Sound of Mcintosh MC275 vs. MC7205 thx


Hi Folks-
I've been using an Mcintosh MC7205 solid state amp and love it - just having been using it as a stereo amp until I get the rest of my speakers. I have an MC275 Mk4, which I was going to use for my reference system, and hooked it up to compare it's sound with the MC7205. I was surprised to find that I much prefered the sound of the MC7205. Channel separation and soundstaging seemed much better, and the bass was much more lush. Perhaps there may be some cabling issues with my MC275 that I need to upgrade. For a preamp, I am using a Rotel RSP-1068.
I would appreciate any of your thoughts on this. I am kind of befuddled, because I thought the MC275 would sound as full and lush as the solid state MC7205.
- thanks for any wisdom,
Ted.
lovepianos
You might be getting that result, but it's not the 275's fault. More info is needed -- preamp? speakers?
I second that. I audition MC275 and MC252 and I preferred the MC275. To me it was warmer and wider soundstage. Bass was never an issues with my Halicon 300's.
mcintosh products are not lush.

i just finished an audition of the c 220 (tube) preamp and i own the 275. if you contact the company they will tell you that the design goal is one of neutrality.

it is possible that the probablem you are having with the 275 is the stock tubes. they are horrendous.

i would like to replace the kt88,s, but am not sure what to replace them with. get rid of the 12ax7 tubes and 12at7 tubes, and experiment with nos tubes.
Lovepianos, Tennis is quite right about the stock tubes (horrendous ;--) But they're not so bad you couldn't enjoy the amp's wonderful attributes. If your result is missing both image (higher freq) and bass, I'm inclined to believe there might be an impedance mis-match between the Rotel and the 275. That said, the 275 has a fairly high input impedance (I think! It doesn't say in the manual) and should accept most preamps.

If you want to try other tubes, see my report on tube rolling w/ the MC275 at:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1175279050&openmine&zzNsgarch&4&5#Nsgarch
.