McIntosh MC252 with Totem Mani2 / Sig's

All great amps. The MC252 is not truly balanced , so If your source and pre are truly balanced , you may hear a larger difference between the MC252 and MC402 where as if your front end is not truly balanced {and your room is not huge} , the sonic differences may be less noticeable. Either way , they are all nice pieces.

Anyone driving either the 252 or 402 directly with a DAC? I am awaiting a Benchmark DAC 1 and have a 6900 integrated. I am going to try the Benchmark as both a stand alone DAC and as a preamp. If I like it as a preamp driving the amp section of my 6900, I might sell the 6900 and go up to a 252 or 402. Any expereinced comments would be appreciated.

This is the one system in use in my room (2,75 W x 4,75 L x 2,45 H, meters):

MC402 + TOTEM MANI2 + TRANSPARENT MM speaker cables + home made Preamp (Class A all tube). Interconnects by CARDAS (Golden Cross, XLR)

These amazing little TOTEM's sing with the juicy power from MAC 402 (quite an achiever itself).

Go for the 402 and just relax and enjoy a system that will challenge many others, much more expensive.

Maybe you should consider upgrading speaker cables, good as the 4TC are!

Regards;

João - Brazil
many others, much more expensive.

Pardales, I ran my MC402 with a DAC straight in. Sounded good. I went ahead and went with a c2300 tube pre and liked the sound a bit better. The tubes added a nice tonality to the sound.

The main reason I went with the pre at the time was because the mc402 isn't that sensitive on input accepting up to 4v. My DAC (Transporter) put out 2.5v so I wanted to be able to use the full range of the MC402. It turned out the improvement in sound was a nice benefit but the extra voltage didn't make a noticeable difference.

Further I wanted the 12 v trigger, tone controls, and remote the pre offered. Frankly the MC402 isn't a real powerful sounding amp compared to some 400W amps I've heard. My 4 ohm 86 dB Aerials can take every thing the MC402 can throw at them. It is more than enough - I never listen to it all the way up but I could easily see a lot of people who want to, say, rock out or run a Symphony piece needing full power reserves. Of course the 402 is so smooth and warm, the spl can be very high without sounding so. BTW, it sounded great - smooth, warm, yet still detailed, even without the pre.

OTOH, I like the DAC into amp idea. Last week I bought a Cary 120s tube amp for a bedrooms system that I'm going to run a DAC into. I haven't received it yet so no report. I use my DACs exclusively without other inputs so a pre isn't a necessity.

Anyone know how much power the MC402 uses on idle?