MC402 or MC501s?

[Negotiableterms]

I'm looking for advice on whether an MC402 or a pair of MC501s would be better in my main system. I have a C200 going through a Nearfield Acoustics crossover with the top driven by an MC352 and the bottom by an MC602, into Nearfield Acoustics Pipedream 18s. I'm going to use the 352 in another system, so I want to replace it with a 402 or 501s. The wattage difference is unimportant as the Pipedream columns are very efficient...ok, loud. I'm not sure what kind of load they represent, and whether it will make any difference for either amp. Any thoughts at all will be very welcome!!

 

[Victor]

Negotiableterms

The post below may sound familiar, it is mostly coppied from one of my posts about a month ago.

For the last few months I have been doing home demos on the current McIntosh amps. I am looking to replace my MC162 and I am using C2200 preamp and Avalon Eclipse speakers. I usually listen at lower levels (75-85db). On the amps that I have listened to the meters almost never go over 5 watts. I listen to all types of music from intimate female vocals to hard rock and here is what I found:

The amps I compared at first were MC275, MC2102, MC252 and MC402. I found they were all very close in comparison but I did like the MC252 better than the MC402 to be fair the MC252 was brand new and the MC402 was about 2-3 years old. I thought the MC252 had a little more detail and focus the MC402 sounded a little dull in comparison. I was ready to buy the MC252 it was my favorite of these amps.

Then even though the MC501s are out of my price range right now I decided to take them home and give them a listen and my first impression was WOW! The MC501s were at a different level than the other McIntosh amps. The biggest difference was how the MC501s image they seemed to make my speakers and walls disappear and gave pin point accuracy to the soundstage. After listening for several hours my second impression was WOW! They just continued to create beautiful music with an incredible amount of detail and no listener fatigue.

The McIntosh amps all sounded very close but something about the MC501s in my system just sounded magical. You might think of trading in one of your amps and getting four MC501s.

I will for now keep my MC162 and save up for the MC501s.

Hope this helps,
Victor

 

[Negotiableterms]

Victor-

Thanks!!! Actually, that helps a lot, because I've heard the same thing from two other people. The 402 is so highly touted by Absolute Sound that I thought it must be close to the 501s. I keep being told it's not, but not by anyone who's actually auditioned them both under controlled conditions.

Living at Lake Tahoe is nice, but my local dealer (a great guy) does not have the ability to compare things in his micro-store, and while he has one 501 (as a center channel), he couldn't possibly fit in a pair of 501s and a 402 to easily compare. Beyond the space problem, he'd go broke.

My long-term plan is (now, unless I hear a lot to the contrary) to switch the 352 for a pair of 501s, then later (when the piggy bank gets full again) switch the 602 for a pair of 1201s...and have my house rewired to avoid electrical fires.

Thanks again, and anyone with other POVs, please comment!

 

[qb_1]

Negotiableterms-
I wish I had that problem ) Nevertheless - I guess a lot depends on Your speakers. MC-501 is in my opinion superior to MC-402 (which I consider one of the best ss stereo power amps ever). The matter is not just the power. MC501 offers better dynamics, microdynamics scale is greater, control over the speakers and most of all a bit better transparency. The only 'but' is if Your speakers are able to show that. If the speakers are not very difficult and do not offer superb sound quality You may not notice the difference (e.g. Dynaudio Contours 3.0 and 3.3 showed no difference as they were too weak for MC501). If You use superb speakers similar to e.g. Thiel 7.2, Avalon Eidolon, Utopias etc. MC 501 may be exactly what You are looking for. A pair of 501s will also beat Your MC 602 by non-neglible margin.

I wish You a lot of evenings with great music from Your Macs.

 

[Negotiableterms]

qb-1, Thanks for your post. My speakers are Nearfield Acoustics Pipedream 18s, which look like the speakers in my avatar. The mid-tweeter towers are 7 feet (2m) tall and each have 18 midrange drivers and 36 tweeters. They're very sensitive and for a while were a favorite in Absolute Sound. I like them because they have a huge soundstage and are almost immune from room effects. They are not as revealing as Dynaudio Evidence Masters or Grand Utopia Bes, but are more dynamic than either (all those little drivers...). I suspect that if there are differences between the 402 and the 501s the speakers will be up to the job of showing them. My ears, on the other hand, may not be! Thanks again for your comments!

 

[qb_1]

Then - if money no object - going for MC501 seems better solution for me. Then You may be surprised finding that You will not need 1201s in future but another pair of 501s which is almost 2 times cheaper. 501 offer lots of power.

 

[Negotiableterms]

Last Questions

I've almost decided to go with 501s, but I have no need for the extra power, so I keep vacillating back to the "tubelike" 402.

I notice on the McIntosh website that the MC402 is claimed to have a damping factor of 100 in the "Compare Specifications" page, but only 40 in its brochure. I think the dynamic headroom numbers are different too. Does anyone know which is correct?

1201s vs 501s for the bass begs an interesting question. When the MC2K comes out, I assume the 1201 will be discontinued. Will there be a new monoblock between the 501 and the 2K? Will there be new 250 monoblocks? Ron-C, anything you can say will be greatly appreciated.

Finally, does anyone have any experience with Mc amps and Pipedreams speakers? :scratch2:

 

[qb_1]

CMMRs (damping factors)

Negotiableterms -
I believe that 40 is conservatively rated wideband CMRR. 100 may be rating for some specific frequency range (e.g 1kHz). I am not sure however. Pls look at the brochure (it doesn't dipslay on my computer) if there is no 'no less than 40'.

I am however not 100% sure - I guess Ron will fully answer Your question.

 

[Alex F.]

I do not know which damping factor is correct (Calling Ron!), but I have been told in the recent past by a Mac rep that when a product's brochure and owner's manual provide different specs, the manual is the accurate source.

 

[skippy_ps]

I do not remember where I read this, but I think the link is here at AK somewhere. Anyways, it's a realatively long article about damping factor and the conclusion was that a factor of 2 is fine, 4 is good and anything over 6 or so doesn't result in any meaningful improvement. Something like 99% of the gains from increase in df occur in the range from 0 to about about 3 or 4. So, a df of 10 is overkill.

Just my $.02.

Murray

 

[exracer]

just for curiousity sake I checked the stats on an old kenwood power amp I have - damping factor greater than 1000 at 50 hz; and total harmonic distortion less than .004 % from 20 to 20khz 8 ohms 110 watts per channel-

the sound ? its almost tolerable... until you find something like a tivoli radio blow it away for sound quality...

long live the memory of Julian Hirsch

 

[Victor]

just for curiousity sake I checked the stats on an old kenwood power amp I have - damping factor greater than 1000 at 50 hz; and total harmonic distortion less than .004 % from 20 to 20khz 8 ohms 110 watts per channel-

the sound ? its almost tolerable... until you find something like a tivoli radio blow it away for sound quality...

long live the memory of Julian Hirsch

Great point!
The most important high end stereo lesson I have learned is forget the stat sheet. If it sounds good to you that is all that matters.

Although I have to confess I usually do read the stat sheet and I like to know what all the numbers mean, they can be confusing

Victor

 

[qb_1]

CMRR matters a lot. Values of 1000+ are not so difficult to obtain if amp uses strong feedback which will kill its sound. I am not aware what type of feedback McIntosh amps use - I am sure they have local feedbacks but don't know about global.

For amps with no global feedback such high values are not so easy to obtain. Anyhow, technically - CMRR of 5-10 is not too good.

If You looked at the frequency response curve for 2 different loads (e.g. 4 Ohm and 8 Ohm) the better matching the higher CMRR. Almost all the best sounding ss power amps I heard had big CMRRs (yes, Macs are among those). There are few exceptions but the price You pay is sensitivity to the load...

 

[Negotiableterms]

501s!

After some advice here and from Ron-C, I went with the 501s. Now, begins that excruciating period between when you order and pay for them and when they arrive. :sigh:

Thanks for everyone's help!

 

[qb_1]

Good choice

After some advice here and from Ron-C, I went with the 501s. Now, begins that excruciating period between when you order and pay for them and when they arrive. :sigh:

Thanks for everyone's help!

You made a good choice

I hope You enjoy Your favourite music played by Your new amp

Best Regards

 

[BHinDC]

Just Out of Curiosity

Hello Victor!

Just out of curiosity, how, in your view, did the 501s stack up against the MC2102 tube amp? We're running the MC2102 now, with a C2200 pre, and we're thinking of adding the 501s.

Enjoy!

K.

 

[ron-c]

Folks,

We have no plans to replace the MC1201 anytime soon. They are doing very well and are at the zenith of their popularity. We have had a recent run on large multichannel systems using stacks of the MC501s so they will be tight for a while.
The 2KW amps have a lot of new in them and engineering has just finished the production prototypes running in the final form. A small amount of tweaking has yet to be done. We are quite pleased with the decreased noise floor and lower (!) distortion this new design is yielding. It will be interesting to see what the reviewers and consumers think about the 2KWs. They look to be quite special whiile also very over the top.

Ron-C

 

[Victor]

After some advice here and from Ron-C, I went with the 501s. Now, begins that excruciating period between when you order and pay for them and when they arrive. :sigh:

Thanks for everyone's help!

Great, I can't wait to hear what you think of these amps.

I know what you mean on the waiting game, right now I am waiting on a new phono preamp, phono cart, speaker wires and I just sent my MC162 in for warranty bulb replacement. I have ordered two new McIntosh pieces and they both took 2-3 weeks which is great, my longest wait was a VPI turntable it took 4 months. :grumpy:

Victor

 

[spot]

The 501 is a beautiful piece, and at the top of the MAC heap sonically. Although I could not afford one, I do enjoy my friend's 501 whenever I am at his place.

 

[Victor]

Hello Victor!

Just out of curiosity, how, in your view, did the 501s stack up against the MC2102 tube amp? We're running the MC2102 now, with a C2200 pre, and we're thinking of adding the 501s.

Enjoy!

K.

My dealer had a 2-3 year old MC2102 that I compaired to the MC501s. I don't know if the age of the MC2102 had anything to do with it but I felt the MC501s were slightly better than the MC2102 in every respect. The biggest difference for me was the MC501s had much better imaging and the MC501s also had more detail and they were still easy to listen to. The added detail did not come with the usual cost of added harshness. I had a chance to get the dealer demo MC2102 for a good price and I came very close to buying it but in the end the MC2102 just made too much heat for me to deal with.

As I said the difference was slight, unless you could get a great price trading in your MC2102 for the MC501s I think I would keep the MC2102 if I were you and find a better way to spend the money. It still might be fun to do a home demo and compair for yourself.

The MC501s did work great with my C2200 in my system and my plan is still to save up for the MC501s.

Victor