kippy

I've heard so many good things about the old McIntosh amps, glad to hear you are enjoying your MC30s and MC240s. We are lucky to pick between diamonds and pearls.

I will read through you thread and adventure. Room is 660SF, 8' ceilings so I think about 5280 cubic feet

You want to know something embarrassing? When I got the Heritage Jubilee speakers, I didn't ever bother to notice that the HF horns have a 16ohm nominal impedance. Yesterday, I switched them from the Mc225 8ohm taps to the 16ohm taps and the sound was clearer/brighter (but not sharper). Did it sound pretty good using the 8ohm taps on the MC225? Yes. Did it sound pretty good using the default taps on the J2? Yes. You asked about the room size; here is the exact config. Speakers are on either side of the french doors in the family room. Floor is concrete with thick padding/carpet. Back and side walls are concrete retaining walls.

Thanks kindly! I thought the system sounded better than anything I had previously heard but I have since worked on iterating on all the different parts of it to arrive at something even better. I've been the beneficiary of all the wisdom on the forum from various team members and I have iterated on the following in roughly this order - amps (feel like mc225 is ideal for HF but First Watt has also sounded great) - preamps (settled on my Bozak mixer) - dac (moving from Bluesound nodex to NAD C658) - dirac use (about to start experimenting when it arrives next week) - room tuning (wow - what a difference bass traps make in clearing up muddy bass) I intend to write up my diary of experiments and share but I feel like half the magic is the speakers and the other half amps, room, room correction, etc...I'm not there yet but it sure is fun getting there. best, Sasha

Theoretically no, but I have been doing a lot of experiments over the last month or so and sometimes I turn the sub off and sometimes I turn it on and play with the curve/filter. I'm still up in the air to see if I keep it.

Great question and this what the wise and kind @mikebse2a3 suggested privately! I tried both 4ohm and 8ohm taps yesterday for a casual (but not loud) listening session but did not run the music up to 105db; I'll give that a whirl and let you know what I discover. I was using the 8ohm tap in the previous test. WRT another MC252, I am fortunate enough to have two here I might run that test as well and see what happens with an MC252 dedicated in mono to each channel. BTW, using the 4ohm tap (instead of the 8ohm tap) in my casual listening session resulted in a softer bass thump from the Jubilee speakers. Switching back to the 8ohm tap sounded better and more powerful. I can see where listening to jazz or something that doesn't really need that tight thump might be better with a 4ohm tap connected to the LF cabinets.

This is a very interesting statement...why do you hate Class D if they are to your point, convenient, quite, damping, powerful...

I'd like a McIntosh whose volume knob goes to 11

It was bonkers loud and I rarely play it at that volume. Meters were pegged and power guard kept flashing Sometimes it's fun, lol.

So just to be succinct, the LF cabinets don't "clip" or distort and neither does the McIntosh amp. I would guess one could throw more watts at the Jubilee LF cabs and they would play at their 300/1200 watt nominal/peak rating. It's the McIntosh amp that was running out of juice and the sentry/powerguard kicking in when the DB meter hit 105db and the wattage was pegged near 250 watts on the McIntosh display.

The McIntosh sentry powerguard kicks in; I don't hear actual clipping on the McIntosh. I was fast and loose with my language. I measured the DB on two devices at the same time (Decibelx on my iphone and a physical meter). The McIntosh meter was hitting 250 watts/channel as well.

I have been researching Class D amps lately and it's been a rather fun research project to read through a decades worth of everyone's collective experience here. Do Class D amps generally provide a tighter bass response than say a McIntosh MC252? I am running a pair of Heritage Jubilee' speakers. I have an MC225 on HF duty and the MC252 on LF duty. Bass is thumpy but slightly muddy. I am exploring DIRAC to help solve room issues but also wondering if a Hypex NCx500 would sound any different than the MC252. I have already discovered that even though the Jubilee LF cabs are very efficient, they begin to clip at about 105db...yes, that is loud and I rarely listen at that volume, but every once in a while I like to scare the neighbors.

I took a look online and that The CJ MV-45 sure is purdy. Love the vintage vibes with it. I wish there was a way to hear all these amps easily. I've had a bunch of different McIntosh gear (mostly solid state) and can confirm it is fantastically reliable, well built and nice to gaze into those blue eyes. I can also say now with my MC225 experiment that there is a large difference in sound between what I have experimented with (MC-252, MA-352, MHA-150, C8) and the MC225. I feel lucky to have stumbled upon the reviews and taken a chance. I bet there is an old wise guy on this forum smiling and saying "finally the kids are figuring out what we have know for decades". I plead ignorance of the highest order.

Which Conrad Johnson amp do you like?

I am beginning to wonder myself about the connection between low-powered amps and horns. I had previously powered the Jubilee speakers with a pair of MC252s. Solid state, powerful amps that mate nicely with less efficient speakers. I kept feeling that there was too much energy in the mid and upper registers. Something wasn't quite right. When I swapped in an MHA-150, the sound improved significantly. I swapped between the two multiple times and felt the same effect. Logically, the MC252 produces clean, distortion-free sound and the Jubilee horns were consuming less than a watt of power at 70-80db and yet I felt overwhelmed each time I used them with the Jubilee speakers. I observed the same impact when swapping in a J2 and the MC225. The same MC252 sounds fantastic when paired with my lower-efficiency speakers (Sonus Faber). It's a small dataset ^ but seems like the HF horns *don't* benefit from extra reserve power...I have observed differently for the LF drivers on the Jubilee. The extra power helps and I have clipped the MC252s even when playing near 105db.