McIntosh MC252 with Totem Mani2 / Sig's

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?

Goatwuss: At idle, the 402 draws less than 0.5 amps - so about 60 watts. At high SPL levels driving B&W 803S's it draws less than 7 amps. These were measured with an inline meter. The inrush current at pwr up I measured at greater than 25 amps (but that was likely less than it actually draws due to the response time of the meter - the manuf. told me that it draws 50 amps at power up).

Thanks! I had an amazing audio with the 402 + C2300 driving a pair of Gallo 3.1s. I bought the Gallos, but really want that controlled and explosive McIntosh sound to go with them...