 12AU7/FET zero-feedback topology).

Also the amp's brightness is still there in the LCD-2 as a character of the leading edges of piano notes (for instance) - they sound a bit like the "dink" of a wine glass.

@magon I have heard that as well from certain LCD-2 examples. Audeze always had quite a bit of unit to unit variation, more so on their older models but it continued to some degree even to the LCD-4 era. That means mine would sound very different from the set owned by a friend, even when we both purchased right around the same time. Very unpredictable. 

Have you considered trying a Sennheiser HD650 or similar? I know those are ancient now (but so is the AKG K712 which is just a K701, quite old as well), but HD650 is known for pairing well with tubes, and a lot of people find it a little dark anyway. The 300 ohm design might be a good match for the McIntosh.

@v-fi I didn't know that about older Audeze headphones - that there's variation. My LCD-2 is from 2011, so it could be affected by quality problems. Haven't heard that before on any other amp, though. 

I find the Sennheiser HD6xx to be mud. No high end extension. And this is with my 12AU7/FET amp which has incredible extension and dynamics.

The K712 sounds very different from the K701. The K701 is bright and lacks a warm midrange. The K712 has a more balanced freq response and good bass. It does need an upgrade cable, though. (it has a connector so the cable can be easily changed out, unlike the K701.) Sounds like crap with the stock cable. A Moon Audio Blue Dragon not only improves the sound, it changes the tonal balance. I have an even better cable, a custom job by Igor Kuznetsoff of the New Jersey Audiophile Society, but it's terminated for old Hifiman headphones and needs to be reterminated  for the AKG.