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MA12000 & MA352

charne@sprin

charne@sprin

Fell in love with music, then hiked the tech trail
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Is this hybrid design, combining a tube/valve preamp and solid state power amp, a trend? Was the MA352 (and MA252) a test for McIntosh to determine whether there would be a market for a high end hybrid? If that were the case, the announcement of the MA12000 seems to suggest there is.
 
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From what I understand the idea is that solid state amps are more powerful and you get all the "tube sound" from the preamp. Basically you get the best of both worlds "tube sound" with more reliability since you don't have to replace preamp tubes as often as you have to replace power amp tubes.
 
The MA 2275 and MA 230 were just the opposite. THe Ma 230 was from the 60's and the MA 2275 in the early 2000's as I remember. SS front end and tube power amps. The older tube power amps colored the sound more than todays hybrid tube pre-amps. Remember todays pre-amps are hybrids and not all tubes. The smoothest sound of the modern tube preamps is the C-2200. Especially the Phono section. My favorite sounding tube pre-amp hybrid was the C-500T. But then I have only briefly sampled the C-1100.
 
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