That's kind of my feelings about Mc gear, both their tube stuff and solid state. Lacking in the stereotypical strengths of tube gear (bloom, sweetness, soundstage, ease) but also lacking in the stereotypical strengths of solid state gear (dynamics, control, precision,, deep bass, raw power). I just always thought Mc gear sounded dull, like room temperature skim milk. That said I'm 100% convert to tube audio. Probably my old ears.
Me too! Born there & lived in Queens Village until I was 5. These days, Queens is where you go for the best food!
Your experience with McIntosh customer service mirrors my own. I've had a C2300 preamp for several years. I've had a recurring issue with the display panel and initially contacted McIntosh about it a few years ago. The lady who took my call was not friendly at all and the service tech who called me was similarly cold and directed me to one of their satellite repair centers. After both driving and shipping my unit to two different repair centers that couldn't fix the issue, I now have to call MC back and beg them to take it direct to the factory to repair it. I'm dreading that call and have been putting off because of that.
I had a similar experience to the original I too bought a piece of vintage MC gear and fell in love. In fact, I bought the same exact integrated amp...the MA6100. Just phenomenal sound quality, and I couldn't believe how well the equipment had held up over the decades. Talk about build quality. So I decided to dip my toe into the newer McIntosh pond by picking up the MA252 this year. And what an absolute piece of junk. The sound was weirdly off, and I tried hooking it up to 5 different sets of speakers to try to get the signal right. In each case, I had to crank the volume to over 60% to get any decent amplification at all, with some very efficient speakers. And after 2 months, the unit died all together. Luckily, the retailer I bought it from is willing to either repair - or issue me credit against the original purchase price. I'm taking the credit and steering clear of McIntosh moving forward. You can say what you will, but my sense is that the old-school Mac gear is great, and likely some of newer, upper range equipment is probably fine. But they no longer have the same level of quality control or customer service they did back with that MA6100 hit the shelves. my two cents.
What speakers did you try with the 252? Shouldn’t matter at over 100 watts but I’m curious. If it died 2 months into using it chances are it had an issue to begin with. It’s pretty highly regarded and to suggest that new Mc products are poor because of one bad experience that you had seems a bit off base.
No where in your statement did you state it was an opinion. You declared it as an absolute, a fact. Big difference. IMO (insert any subjective position) is not good. vs. (insert any subjective position) is not good. reasoned vs. arrogance
I thought I scored when I found a pair of McIntosh HT-1s and the HT-4 center channel for $36 at Goodwill. All the tweeters are blown on both HT-1S.. the same tweeters on the HT-4 work. If I don't harvest the center channel all 6 replacement tweeters will cost around $300.
musical tastes: Prog, Ambient, Krautrock, Abstract Electronic Old ears? IMHO you could mp3 that 'music' and play it thru a mediocre system and it would sound no different than on a high end one. It surely does not need 'sweetness' or 'bloom'. bloom? Sweetness? Ease? That sounds like distortion and are subjective, not objective or measurable. Should not the equipment translate the media as recorded without adding flowery colorations? As McIntosh gear does. "dynamics, control, precision,, deep bass, raw power" Those are objectively measurable: impulse response, bandwidth, damping factor, power output, dynamic headroom. The EXACT parameters McIntosh excels at. Signal accuracy.
Did you try AudioClassics.com ? They are close by McIntosh and work with them apparently. Audio Classics - Service
All together: - JBL L100 Classics (the reissues introduced in 2018 - purchased new in 2020) - Klipsch KG 5.5 - B&W DM220 - B&W DM 601 s2 & I believe that I tried out a pair of JBL L3s that we're sitting down in the basement. Can't quite recall. *I lean towards vintage speakers, as I'm ok trading off some transparency for the perceived warmth that I get off these older speakers (- some will say coloration, and I wouldn't argue with that assessment). But the JBLs are brand new, so there shouldn't have been a problem. - And of the various speaker options, the Klipsch had 96db sensitivity. I mention this because, you are right, it shouldn't have matter with a 100wpc unit. that's more than enough to drive everything short of the most power hungry speakers. And, when I originally got the unit, and noticed how bad it sounded, I was told to find higher sensitivity speakers by the retailer - because the unit "only had 100 watts". That was basically nonsense. And yes, that it died completely is a strong indications that it came to me with underlying problems. But the fact that I got it that way is my entire point: McIntosh sells a high-end product. Even if the MA252 is entry-level for their range, their QA needs to catch this sort of thing before these units leave the factory floor; because their customers are paying 5 to 10x more for that Mac unit than say, a 100 watt Denon 2 channel that does the exact same thing. Moreover, if a customer has a great experience, they will shortly be coming back for more products, and likely will be buying higher into your product price range. You see this again and again for 60's and 70s Mac customers who LOVED these products, and often share stories of how they regretted parting with various gear when they upgraded. I really wish that iteration of the company was still around. Lastly, I'm not a McIntosh hater in the least and have really enjoyed the vintage Mac gear that I own. Just sharing my own, admittedly, subjective experience this year. Hopefully this gives potential owners of the MA252 that have the same volume problem that I did as a start, some additional context to consider. And perhaps this post can provide some smart McIntosh exec some useful food for thought about the importance of making sure as many customers as possible are best served. I wouldn't call that unfair.
I bought my first piece of Mac gear about 2 months ago, an MC240. I love it, and it'll be around a while.
When I brought my c 28 to the Mcintosh store in for repair, I spent around a half hour listening to the 252 on two different pairs of Golden Ear speakers. I had brought in my own high quality CD , one I was familiar with hearing at home on my own system . Of course the showroom may not be the ultimate place to form an opinion, but this showroom is actually located in an old house , and the room was probably a living room or similar purposed area. I found the sound comparable to my home system, but a bit cleaner and somewhat more precise. I currently listen to a C 15 and MC 162 , played through Def Tech BP 10 speakers. The Def Tech and the Golden Ear were designed by the same person. My c 28 has been repaired, and I have been considering getting a modern tube amp to start another system. I would most likely go a bit higher on the food chain than the 252. A Mcintosh and a Denon are not the same experience. That’s one of the reasons I chose the path of owning Mcintosh. My own personal analogy is when I owned a 1976 Corolla and a brand new 1978 Corvette at the same time. Yes, they both will get you from point A to point B, but the experience of the Corvette is at the foundation of why it is coveted. My takeaway from that experience is if only the Corvette was built as well as the Corolla , I might have kept it a little longer. But even the flaws of the Corvette did not totally diminish the experience of owning it, for I am glad that I did. Even though modern Corvettes are still plagued with many problems, you can’t even get a hold of a new one if you wanted to, unless you pay a premium price. It’s the experience, beyond what anyone else has to say.
The comparison between McIntosh amps and US muscle cars is a good one. To some people they’re vulgar, ugly and overhyped rubbish, for others nothing else will ever do.
For better or worse Mac started out as an engineering firm designing/building milspec and industrial use amplifiers. To this day imho that is ingrained into their DNA. In my opinion that is a good thing. They design for maximum fidelity input signal to output. Lowest signal distortion of any type: harmonic, noise, bandwidth, etc. They build their equipment very robust and durable. Some people do not like an 'antiseptic' sound.
Everyone has their own opinions which are usually only changed by direct experience and I’ve heard those exact words used to describe McIntosh equipment. My response was “Try to hear a pair of MC30’s driving Quad ESL’s before you write them off”. That combination is one of the true greats in my own opinion.
I lucked into a set of Mac MC40 monoblocks about 5 years ago that had been sitting in a garage for over 20 years. A bit rough but they are McIntosh, early 1960 McIntosh no less. A good friend of mine, a Mac expert completely rebuilt them replacing all caps and resistors supplied by non other than Jim McShane. Just to come up with the parts list I had to supply him with the correct schematic for my particular amps, there were 3 versions during the production period. He supplied components of the highest quality, money very well spent. After rebuilding I installed very good testing tubes that date back to when these amps were new. Well, in the past 5 years I have swapped between multiple tube amps but these ALWAYS get hooked back up. They just sound right, other amps leave me wanting. I've upgraded other parts of the system along the way going from Klipsch Heresy's to Altec's. From a Bill D modded Carver C1 preamp to an Aikido preamp to first a Audio Research LS15 to finally a Audio research SP8MKII. I have a system that sounds better than I could have ever imagined having. Those MC40's are a big part of it. I have no experience with newer Mac gear so can't pass judgement on those products but my MC40's have beat out a number of other tube amps hands down. When I look at the specifications from back in the early sixty's of this amp, I'm still amazed. Mac amps always surpassed the specs in independent testing as well. My MC40's are rated at 40W each. Typically they will produce at least 46W during testing. This is typical of everything they make. Most amps barely make advertised power and some will only make it for a brief time if SBL (Struck By Lightning). In my mind, there are only two manufactures at the top of the audio chain, McIntosh and Audio Research. There is a reason that they have been around seemingly forever, top quality in both engineering and build quality along with a service department that is the envy of all other companies. As long as parts are available, either company can still repair and bring a piece of vintage gear back up to new factory specs. Why look any further? BillWojo
I consider almost everything that anybody shares on this site to be an opinion, and I don't think anybody is intending their posts to be read as absolute fact. I find the need to say "In my opinion..." or "In my humble opinion..." or something similar to be superfluous, but I do it sometimes because I know if I don't someone is going to jump on it and say "oh yeah?!? well that's just your opinion!!" Of course my posts are my opinion, and your posts are your opinion; who else's would they be??
McIntosh has that warm and lush sound that I like so much. And their build quality is staggering. Love the retro design with knobs and blue meters. They also represent great value for money when compared to competitor brands like Classe and Audio Research. And their resale value is best in the industry. I bought a new McIntosh component and sold it five years later recouping 75 cents on the dollar.
