What Audio Brand That You Will Never Buy And Why?
- Thread starter Tharbamar
- Start date
OMGCat!
Super Member
I honestly don't like the way most Mac gear looks but I don't know that I'd call it gaudy. Just not something I would enjoy looking at. Except those green LEDs under the tubes of some of their amps. That is about 10 steps beyond gaudy. Every time I see it I just can't understand why they'd want to wreck pretty looking tube glow with a completely different color light.
Sentry Monitor system, when you turn the amp on, the signal tubes start warming up and in sequence start lighting up yellow. When warm and ready to use they light up green. When something happens like a power tube failure, something wrong with a circuit two of the signal tube will light up red in front of the bad tube, or the side of the amp with a fault. Then the amp will shut off protecting it's self.
I'd rather have an indication and monitoring of the amp than a runaway tube and blow the amp up. One could cover the LED lights, listen for the stand by click and if a issue happens the amp will shut down, but you will not know where.
What a great idea
I thought those green lights were for decoration but they actually do have a purpose and a damn good one at that. It always concerns me leaving the house for a bit and leaving any tube gear running and it sounds like that would not be a problem with a newer 275.I'd personally rather have a simple panel indicator; I agree that it serves a purpose but tubes are beautiful in their natural state; they don't need artificial glow. I also don't like the overly industrial cages on that new hybrid preamp. Maybe I've just been looking at vintage gear too long.
When the amps are on but are not getting a signal they shut themselves off in 30 minutes. I left my VAC tube amps on for 32 hours once because I forgot They where used and I turned the rest of the system off.
Well to do what is being done now it would need to be a strip of LEDs to indicate where the the concerns or failure are located. I don't think a added strip of LEDs would look good, kinda like 80s BPC. The LEDs in the tube socket can be covered with a sticker dot the way it is now.
A signal tube hardly has any glow, even the Kt88s don't show much glow with the silver coating in them.
I have to agree here, to me is look like a mismatch of modern and old. It also looks like the cheap chines amps sold on eBay.
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Nice feature in the event of failure. The two times I've had 6550C outputs go supernova on me, however, it was pretty obvious which one died.
I sure enjoyed hearing 2301s at Sea Cliff driving MG 3.7s. Sorry for the quality of my camera pic of Room #2.
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OMGCat!
Super Member
I didn't know that they served a purpose. I would definitely rather them than a panel of LEDs like an 80s tape deck.
I dunno. It's such a pretty amp so I'm torn with the whole form following function in this case.
Bill Ferris
Lunatic Member
BTW. Ref : MC 275IV,according to the owner`s manual, IIRC, the green LED`s can be disabled, if one chooses to.
Via the 1/8"/3.5mm remote turn on jack, which is 3 conductor, by either opening up or closing the ring to sleeve connections.
I use (4) residing on the floor in mono mode in my main system, and I like the mild Mac green glow while listening to music, or watching a movie..
The startup self test function with the tubes LED`s going from orange to green after passing the internal circuit parameters, and input & output connections, can be very helpful IMHO/E.
My housekeeper/personal assistant, while sliding them out to dust the chassis, bumped the stereo/mono switch on one, and the amp wasn`t happy, and indicated it with the first tube`s LED going back to either orange or no LED on at all, when I turned it on that night.
I can`t recall which, as this was around 4 years ago.
But anyway, I suspected she probably bumped a rocker switch, I checked, and she had..
Flipping it back to mono, the 275VI was happy again, and came out of protect and played fine..
Also, one of the four, will go to sleep, after ~ 30 minutes, but not the others !!
I have the SM, and will one day when it`s slid out for dusting again, disconnect and pop the bottom cover and disable that function on that amp..
Confused me at first, when it first happened, as I thought there was something wrong with it, but no fault LED`s ever happened, it just turned off, but I would turn it off, and turn it back on, and it would, and has worked perfectly.
Now, and until then, I just make sure to have signal(music) running through it while the system is warming up, while my B-I-L and I are eating dinner in the nearby kitchen, before we either listen to BR Pure Audio discs, or watch a movie afterwards.
FWIW.
Kind regards, OKB
Via the 1/8"/3.5mm remote turn on jack, which is 3 conductor, by either opening up or closing the ring to sleeve connections.
I use (4) residing on the floor in mono mode in my main system, and I like the mild Mac green glow while listening to music, or watching a movie..
The startup self test function with the tubes LED`s going from orange to green after passing the internal circuit parameters, and input & output connections, can be very helpful IMHO/E.
My housekeeper/personal assistant, while sliding them out to dust the chassis, bumped the stereo/mono switch on one, and the amp wasn`t happy, and indicated it with the first tube`s LED going back to either orange or no LED on at all, when I turned it on that night.
I can`t recall which, as this was around 4 years ago.
But anyway, I suspected she probably bumped a rocker switch, I checked, and she had..
Flipping it back to mono, the 275VI was happy again, and came out of protect and played fine..
Also, one of the four, will go to sleep, after ~ 30 minutes, but not the others !!
I have the SM, and will one day when it`s slid out for dusting again, disconnect and pop the bottom cover and disable that function on that amp..
Confused me at first, when it first happened, as I thought there was something wrong with it, but no fault LED`s ever happened, it just turned off, but I would turn it off, and turn it back on, and it would, and has worked perfectly.
Now, and until then, I just make sure to have signal(music) running through it while the system is warming up, while my B-I-L and I are eating dinner in the nearby kitchen, before we either listen to BR Pure Audio discs, or watch a movie afterwards.
FWIW.
Kind regards, OKB
twiiii
Lunatic Member
To the gent with the XR-5's, we lost quite a few drivers that are customers complained about. But we had a 6200 trade in and a 754 amp we couldn't seem to sell. We would replace the mids and if they owned a receiver we would replace it with a 6200, if they owned a power amp would replace it with a 754. We would give them a month. out of maybe a dozen customers with issues we only had one more failure. That was a tweeter issue. It was actually resistor in the crossover network that failed. Some of the customers bit the bullet and bought Mac power amps. One talked us out of the 6200. One bought a 4300 or 4280. The remainder just learned to back off the volume a bit, one customer traded up to XR-7's another to XR-19. Others were never heard from again after returning the amps we loaned them. I assume they bought other speakers. Most folks don't realize the true handling power of a XR5 midrange. I believe there is posting here of a Mcintosh White paper with the true rating. Its an rms rating, and you can add 6 db for short peaks. I want to say 30 watts maybe, which is much lower than the mid and woofer, so if you allow your amp to clip they can fail pretty fast. Are You sure your crossover caps haven't change value allowing lower than specified frequencies to reach the driver.?
My curiosity got the better of me so I went looking. What I found was the power handling curves on an XR-16 which uses the same midrange driver, and the curves indicate out 30 to 35 watts rms for the driver. Maybe 100watt very short random peaks. Complaints about XR-7, ML 2 and 4's etc is one of many reasons Roger developed line arrays. Lower distortion as much power handling as the woofers ad better controlled dispersion with better clarity. I'd be looking for some XR 18's if I were you. If you want more there are XRT 28's.
Tweeter failures also spurred the development of power guard. I think large tube amps should have power guard also.
My curiosity got the better of me so I went looking. What I found was the power handling curves on an XR-16 which uses the same midrange driver, and the curves indicate out 30 to 35 watts rms for the driver. Maybe 100watt very short random peaks. Complaints about XR-7, ML 2 and 4's etc is one of many reasons Roger developed line arrays. Lower distortion as much power handling as the woofers ad better controlled dispersion with better clarity. I'd be looking for some XR 18's if I were you. If you want more there are XRT 28's.
Tweeter failures also spurred the development of power guard. I think large tube amps should have power guard also.
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exhippy
I use to have long hair. Now I'm lucky to have any
Oh, stop your crying.... 2 grand, that's all? I have 15+ grand into this fireball brand. As a former Boy Scout I liked to be prepared, I keep marshmallows on sticks next to my equipment (graham crackers and Hershey's are stock piled within reach on top of the JBL's.)
My insurance agent stopped-by after a recent addition to the house and spotted the PS Fireball equipment. He insisted that I have a sprinkler system installed over my audio system or he may have to drop me. He also said give him a call when the s'mores are ready. I told him bring your own fire suit.......................
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And here I thought that Phase Linear (aka Flame Linear) was the only amp brand with incendiary tendencies. Guess I learned something new today.
Harvestor
Addicted Member
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkomatic
How many of you remember this brand?... Never would buy one of their products and sure as heck wouldn't pick up one of their products and a resale shop...
The one good thing is at least it was United States Based Company, but sure did produce cheap stuff and what's surprising is who bought them out...
How many of you remember this brand?... Never would buy one of their products and sure as heck wouldn't pick up one of their products and a resale shop...
The one good thing is at least it was United States Based Company, but sure did produce cheap stuff and what's surprising is who bought them out...
Hah... I had a Sparkomatic FM converter under the dash of my '62 Stude Daytona. Still worked when I got rid of the car. Original speaker done blowed up though when Cake's "The Distance" came on the radio while I was doing about 70 on the Beltway with the windows down on the way to a car show...
I'm actually pretty impressed with the Wave Radio product. It has good ergonomics and does provide nice sound for bedroom, kitchen, office, garage, etc. duty.
I just wouldn't spend $500 on one.
JoeESP9
ESL's & tubes since 83
I'm actually pretty impressed with the Wave Radio product. It has good ergonomics and does provide nice sound for bedroom, kitchen, office, garage, etc. duty.
I just wouldn't spend $500 on one.
Maybe so. However, I'd buy this before a Wave.
That it has a sort of retro look IMO doesn't hurt.
If I didn't need a CD player I'd go with this.
Both come in more than one color and both have remotes for the modern lazy person.
