What is it about McIntosh?

[JBT]

Especially when you know which one is playing.

No need to roll on the floor...

It isn't about who has better hearing...it's about who bothers to used a controlled process to make these subjective judgments. Without them, you'll pretty much hear what you've been told to expect...

Good gravy. Hilarious. Mumbo Jumbo BS

 

[JBT]

It's not just my ears. I recall the big Nelson Pass-Yamaha integrated amplifier shoot out. Look at the archives. South Flordia audio store owner Steve Zipser was certain his big buck class A amps were sonic marvels. Arnie Krueger showed up with a then 10 year old Yamaha integrated, matched the levels, and with the Zipsters own high-end gear he couldn't tell the difference.

You have to control the variables or your judgement isn't reliable. I know that these facts are hard to deal with. I've been there. I can attest to it. Before you start rolling all over the floor laughing, save yourself some embarrassment and try a serious listening session with brands hidden and levels matched.

Control the variables. Testing the Dacs in the same room, same system with the same songs. You're a piece of work.

 

[direstraitsfan98]

 

[Blumlein 88]

Control the variables. Testing the Dacs in the same room, same system with the same songs. You're a piece of work.

Did you match levels? If the answer is no, just so much hot air you are posting. And matching by ear is not sufficient. This is step one for your comparison to mean anything.

 

[BDWoody]

Good gravy. Hilarious. Mumbo Jumbo BS

What's the BS part?

 

[JBT]

I agree. I have a MC2105 and a MC2102 representing the first and last “amps” that reflect that core philosophy of McIntosh. The Mc2105 looks great, and for a design from the 1960s probably has a SINAD close to 77 at 5W. Main advantage of it is reliability. These amps are still going while I have had NAD, Parasound, and Proceed/Mark Levinson amps run into trouble.

The last “special” amp from McIntosh was the MC2102, especially when run with GE 6550 tubes. I have one and it consistently performs well — Sidney Corderman designed his tube amps to take advantage of the high current and inherent soft clipping capabilities of valves but to minimize coloration. Distortion and noise in the first watt is very good.

http://sportsbil.com/mcintosh/Amps/MC2102/MC2102_tst.pdf

Many solid state amps do worse in that first watt.

Well I have 2 MC2102s running in Mono Bridged and they're excellent amps. Also have the C2200 Preamp the last piece Sidney Cordeman designed for Mcintosh. He came out of retirement to build both.


The late Harry Pearson the founder of the Absolute Sound (1973) was in the process of reviewing the Mcintosh Mono MC2301s but he died before he could finish. But on his blog he wrote they were the best amps he had ever heard. He didn't know how to describe them fully because they were unlike anything he had heard before. The Big Blue runs with the top Dogs. An American Masterpiece

 

[SIY]

Harry Pearson

Boom.

 

[Wes]

Do we need a review thread of audio notables?

 

[JBT]

Harry Pearson trust your ears

 

[AudioTodd]

Boom.

LMAO!!

 

[JBT]

Boom.

And you are? I suspect a nobody. BOOM. LOL

 

[BDWoody]

And you are? I suspect a nobody. BOOM. LOL

Uh oh...
Troll, or simply ignorant?

 

[direstraitsfan98]

Uh oh...
Troll, or simply ignorant?

There's a difference?

 

[BDWoody]

There's a difference?

Absolutely!
Ignorance is a state that can be cured with education...
Trolling is just being contentious purely to rile...
One is worth engaging...the other is worth identifying so as to avoid needless feeding.

 

[VMAT4]

And you are? I suspect a nobody. BOOM. LOL

JBT, may we ask what are your credentials? Not may here are Harry Pearson fans. And, that's why we're here.

 

[JBT]

Absolutely!
Ignorance is a state that can be cured with education...
Trolling is just being contentious purely to rile...
One is worth engaging...the other is worth identifying so as to avoid needless feeding.

LMAO An education from SIY? to me he looks like someone who spends way to much time on online forums. 4 thousand posts in 2 years.

 

[Twitch54]

Uh oh...
Troll, or simply ignorant?

Troll / audiofool, same thing ...........

 

[JBT]

JBT, may we ask what are your credentials? Not may here are Harry Pearson fans. And, that's why we're here.

Sure I'm a retired Investment Banker who has been in involved in High End audio for 50+ years.

 

[direstraitsfan98]

LMAO An education from SIY? to me he looks like someone who spends way to much time on online forums. 4 thousand posts in 2 years.

Well, going by your post count average of one a month, I reckon it would take you 80 years to get to where he is. And I'm sure every single one of those posts will be devoid of useful and thought provoking content. SIY is one of the most valued members here. Stop heckling others please.

 

[NTK]

Harry Pearson trust your ears

An interesting story told by Dr. Toole from another thread a year ago.

Fortunately the world has decided that omni woofers are to be the norm. Even most "full bandwidth" dipole speakers transition to monopole bass drivers. I think dipole subwoofers have joined the dodo bird, as they should. There are a couple of cardioid woofers out there somewhere I think.

It is a real world problem. Around 1990 I had my first interaction with noted subjectivist Harry Pearson (RIP) when I was to be called to help him with a problem. He had heard a speaker he thought he liked and wanted to review it. When he got the speakers he placed them in his carefully selected "reference" locations and seated in his "reference" seat something was wrong with the bass. The designer of the speaker was called to find out what was wrong. I was invited to join him in what was likely to be an interesting venture. We arrived at Harry's house in the AM, and without listening to a note of music, we got out a tape measure and a calculator. He looked on in stunned amazement. Then we asked if the problem was a deficiency of mid-bass. He said "yes, how did you know?". It turned out that his "reference" location was arrived at while listening to full bandwidth dipoles, and the speaker he was auditioning was a monopole. We moved both the speaker and his chair and all was well. Dipoles couple maximally at a pressure minimum/velocity maximum and monopoles couple maximally at pressure maxima/velocity minima. Dipoles have the additional complication of being vectored sound sources, meaning that the orientation relative to a room-mode null matters. Monopoles are not. There are good reasons to use monopole woofers and subs. He remained in a kind of trance, exclaiming that he had never experienced anything like that. For pure subjectivists science, even really basic science, is a great mystery and/or threat.

Any woofer or subwoofer I have ever encountered does not change its power response "vigorously" - they are minimum-phase systems that are quite well behaved. However, room modes/standing waves do change dramatically with location of the ears or mic. That is the problem to be addressed. Mode cancelling/attenuation using multiple subs greatly simplifies the situation, but only when the budget allows. Good news is that with multiple subs the total system efficiency rises, so they can be smaller subs.