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McIntosh Speakers I.D.

MissionX

MissionX

Keep it Silky
Hello,
There are a couple for sale and I wonder if you could I.D. them and give an opinion on their desirability and sonic characteristics? I have Altec gear, VOTT and 604, and don't know anything about McIntosh speakers. Could I run these with a 30 watt tube amp? Not that I need any more speakers. Thank you

McInstosh Speakers.jpg
 
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ML-2C speakers, rare and desirable. Hopefully they come with the MQ101 eq. Seeing as you have some nice Altec gear, I don't see the need to purchase these unless they're selling for cheap and you want to experiment.
 
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My opinion is that McIntosh was an audio electronics manufacturer that also made speakers in those years. They will sound good, but for the money I think that you can usually do better than McIntosh speakers.

x2 on the MQ101, and expect them to be less sensitive / require more power than the ALTECs.

Now move a few years newer into the XRT-20 and beyond and IMO they were starting to break some new ground, but bring 300+ WPC to hear those work well and a medium-large room for placement!
 
A 30W amplifier might be sufficient at moderate listening levels but will soon run out of power if you try to reproduce LFs at high volume which these speakers were noted for.

A friend loves his ML2Cs. His are powered with a 120 wpc MC2120 amplifier and it's not difficult to get the PG lamps flickering.
 
Thank you. I surfed up the speakers since you gave me the I.D., and they will probably be priced well above to fiddle around with territory. The estate sale starts tomorrow when I will go look at them. Maybe there will be some other stuff there. Since he has good speakers, there's bound to be good amps or EQs.
 
Just the fact that these speakers are there would definitely give me the incentive to check out the sale for other audio goodies.
 
There was nothing else good there when I arrived and the speakers sold for $1200 which I wouldn't have spent anyway. There are a pair of AR3a at another sale for $1150, should be half price tomorrow. The AR guys might like those.

AR3a.jpg
 
Are the Sherwood amp and tuner and Dual 1019 gone? Those are worth checking out. There's also what appears to be another set of AR speakers surrounding the flat screen.

AR speakers.jpg
 
I didn't see any more speakers of note. That set must have been gone already. The only amps I saw where black faced digital. Nothing with wood grain and dials. I didn't see a turntable. I could have overlooked something, but I keep my eyes peeled for wood grain and stainless steel.
 
I don't know why people feel the compulsion to put "shiny coating" on woofers like that.

They're tuned pretty precisely from the factory. Adding a coating- with its mass and damping- is going to upset the upper-end output of the woofer, making it not blend as well with the 8" midbass.

Also, that looks like rubber surrounds on the 8". Also a no-no, for the same reason- it reduces the upper-end output of the 8", compared to the proper foam surround. That will also cause a disruption of the blend with the midrange domes.

Regards,
Gordon.
 
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