Why the hate for mcintosh amps?

does increase in damping factor going from 8 to 4 ohms impact ‘open nature’ of sound? Ie. Need more watts to push thru and fully realize dynamic demands of frequencies

No, should tighten the bass going from 8 to 4ohm and give more transparency/openness, because it’ll remove some bloat.

Cheers George

emergingsoul OP
Not smart enough to figure out graph.

Ok look at the solid black line between 100 and 1k (bottom scale) markings, you can see that the black line is below 4ohms (left scale) with much of the bass, your sub won’t fix this heavy load on an amp.

so 4 ohms ok vs 8? Have a sub in mix fyi.

I’d try the 2ohm see if it’s loud enough, if not the 4ohm, the 8ohm will not give the best bass but it will be the loudest.

As for your sub, these B&W’s go down quite low, so the sub should be bought in at around 30hz, and the volume level reset for each transformer tap you use.
https://www.stereophile.com/images/616BW802fig3.jpg

Cheers George.

emergingsoul OP


With the B&W802’s giving this 3ohm load to the amp
https://www.stereophile.com/images/616BW802fig1.jpg

They demand an amp that can drive 4ohm or less un-phased, even 2ohm, as there is also a nasty EPDR of -64 degrees negative phase angle at 70hz, you could even try the 2ohm tap to get the ultimate bass control, but you won’t have much wattage to go loud with. Really I don't think these sort of speakers are suitable for a transformer coupled amps.

Cheers George

lets say we agree to disagree, on this one
Cheers George

you want to drive a lower impedance speaker than the amp is designed for.

Not for me, sorry Abraxalito, you get the right amp, not put a band-aid on it

Another good reason is that you have a much higher power amp than you need -

Not into speakers EPDR low bass impedances, again, you get the right amp, not put a band-aid on it, it’s like bridging if you need more power, wrong. You get the right amp.

No hate for McIntosh amps here.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/from-the-vault-property-from-the-grateful-dead-and-frie...

Greatfull dead/Jerry Garcia’s Favorite McIntosh 2300 Amplifiers weren’t owned by them, and were owned by nobody they’re worth around 3K.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/363362695974

Cheers George

Why the hate for mcintosh amps?

 MC275 tube amps were great amps.
But there is no good reason to put an output transformer on a "good" solid state amplifier, it can only make it’s performance worse.
It’s a bit like using auto-formers on otl tube amps that can’t drive speakers well without them.

Cheers George

Since the output transformers allow for 2 4 or 8 ohm

why not a single/universal connect to speakers that can handle all 3?.?.?

Has to do with "output impedance" of said transformer tap. (damping factor) into the speakers impedance to control the speaker cone movement, and getting the "most wattage" without losing control for that speaker driver.
The lower the transformer tap the lower the "output impedance" the higher the "damping factor", penalty is the lower the tap the lower the wattage also.

Cheers George