To "tube" or not to "tube"

hey george, well I'm hoping to to keep my budget for amp and pre under 5k.(if AG comes thru) My old set up was BW N803's powered with matching Classe gear, a nice CA300 and CP 50 pre with a matching Classe CDP, I think that would have handled both these speakers well, But I heard a set Of Summits out in Seattle that were powered with Mac,s ( I forget what pre's) and it knocked me out.
jb

JB a lot of people use a pair of (mono paralleled) MC275's (150W ea.) to drive Summits. The nice thing is you could get one now and use it in stereo (they actually produce 95+ watts/ch), and add another one later and run them as monoblocks. There are some used MkIV on AG now. They're the same as MkV (which now has real binding posts ;--) You could also get a used C 2200 preamp (total = $1k over your budget) or the smaller C 220 preamp (total = right on budget)
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Nsgarch,
duly noted! Thanks,
jb

hi nsgarch:

i need your advice. do you think there is much of a difference between one 275 and a 2102 (100 watt) driving a pair of magnepan 1.6 ?

i was told by the technician at mcintosh that when bridging the amps, the sound of the 275 changes. it loses some of its tubey quality. the overall presentation of two 275 amps is supposedly more transparent than that of one 275.

i'm also not sure what the difference is sonically between the 100 watt mac and the 275.

thanks for your input.

I have the 2102 and i love it. It can sound better than many a more expensive amp. i like it so much I now own two of them which I am using in a mono-bidged configuration.