OH..I turned 40 this weekend.......

[dtel]

I thought it would be nice an all McIntosh setup is something you don't get to hear often, although expensive McIntosh holds it's value. I still can't get over all that power, I know those speakers are made for those amps but that's alot of power, how many volts does that work out to be, no zip cord there.

I'm happy for JC that's a really nice setup, sounds great and is nice and clean not a pile of components, and looks great, the only downside is everything is very very heavy especially the amps.

[IB Slammin]

JC's wife didn't catch me going down the slide, but she wouldn't let me ride the the motorized John Deere tractor or jeep.

I'm going to keep cool for now because I know Terry has a few more pix that I really do not want to have to explain.

Excellent.....

Wait!

Hold on just a minute!

He has pics of me I wouldn't want on the net either.... It seems he is slowly building a stockpile of blackmale photos.

You guys have some of me as well. I'm glad to have some insurance.[]

[IB Slammin]

I can tell you that we were listening to JC's excellent MDA-1000 DAC prior. That is one tough unit to trump. I think you may have heard it. It has incredible specs. The new MCD500 does not have the oversampling spec of the MDA-1000 but it has several years newer electronics, DACs, and software. I believe that made all the difference in the world.

When we first listened to it it was late in the evening and we had "been at it" all evening long. My ears were primed so to speak. It sounded very good but just a hair edgey to me compared to the MDA-1000.........like a brand new electronic componet. The two units sounded very close to one another.

JC let the unit run all night so it had been running for 24 hours straight when we listened ot it the next night. We listened to it all night long on Saturday night and either the unit or my ears opened up. It sounded smoother and seemed to have slightly more bloom than the MDA-1000. We listened to all sorts of genres and all sounded excellent. The MCD500 is an EXCELLENT unit.

If the thing had just 1 analog input I could run my whole system with it and ditch my preamp. Not that I could afford it........but McIntosh is very sharp with their marketing and knows not to completely canablize their preamp line. Units like the MDA-1000 and MCD500 are there for the pure digital crowd and have everything you need........including the CD transport now in the MCD500

It was a huge treat to hear JC's system for as long as we did and hear so many different kinds of music. We even watched the fights (TV) through it and the system does everything as you would expect for what it is. With the addition of the McINtosh speakers JC has, you can just feel the system synergy. Everything is a perfect match and the performance is awesome. We had the system up over 1000 watts a couple of times. I can't describe that. You had to be there. Most of the time I thought 120 watts was just perfect...........and you can barely hear anthing decent out of it unless you have at least 12 watts. Very different than Klipsch. If I turn my MC252 up past 2.5 watts it will drive you out of the room. It's too loud. A couple of times Terry and I had it up to 25 watts. That was ridiculous.

Guys, I am tardy with this........

Wow, what a weekend!

So many thanks to the Cullison and Fragnito families. The true definition of southern hospitality. Outstanding food, drink, music and like-minded company. The wives and kids were just super.

The gear:

What Mark said. To have the opportunity to listen to such a variety of approaches to sound reproduction was a treat. And all very high quality stuff.

Thanks again,

tc