McIntosh Haters

[Velocityboat]

Hmmm; my Concert Grands were the only speaker I've ever owned that I preferred a Japanese amp over a Mac amp driving them. I didn't care for the sound of either my 2100 or my 2125 driving them but they seemed to come alive with a Yamaha C4-M4 combo. I was thinking at the time if I had stumbled upon this combo early on I may not have ever looked beyond it. The Mac's sadly just did not have that synergy with the grands

I think speakers not critically damped like McIntosh Roger Russell speakers will need high dampening factor amps. I have ran many different amps on my XR290s, XRT20 and XR19 stack, XRT20, XR5,,and bose 901. .AMPs include MC1000, MC2500 in stereo, MC2500s bridged, MC7106, Yamaha PC2602, Yamaha, R1000, and R2000, and Lyngdorf TDAI2200 with amp close to the storied Lyngdorf Millennium amp. The amps with highest current and watts do best at lower impedance. An 8 ohm critically damped it is wash between lower wattage amps and higher wattage amps until speakers start needing watts in excess of 200 to come alive. In all cases the large McIntosh amps whoop butt in hard to drive speakers.
As efficiency and porting come in play with a higher damped greater than 200 damping factor amp and greater than 45 amps current can be amazing. With the lyngdorf and PC2602 nearing big watt McIntosh performance if speaker is easy to drive.

But when speaker load and sustained volume are needed. Nothing comes close to a greater than 105 lb and 100 amps per channel McIntosh amp running in Mono or bridged mode. NOTHING.

We'll call it the hernia factor in audiophile speak. Lbs of electronics graphed VS. rich effortless detailed sound with finesse at any volume.