Tom Adams Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 Last Saturday, the wife & kid indulged my request to stop in my local audio store. Hadn't been in there in a couple of months and just wanted to wish my salesman friend Mark and the owner a Merry Christmas. While waiting for Mark, the wife wanted to know what this McIntosh stuff was that she was seeing. Sure enough, there was Mac equipment all over the store. Now, they've always been a Mac dealer, but I've never seen this much on display. I explained to her what I knew about Mac (which admittedly isn't a whole lot) and that many folks have said that they matched up real well with Klipsch Heritage. She said she really like the looks and asked if I had considered Mac. I told her no 'cause it was just out of my price range, but the used stuff might be an option. Later she got Mark to give her a price of Mac's pre/pro and she nearly choked. Anyhow.... After Mark got off the phone, we chatted a bit and I asked him what all the Mac gear was about. He said, "Two channel is back baby. Come with me, I'm gonna mess you up." I always know this is not a good sign when he tells me this. We go to the back room that used to be their large projection screen HT demo room. It was now a dedicated two channel room configured to demo 4 different price point systems - one on each wall. The first system was a Mac tube preamp and amplifier setup with a Pro-Ject RPM9 turntable. I about fainted. This store hasn't had a turntable on display in years. I listened to this gear through a pair of Vienna Acoustics Mozart speakers. Wow....that was a sweet sound. Very well defined sound stage, smooth highs, and suprisingly nice bass extension. Vocals were superb. For the next several minutes, I listened to other Vienna and B&W speakers with various pieces of B&K, Krell, and Mac equipment and I indeed got "messed up". sigh....so much nice equipment and so little $$$$. I asked Mark what the chances were of some Klipsch Heritage showing up now that they had tube gear and he said he was working on it. su -WEET!! Another piece of euipment they had that was pretty cool was a Yamaha MusicCAST system. Pretty neat. McIntosh....sigh....one of these days. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j-malotky Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 There can be MC deals. I have been buying MC 250s on ebay in the $300 range. The most I have spent on setup / referb (so far, knock on chrome) is $80. They are not the best 2 ch listening amps but they are better than most. They do a KILLER job on HT giving a great detailed 3D soundstage. JM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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