How about Mac and Accuphase

You have to be careful when buying Mac gear, many of their units dont sound that great. McIntosh makes a great tube amp the MC275 and the solid state MC352,two great sounding and wonderfully designed amps. They made a few Preamps that sound great like the C2200 uses 8 tubes 4xau7's 4xat7's. I think they make a great amplifier,built like a battleship,beautiful,reliable. I use a Modwright tube linestage with a Mac Mc352 and my Dynaudios love it.The overall tone my system has with this tube pre and SS amp combo is enthralling,so rich and warm and colorful (in a good way).

With my 12" Tannoys, I use a tranformer-based passive line stage, and an SET 300B amp. I have used several different types of amps, but this is the hands-down winner.

The nice thing is, I bought the amp used for under $800, and had the caps and resistors upgraded, still under $1500, for the best sounding match I've found.

Different approach, lots of ways to skin the audio cat, just something to think about.

Regards,
Dan

Here is a great story if you are an Accuphase fan. An A'gon member here told me this story over e-mail and I figure I'd share it. Some have regarded Accuphase as the Japanese McIntosh.

"Since I had worked in the industry, when my Accuphase P300 failed, I knew the rep and went directly to the TEAC out repair center in LA. An output transistor had failed. They did not just replace the transistor, but also “matched beta’s”. Basically they made sure that all the output transistors were with an extremely tight tolerance of each other in the Accuphase P300.

A few months later a high end McIntosh dealer was having an “amp clinic” with a MacIntosh tech and testing equipment directly from MacIntosh. When they saw my JapanMac they openly said they had tested many, and the specs were not that great.

They set everything up and tested it, fully confident that they were going to show me how bad the P300 was. As the tech continued to run through the tests he became more and more amazed. Not only could he NOT show me how bad it was, but it more than met every single McIntosh spec. When he was finished he said “you have a really good amp there”. I never mentioned that the output transistors had been hand matched. I left them all with “egg on their faces”."

Accuphase is great stuff, and yes sadly it is overpriced outside of Asia. Why exactly I don't know. I've been given more than one song and dance on this subject.

Anyway, I would say Accuphase beats McIntosh too. But McIntosh is probably better value for the money as the prices here in the US are not nearly as high as Accuphase is. However, if you want the best build and performance, go with Accuphase. Even if it's the entry level stuff.

Nobody ever answered your primary question about converting over to 120, and I have that same question...!!!  

You need to be aware that Accuphase refuses to offer warranty, service or parts for equipment not sourced through the national distributor.So if something goes wrong you would have to send it the country where it was first purchased.They are very loyal to their distributors.Which fits within the overall ethos of the company of doing things to a very high standard.

 

Lots of Accuphase fans talk about how much better it is than McIntosh.  It’s harder to find, making it more exclusive, which I suspect drives a lot of the “it’s better…” comments.  I’ve never owned Accuphase but have no doubt it’s top-notch stuff.  But so are McIntosh and Luxman, which are in a similar price range with their top-end products.  Best advice is to demo and listen to your ears! 

Brands like Accuphase and others imported into the states are over priced due to their markup by distributors. Luxman on the other hand established headquarters (Luxman North America) here in the states and cut out the middle man. This allowed them to keep their equipment prices at the same level with their domestic competitors; In other words they made a commitment here in the states. Most foreign manufacturers that are here in the U.S aren’t well supported. That could turn out to be nightmare for some who need service on equipment the manufacturer can only service.