McIntosh MC402

Pardales,

I was very surprised at the time. When I auditioned them at the dealer he did a blind test for me. I had no idea which amp I was listening to until the end.

I recently spoke with Chuck at tech support at Mcintosh. He told me that the Mcintosh integrated amps sacrifice NOTHING sonically vs the separates. The only reason to go with separates is for added flexibility in modifying your system later on. I had a long discussion with him about the 6900 in particular. His comment was that if you don't need any more power than 200 Watts, then there is NO sonic advantage to going with the 402 and preamp combo vs the 6900. He did not see any reason however why the 6900 should sound better when I told him my experience at the dealer.

Well, I meant in the future. They won't make the MA6900 forever and I bet they want to get optical lighting in all models eventually.

Thanks, to both of you.

"The integrateds sacrifice NOTHING sonically vs the seperates" - my own experience is quite different. I had the MA6500, then bought a C200, then added a MC402. I listened to a MA6900 in comparison to a C200-MC352-combo, too, before upgrading. Every step made a clear difference, that is improvement. The preamp-section of the MA6900, good as it is, is not on a level with a C46, not to speak of a C200. The same is true for the power amp-section of the MA6900 compared to a MC402. I was in fact astonished how big the difference in bass control, better voices, and soundstaging are. I remember that I spoke to Hinton as well, and he told me much the same that he told Benfmd. When I compared, I found however, that it was not true. It is not the first time I found the Mc-people being better in designing their components than describing them. For example, Ron Cornelius told me the sonic difference between a C42 and a C200 was negligable - I found the opposite to be true. Hinton or his colleague told me power cords and speaker cables made no difference because they were all the same. Naturally, both have made a huge difference in my system. So I rather think anybody interested should go hear for himself.

I know it doesn't make much sense, why would a company put out seperates if the int amp was as good sonically. I haved the c46/252 and love it, just curious, what differences did you hear when you went to the 200 and what powercords did you upgrade to ? thanks.