High-End Archives

The Pros & Cons of Tubes

the McIntosh Labs MC1502 tube amplifier

The Pros & Cons of Tubes

the McIntosh Labs MC1502 tube amplifier

high-end audio
on cineluxe

Luxury Turntables—An Introduction

The Simplest Path to Audio Bliss

Idea Book | Stereo Speakers

Discovering Vintage Vinyl

Where to Begin Your Vinyl Adventure

Tube amplifiers are far from plug & play but the rewards, both sonically and often with the design, can well be worth the extra effort

by Tom Methans
October 25, 2022

Just like turntables and reel-to-reel tape recorders, tube gear has been making a big comeback. Vacuum tubes were omnipresent in bulky audio equipment before being replaced by tiny transistors, which heralded in the age of single-chassis receivers and streamlined separate components. Throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, consumers gravitated towards these more compact, powerful, and affordable “solid state” systems—especially young people moving into small apartments and dorm rooms. Nevertheless, tube amps have slowly gone beyond their status as esoteric old-fashioned relics and now hold a special place for music lovers wanting to return to the unique and remarkable way music sounded prior to transistors and computers. There are, however, several factors to consider.

Placement
Tube amps run notoriously hot. As the number of watts per channel increase, so do the number and size of the tubes, and the temperature in the listening room. Ventilation, climate control, and open-air placement are vital considerations.

Safety
Glowing tubes are a danger to pets, children, and the uninitiated, who can be burned by tubes or electrocuted by an exposed socket. Amps without covers require a secure location.

Warm-up
Tube amps sound best when they’re warmed up. Some purists never turn them off while others fire up their amps an hour before playing music. This type of gear is not well suited for spontaneous flipping on and off for a single song.

Aesthetics
Tube amps generally favor function over form. With practical designs, the best amp might not be the slickest. It might even resemble an unfinished craft project or 1950s military gear.

Speaker Pairing
There is a tube amp to power just about any speaker but low-watt amps perform best when driving efficient speakers. Also, tube amps are usually two-channel configurations without the ability to add another set of speakers or even a subwoofer.

Hands-on
Some amps need manual biasing, requiring the user to move switches and read meters to ensure that tubes receive the correct voltage. There are auto-biasing amplifiers but there’s no way around a bad tube. Changing them is easy after the amp is powered down correctly.

Perhaps the most prohibitive aspect of tube amps is their power output. How can an amplifier with 2 to 20 watts per channel produce music? While there’s much more to the formula, it’s essentially the combination of speaker sensitivity, circuit design, and the unique way tube amplifiers manage distortion that can make 6 watts of tube power sound as loud as a 50-watt solid-state amp. What matters is that just a few quality watts are necessary for a beautiful auditory experience.

The final prize with a tube amplifier is a warm, present, lifelike, lush, and emotional sound. Paired with the right speakers, these amps take on a dimensionality not easily found in more conventional equipment. There are many great tube-amp builders, from small bespoke direct-sales workshops with year-long waiting lists to major brands available through retailers. Try one. You might never go back to solid-state or computer chips.

See “Idea Book | Tube Amplifiers” for three radically different amps that can power any speaker on the market.

Tom Methans is a writer based in New York. As a Fulbright Scholar, he traveled all over Germany to see heavy metal bands before receiving his Master’s in Library and Information Science. He followed that with a 20-year career in the wine industry and now writes about music and audio equipment for Copper Magazine. When not watching 1970s movies, Tom listens to records on his vintage Japanese turntable.

Idea Book | Tube Amplifiers

the Komuro Amplifier Company K300B amp can power a pair of efficient speakers even though it only produces 6 watts of power

Idea Book: Tube Amplifiers

Idea Book |
Tube Amplifiers

Radically different in almost every way, these three tube amplifiers can power virtually any speaker you mate them with

by Tom Methans
October 25, 2022

With all the amazing concealed surround-sound systems, it’s a wonder anyone still buys speakers that take up half of the room. But there are good reasons to still savor two-channel listening. First-rate speakers are marvels of sound engineering that fully engage you with music. They can also be exquisitely designed pieces of functioning art that share your space and allow you to shut out other distractions and focus on the unrealized depth, nuance, and complexity of your favorite recordings. To set you on the path to building a musical sanctuary/dedicated listening room, we’ve compiled a selection from ultra-traditional to sleekly modern in different sizes and designs. The only way to know which is right for your musical tastes and space is by auditioning as many as you can.

Manley Neo-Classic 250 Monoblock

Are you one of those people who doesn’t want to be limited by their tube amp? Maybe you have a beloved set of power-hungry speakers that certainly need more than 20 watts for orchestral and rock music. Manley Laboratories has the answer. Based in Chino, California, Manley crafts no-nonsense pro-audio equipment and hi-fi gear like the Neo-Classic 250-watt monoblocks. Lest there be any confusion about this pair of amplifiers: Each 69-pound amp produces 250 watts from 10 power tubes to drive one speaker. If that still isn’t enough juice, they also make 500-watt monoblocks. Both models exude industrial flair and confidence.

“Once you hear this muscular vacuum-tube amplifier, you’ll become addicted to the three-dimensionality and attack of transients in its sonic presentation. Huge energy storage in high-voltage rails provides visceral impact, massive headroom, and punch to any style of music.”
—EveAnna Manley, President, Manley Laboratories

19 x 9 x 13″ (w x h x d) | 69 lb. ea. | $16,599 a pair | manley.com

Treehaus Audiolab 6.5 Watt 300B

Treehaus Audiolab is a small boutique company that builds unique speakers and electronics at a workshop in Connecticut. It may appear intimidating and complex for those who have never seen a tube amp like this, but the architecture is based on historical designs by master Japanese amp builder Susumu Sakuma. There are no extraneous parts and every design decision aims for the best performance and sound while maintaining elegant Mid Century accents. Crowned with a pair of legendary Western Electric 300B power tubes, the amp can easily drive a set of efficient speakers at ample volume.

“Using some of the best Japanese signal transformers and a separate power supply to keep noise out, this amplifier embodies one of the purest expressions of what vacuum tubes offer with just several watts of pristine power.”
—Rich Pinto, Principal, Treehaus Audiolab

amp 21 x 8.75 x 16.5″ (w x h x d) | 40 lb.
power supply 16.5 x 8.75 x 16.5″ (w x h x d) | 50 lb.
$17,500 | treehausaudiolab.com

Idea Book |
Tube Amplifiers

Radically different in almost every way, these three tube amplifiers can power virtually any speaker you mate them with

by Tom Methans
October 25, 2022

Luxman LX-380 Integrated

Luxman is approaching its 100th anniversary, and it’s no surprise this Japanese heritage brand is still making high-end audio into the 21st century. Hearkening back to the golden era of stereo with its switches and knobs, the LX-380 is the epitome of convenience, value, and flexibility. It is entirely plug & play with a headphone stage, versatile phono stage, tape loop, bass and treble controls, and four line inputs. Add a separate power amplifier in the future and the LX-380 functions as a superb preamplifier with a flick of a switch. On top of that, it can run two pairs of speakers simultaneously and accommodate a subwoofer.

“The Luxman LX-380 vacuum-tube stereo integrated amplifier is a full-featured and beautifully built updated homage to our classic 1960s “38-Series” amplifiers. Immaculately finished and encased in an exquisite mahogany wood cabinet, LX-380 comes with a hefty curved aluminum IR remote control handset. The LX-380 combines cutting-edge technology and traditional know-how, delivering a sublime listening experience.”
— Jeff Sigmund, President, Luxman America.

17.3 x 7.75 x 15″ (w x h x d) | 39 lb. | $7,995 | luxman.com

Discovering Vintage Vinyl

also by tom Methans

Where to Begin Your Vinyl Adventure

The Simplest Path to Audio Bliss

Idea Book | Stereo Speakers

Your vinyl adventure continues with tips on how to hunt down the best collectable LPs

by Tom Methans
August 3, 2022

In “Where to Begin Your Vinyl Adventure,” we discussed the pleasures and pitfalls of buying brand-new vinyl. New is good. It’s easily found, replaceable if flawed, and generally well recorded. But there’s a big caveat: You can only buy what is listed in the current inventory, and that selection can be woefully inadequate. Meanwhile, thousands of uncatalogued vintage gems are hiding in plain sight. There is no telling what can be pulled out of a bin full of pre-owned records.

Some people have great luck at places like flea markets and thrift shops but these options are time-consuming and offer poor returns for all the effort. Unless you’re a DJ looking for obscure cuts and samples, why dig through crates of discarded vinyl in random locations when the better stuff has already been amassed in a single place? Here a few reasons why a great record shop is your best bet for used vinyl:

• Collections are curated for quality, both of physical media and artistic material. While certain shop owners specialize in specific genres, they can refer you to other dealers for a particular niche.

• True music lovers want their prized records to go to like-minded people and are unlikely to dump them at a thrift store, so estates and lifelong collectors will contract with shops to haul away massive libraries from ideal storage conditions. This also gives you some guarantee of provenance.

• It’s an opportunity to discover new music while flipping through beat-up beer-stained album covers just to find pristine discs inside. Some collectors spend hours in dollar bins just to score extraordinary records overlooked by others.

• The most important feature of a good record store is on-site auditioning. Not only can you visually inspect the covers and vinyl but you can also listen to the record. If there are no customer turntable stations with headphones, ask the staff to play it on the store system.

The next step is to find your local record stores and make friends with the owners and buyers. Let them know about your interests, wish lists, and budget for mint records. Follow through with the sale if they get your desired items, because a good relationship might lead to tips about future acquisitions. It’s also worth enquiring about rare and vintage pieces kept under lock and key for savvy customers like you.

Naturally, shops and collectors around the world sell through eBay and Discogs. Online sources might be the only way to locate very specific titles, but the thrill of the hunt remains at brick & mortar shops operated by people who devote their lives to records. Be forewarned, crate digging and collecting are very addictive hobbies. Don’t be surprised if you start planning vacations and business trips just to visit stores in different cities.

Discogs is probably the best online resource for finding vintage vinyl but there are still advantages to seeking out brick & mortar record stores with knowledgeable staff

Where to Begin Your Vinyl Adventure

also on cineluxe

Luxury Turntables—An Introduction

The Simplest Path to Audio Bliss

Idea Book | Stereo Speakers

Supply chain issues have made starting a record collection a challenge, but there are still treasures to be found

by Tom Methans
July 8, 2022

So your new turntable is on its way, and you’re ready to buy records. You might even have a list of landmark albums many other collectors tend to buy: Tres Hombres by ZZ Top, Bach cello suites by Janos Starker, Texas Flood by Stevie Ray Vaughn, as well as some oldies by James Brown or the Three Kings (B.B., Freddie, and Albert). But any one of them could be out of stock, awaiting repress, or back-ordered with no definite production or ship dates. While it is possible to reserve copies, people have waited many months to receive orders.

It wasn’t always like this. Before COVID, albums were plentiful, with more high-grade records pressed on heavy-weight vinyl, double 45-RPM albums, and proprietary technologies like SuperVinyl, Ultradisc One-Step, and UHQR (Ultra High-Quality Record). Pressing plants are now straining to meet the worldwide demand even with independent outlets doing their best to produce new records.

A few years ago in Detroit, Jack White of the White Stripes started a record press, Third Man Records, to press alternative music, but they’re struggling to release a new punk record within one year due to backlogs. White appealed recently to the last remaining major labels to reopen their own plants, but this is a major undertaking that requires specialized machinery and staffing. The final blow to the industry was a fire at Apollo Masters in California, which manufactured the first step in the physical process of record production, leaving only one other such facility in Japan. The brick & mortar record store, a fixture that once dotted Main Street in every town, is accessible only to a lucky few. Thankfully, there are plenty of great online shops only a click away:

Third Man Records
Music Direct
MoFi
Louisiana Music Factory
Acoustic Sounds
Blue Note
Turntable Lab
Amoeba Music
Tower Records

If one of the resources above doesn’t have everything on your wish list, it’s an excuse to try unfamiliar music, bands, and records when you go virtual crate-digging. Keep in mind that high-quality music can be found on a record priced $30 or a limited-release copy for $125. Both are physical media made by human hands and vulnerable to the same flaws:

- - - scratches & scuffs
    - noise, even after a thorough cleaning
    - off-center spindle holes
    - imbedded debris
    - the age-old problem of warps

New records are less fraught with these issues than vintage ones and usually can be returned or replaced easily. This brings us to collecting used records. Unless you have a second turntable for testing old vinyl before playing it on your premier turntable, I recommend buying new and only playing those after a proper wash to remove dust, fibers, and residue leftover from the pressing plant.

However, exploring vintage records provides an unrivaled dive into a treasure trove of forgotten music. Dusty bins at the used-record store can contain discontinued pressings of popular albums such as Rolling Stones’ Some Girls, featuring its original cover of images of Hollywood starlets used without their permission. Other records are deemed unworthy of reissuing and are thus lost to history until someone rediscovers them. Collecting old vinyl is a unique process, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Idea Book: Statement Speakers

Idea Book |
Statement Speakers

A quick survey of high-end speakers that can produce phenomenal sound and make a bold design statement

by John Sciacca
June 10, 2022

What if instead of trying to hide speakers away, you fully embraced the beauty and craftsmanship of their design, and allowed them to sit front and center in a room? Instead of making them play second fiddle, you used the speakers to help define the design aesthetic of a space, to complement it, creating a harmonious blend of form and function along with delivering a transcendent audio experience? As a followup to Tom Methans’ stereo speakers idea book, here are some options of speaker designs that are meant to be celebrated and will help define the look of the listening space as much as its sound.

KEF Blade One Meta

With its sleek and smooth-edged design inspired by Brancusi’s sculpture “Bird in Space,” the Blade more resembles something you’d find in a modern art gallery than in a premium listening room, but feed it some music and your mind will change. The Concept Blade was born in 2009 when KEF’s engineers were given free rein to create a speaker where all of the sound frequencies radiated from one point. The latest generation, the One Meta, delivers a purer and more natural sound than earlier models. The Blade is offered in five standard cabinet finishes with six driver-cone color options, or can be custom finished to suit its environment.

63 x 14 x 21″ (h x w x d) | 126 lb. | $34,998 | kef.com

Sonus Faber Aida

What would you expect from a company headquartered in Arcugnano, Italy in a building designed by Studio Albanese in the shape of a violin, and whose name is a Latin for “artisan of sound”? Beautiful handcrafted and finished wood cabinets are staples of the Sonus Faber line, and the Aida features highly hand-polished curving panels available in red or wenge. Pictures cannot fully do the Aida justice, and even in person one would almost wish to be able to peer inside the beautiful cabinet to see the craftsmanship that goes into the woodworking.

68 x 19 x 31″ (h x w x d) | 363 lb. | $130,000 | sonusfaber.com

Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 90

Art can be meant to provoke a feeling or reaction or spark a conversation, and the styling of Bang & Olufsen’s BeoLab 90 certainly leaves much room for discussion. B&O has a well-deserved reputation for creating luxury products featuring impeccable design and premium materials and components that stretches back to 1925. To commemorate the company’s 90th anniversary, B&O engineers were given carte blanche to design an ultimate performance statement, resulting in the BeoLab 90. Concealed behind the customizable curved and flowing fabric panels and natural aluminum accents are 18 speaker drivers powered by 8,200 watts of amplification, and powerful audio processing to help deliver pristine sound in every listening space.

49 x 29 x 30″ (h x w x d) | 302 lb. | $110,000 | bang-olufsen.com

Waterfall Audio Niagara

Designed and manufactured in Carcés, France, Waterfall Audio’s glass speakers have a distinctive look, with the premier Niagara towers employing 10mm-thick safety glass with a metallic color coating. Transparent yet highly modern in appearance, with their drivers appearing to float in space, the Niagaras can be considered works of art on their own. Equally unique is the glass horn tweeter, which requires the same cutting, machining, and hand assembly techniques used by luxury jewelers. Adding to the dramatic appearance are the completely visible drivers finished and hand stitched in premium Nappa leather and the single block of aluminum that serves as the base.

47 x 12 x 13″ (h x w x d) | 132 lb. | $36,000 | waterfallaudio.com

Idea Book |
Statement Speakers

A quick survey of high-end speakers that can produce phenomenal sound and make a bold design statement

by John Sciacca
June 10, 2022

Bowers & Wilkins 801 D4

Few recording spaces are as hallowed as Abbey Road Studios in London and Skywalker Sound in California, and both employ Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series speakers for critical playback and mastering. This means many albums and films that will ultimately be heard around the world are heard first on Bowers & Wilkins speakers, and owning them can get you a degree closer to what the recording engineers intended. The D4 is the latest version of the company’s flagship Diamond Series. Its cabinet is offered in four finishes with a top appointed in Connolly leather, ensuring a striking and luxury appearance.

48 x 18 x 24″ (h x w x d) | 222 lb. | $35,000 | bowerswilkins.com

Meridian Audio DSP8000 XE

While the external design is consistent throughout Meridian’s DSP speakers, the new flagship 8000 XE is the first product to emerge from the company’s Extreme Engineering Programme. The 8000 XE features new drivers throughout, including six custom-fabricated bass drivers, along with a new electronics section to handle the speaker’s powerful and flexible digital signal processing. The Meridians are fully powered, incorporating multiple on-board amplifiers with power and performance to help ensure harmonious pairing between electronics and drivers. And with Meridian’s Bespoke service, the DSP8000 XE can be delivered in any finish to suit your décor.

53 x 16 (tapering to 6) x 21 (tapering to 8)” (h x w x d) w/stands | 243 lb | $125,000 | meridian-audio.com

Technical Audio Devices Reference One TX

One doesn’t often encounter Japanese-manufactured speakers on audiophile lists, but Technical Audio Devices is a worthy exception. On my first listen, I was stunned by the clarity, realism, and detail of the Reference Ones. Featuring a cabinet styled by leading Japanese luxury furniture manufacturer Tendo Mokko, the Reference One TX is offered in Emerald Black or Beryl Red, meant to be as visually stunning as they are acoustically inert. While the 10-inch bass drivers solidly deliver the lowest octaves, it’s the speaker’s uniquely crafted Beryllium midrange/ tweeter that’s the sonic star, producing sonic realism that will satisfy for years to come.

51 x 22 x 28″ (h x w x d) | 330 lb. | $145,750 | technicalaudiodevices.com

Probably the most experienced writer on custom installation in the industry, John Sciacca is co-owner of Custom Theater & Audio in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, & is known for his writing for such publications as Residential Systems and Sound & Vision. Follow him on Twitter at @SciaccaTweets and at johnsciacca.com.

Five Questions for Trinnov’s Jon Herron

5 Questions for Trinnov’s Jon Herron

Achieving Serenity | The Sound Processing

Taking Atmos to the Max

Cineluxe Basics | Amps & Preamps

Cineluxe Basics |Immersive Audio

[NEW DECK TK] A casual encounter with an early Waits album leads to a radical reevaluation of the arc of his career

May 10, 2022

What was the thing that first got you interested in luxury home entertainment?

I was born with genuinely terrible eyesight. Perhaps because of that, I developed quite sensitive hearing. Also, my two passions from childhood have been music and technology. At the tender age of 13, I had an epiphany: I realized that there were people who stood around talking about both music and technology all day long, speaking with other people who had at least somewhat similar interests. They sold stereo equipment. I have been involved in this business, one way or the other, ever since.

There’s a lot happening in the premium entertainment space right now. What trends intrigue you the most?

I am blown away by the explosion in truly excellent content that has happened over the last few years. People know all about Netflix, AppleTV+, Amazon Prime, and Disney+, to name but a few. Everyone I know binges TV now in preference to watching it episodically.

But, when a home theater or media room is designed well, it can also be among the best places for enjoying music. Dolby Atmos for Music has made significant inroads. Do a search in the Apple Music Store and listen on your home theater system using an AppleTV. Or just try one of the “upmixers” in your AV preamp when listening to a favorite CD. I use the Auro-3D upmixer all the time for listening to my several terabytes of stereo music recordings and I would not want to go back.

Thankfully, it looks like the pandemic is becoming more manageable. People are slowly getting back to something like what we used to think was normal. But I think many people will be staying home a bit more than they had done in the past, thanks to the experience of the past two years. I can think of few additions to my home that would be more desirable—and more used—than a quiet refuge to which I can escape for a while.

Even a dedicated home theater can be so much more than just a place to watch movies. Having ready access to a truly quiet, attractive space with well-designed lighting is a wonderful luxury for reading a good book, listening to your favorite music, or watching a movie with your friends and family.

What have been some of your most powerful home entertainment experiences?

Two specific theaters come to mind: Rob Hahn’s AVS Forum Theater of the Decade, which was designed by Keith Yates Design and implemented by Geoff Franklin and his team at The Projection Room, and the demo theater at Insane AV in Houston, TX. Both are characterized by an extremely low noise floor that allows even the smallest details in a recording to come through with breathtaking clarity, excellent passive acoustic design, and a completely seamless presentation of the three-dimensional sound field. Both also feature truly subterranean bass.

What products best define your company and why?

The Altitude platform is the most comprehensive expression of what we do. These powerful, software-based surround preamplifiers quite simply do things that no other surround preamps can do. For example, the Altitude 32 has been able to decode and render all of the 34.1 channels of Dolby Atmos for the home since 2014. Even today, the Altitude models remain the only surround preamps that can do so.

All of our processors also include our proprietary Speaker/Room Optimizer, which is widely regarded as the state-of-the-art room correction technology. Our patented Remapping technology also can correct for the inevitable compromises in speaker placement brought about by real-world issues like doors and windows being where you might have wanted to place a speaker, as well as the conflicting speaker placement recommendations from Auro, Dolby, and DTS.

What other brands’ products intrigue or excite you in the luxury entertainment space?

High-quality infrasonic bass delivers a level of realism you cannot appreciate until you have experienced it. I’m talking about frequencies well below 10 Hz that you do not hear so much as you feel. For example, check out aia-cinema.com. Ascendo (from Germany) makes several subwoofers that are designed to reproduce frequencies below 20 Hz.) They provide “liver shiver” that is consistent with the bass you’re hearing. The fact that what you feel and what you hear are harmonically related to one another makes sense to your brain and delivers a huge increase in realism for both music and movie soundtracks. It’s an entirely different experience than you get with even the best chair shakers. You just have to experience it for yourself.

Jon Herron was already doing physical editing (razor blades and editing tape) on reel-to-reel tape recorders when he was 13 years old and has been involved in the home entertainment business ever since. For most of the past 30 years or so, he has worked at Madrigal Audio Labs (makers of Mark Levinson and Proceed), Wisdom Audio, and now at Trinnov Audio, where he is General Manager. He feels fortunate to have worked alongside so many amazing people along the way.

The Simplest Path to Audio Bliss

also on Cineluxe

Luxury Turntables—An Introduction

Atmos Music | A World Beyond Movies

The Strange Journey of Tom Waits

Cineluxe Basics | A Guide to Speakers

Of the many ways to create a high-end music system, McIntosh may offer the easiest and most satisfying solution

by Tom Methans
April 26, 2022

Luxury home entertainment isn’t just about home theater. But because theaters tend to be big and loud, they usually get most of the attention, in a squeaky wheel kind of way. There are many other facets to this universe, though, that are just as beguiling and rewarding.

For a lot of people, the ultimate entertainment system is one devoted to music, not movies. But, thanks to the audiophile gatekeepers, there can be an intimidation factor to creating an uncompromised music setup that doesn’t usually come into play with a home theater—which is why we’re initiating a series of articles to help ease your way to attaining the ideal system without having to deal with any of the tweaky minutiae. The goal is to seriously lower the stress level so you can focus on the adventure and the pleasure—beginning with this piece from Tom Methans on McIntosh as possibly the most direct and hassle-free way to arrive at phenomenal music reproduction in your home.

—ed.

In the early days of home audio, buying a two-channel system was simple. All it took was a trip to the store where you could pick a top-of-the-line console pre-loaded with two speakers and all the current gear packed into a single piece of fashionable cabinetry. Since then, home audio has become increasingly complicated by highly specialized builders of single components (down to cables and power cords), leaving buyers with the chore of mixing and matching equipment. While some people enjoy that process, it’s totally unnecessary. As one of the last companies manufacturing a full spectrum of high-end equipment, McIntosh makes it easy again to put together a serious stereo system by combining one-stop shopping with luxurious components and extraordinary sound.

McIntosh had been making amplifiers in Binghamton, NY, since 1951, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that they added speakers to their home-audio lineup. With a solid history of professional applications, which includes supplying power to the original Woodstock Festival and Grateful Dead concerts, McIntosh was also becoming the go-to choice for sophisticated home audio.

I was reminded of the McIntosh magic when I auditioned a massive system at the 2018 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. Instead of the usual double room at the Marriott allotted to smaller brands, Mac got a conference space filled with chairs like a theater and built on a foundation of two 158 lb. monoblock MC1.25KW amplifiers at 1,200 watts per channel driving a pair of XRT1.1K speakers, which are just shy of six feet in height with 70 drivers and weighing in at 181 lbs. each.

As we all savored the music, McIntosh representatives didn’t have to prove anything with specs, excuses, or value for the price, because the room sounded like a live performance hall.

Naturally, your space and listening habits dictate the power you need. Once the speakers are selected, McIntosh offers amplification from 75 to 2,000 watts per channel; digital or analog; tubes or solid-state; mono, stereo, or multichannel; as well as integrated, multi-chassis, and an old-school stereo receiver that does everything in a single box. Then the fun really begins. McIntosh has whatever source you want: Turntables, streamers, SACD/CD players, and radio tuners. They make everything except tape machines, but if you’re dying to try a reel-to-reel, Skyfi Audio (a partner company of Stereo Exchange for pre-owned and vintage gear) is restoring classic Japanese Technics RS1500s with the McIntosh color scheme to fit seamlessly into your system.

If those aren’t enough reasons to use McIntosh to take your first big step in high-end audio, consider that the equipment is at home in a mid-century den, Edwardian library, minimalist open-concept, or industrial loft. Furthermore, its build quality and timeless design ensure high resale value and legendary durability—McIntosh still services its vintage gear—for generations to come. Finally, those famous blue meters, they never go out of style.

McIntosh has been the choice of professional sound engineers, musicians, and music lovers who appreciate iconic American brands, but painstaking research and development has kept pace with the finest equipment in the world. Take it from Evan Fusco, Vice President of Stereo Exchange in New York City: “For decades McIntosh has continued their commitment to quality of construction and design, and in this last decade have elevated their products’ audiophile performance to the same top level.”

In addition to a variety of speaker brands, Evan has plenty of McIntosh electronics on display, and he will special order any McIntosh component you desire.

Special thanks to Evan Fusco of Stereo Exchange; Mark Christensen, Marketing Coordinator, McIntosh Laboratory; and Elliott White, Operations Manager, SkyFi Audio.

the McIntosh MC1.25KW monoblock amplifier and XRT1.1K speaker

High-End

The Pros & Cons of Tubes

Idea Book: Tube Amplifiers

Discovering Vintage Vinyl

Where to Begin Your Vinyl Adventure

Idea Book: Statement Speakers

Five Questions for Trinnov’s Jon Herron

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The Simplest Path to Audio Bliss

also on Cineluxe

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