"Upgrade" From MX-119

steelgtr

Well-Known Member
Hi Guys,

Thinking of updating my MX-119 since we do 95% TV and movie watching (5.1 setup)
Our living room is 12x15 carpet, drapes, soft couches.

The MX-119 does a pretty fine job even w/o room correction but I would like to experience some newer audio formats, good room correction and a 4K TV soon.

Considering a Denon or Anthem but not if audio quality watching movies and TV surround quality will suffer.

Cost is a factor, sadly :) Thinking $1500 range, tops.

thx

bob
 
I'm about as devout a McIntosh owner as you'll find. The MX Home Theater units simply do not present the value, even when buying them second hand, and the well documented failures and operational difficulties steer me clear. In addition, the OP did propose a $1,500 budget - a long way from a Mc MX unit that would be considered an upgrade from his present MX119.

YMMV.
 
My son kept the MX-120, but I traded my 119 on a pre-owned MX 151 last year. You wont believe the difference in the detail a 151 can render in all modes. The set up menus are much more flexible and you can adjust speaker distance to the nearest inch. Leave in the movie mode and it will automatically select mono from a mono source, a great Stereo mode, or what ever form of surround speaker set up you have for HT. You can have a Pure stereo mode if you bypass Room Perfect which only takes one click on your remote. You can have as many inputs as designated connectors. I use 14 inputs. ( two balanced pairs, three HDMI, 7 analog and two digitl. I'll probably add two more that are the to do list soon. You can select different filters for all your speakers depending on their published specifications. The only negative is the smaller display on the front panel. Another thing is it has room perfect. That alone is worth the used price of a pre-owned MX 151. A MX 150 is the same unit piece for piece, the 151 just has updated software you can down load to the 150 and a updated face plate. . You won't believe the picture quality as it up samples Laser discs and videotapes to 1080 thru the HDMI connections to the your display. Digital sound out of my MVP 861 matches the balanced analog output. Something the MX 119 couldn't do. Also using HDMI out of Apple TV or the optical output of Airport Express is much better with the 151 using a HDMI input or aa optical input. Direct TV sounds the same, I guess we can't have it all. ATMOS doesn't show me a thing and a 160 won't do what a MX151 will do so I didn't even consider the 160. I had to wait 4 months before AC got a 151. I put my name on the list and one day Steve Rowell called. He shipped the 151, I hooked it up and sent him the 119 which UPS lost for a Month, but Steve was cool about the situation, making the experience as best as it could be. My 119 had a few hick ups but that was not an issue. Mode selector switch was erratic, as was the trim select switch. The 151 has 2 S video inputs and two composite inputs a 160 doesn't have. If your into 4 K you can feed your display directly from your player and use one of the digital outputs to feed the 151 for sound. If you will search this website about the MX 151 you will find a bunch of posts about the 151, many are mine. You might want to down load a 151 owners manual, to get a better understanding of the unit.

Audiogon has A MX 150 for sale, but I would want to bargain a bit.
 
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I have plenty of Mac gear but use Yamaha for SQ for my HT's since 1998. I like their sound and given you need to upgrade every few years, as I did from component DDP, 1080, HDMI revs, 5.1 to 7.1 to 9.2, 4k, etc. I now have a RX‑A1070 7.2 Channel that is at your budget. It has a decent built in DAC chip and given the weight of the unit, the power specs may be as marketed.
 
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