2. amps-preamps
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McIntosh & Maggies - am I hooked-up the best way?

I recently upgraded my two channel system - after researching Audiogon and serious negotiations with my wife... Here's what I've got;

* 2 McIntosh MC150 amps set up as mono bridged (note I had one originally)
* McIntosh C712 pre amp (also part of my original system)
* Denon 3910 SACD player (with Underwood level 2 mods)
* Magnepan MG 3.6 speakers (with Mye Sound stands)
* MIT bi-wire speaker cables
* Monster power and interconnect cables through-out
* 2 Monster Power HTS5000 power centers (also have my HDTV, satellite HD reciever. D/A converter (now only used for the satellite audio), VCR and cassette deck in the mix, so I needed more plugs!)
* Audiopoints brass points under amps, preamp and speaker stands

The sound is awesome... (a;though my wife claims to not be able to tell the difference...) My question, "are my amps and speakers hooked-up the best way?", is because when I have the volume up, then crank up the bass and loudness on my pre amp, the amp power meter lights pulsate with the music. While this is not a bad looking effect - it concerns me that the power meter lamps are influenced at all. I know that Maggies will take all the power (current) they can - but that is why I'm using the MIT bi-wire speaker cable... any thoughts, comments or suggestions would be appreciated!
mike95120
dcrookham53
57 posts
 
You may want to try them in 2 channel rather than bridged,
and biwire vertically or horizontally.
It may be an easier load on the amps if they don't have autoformers.
I'm not a big fan of using bridged amps, and since you have a pair there is no need.

Also, leave the bass and loudness control alone, get a sub if you want more bass.

I think you are light on power, I ran 400 watts x2 into
MG12's when I had maggies.
onemug
784 posts
 
Try one MC150 for both Maggies, lowish volume and compare to the bridged sound. When I tried bridged Mac, it seemed a little more tight as opposed to relaxed. I prefer relaxed. Next try passive bi-amp. You'll like it one way more than another. We're all free to gamble. My bet would be on the passive bi-amp. Good luck.
mike95120 OP
3 posts
 
Thanks for the suggestions... I'm assuming I have decent power here - the MC150s are rated at 150W per channel into 8 ohms, so in mono bridged mode they are 300W into 8 ohms, and since the Maggies are 4 ohm loads, they should each be seeing well over 300W.

If I understand the suggestions, I should try bi-amping by running two sets of non bi-wire speaker cables, one set from each amp (unbriged) to each speaker. I may have to wait for Christmas for Santa to bring me new MIT speaker cables...
onemug
784 posts
 
Mike, get yourself some cheap 12ga wire, Home Depot or Radio Shack, short lengths of course. Hook your Macs up in the different configurations. If it's real noticable one way over another you'll know what direction to go wire wise. Do you already have a Y-splitter from your Pre to get 2 lefts and 2 rights to your amps or can your Pre drive 2 sets of amps already?
mike95120 OP
3 posts
 
You bring up a good question... while my pre-amp does have two sets of outputs - I'm not sure about using them at the same time - I'm using the set of balanced (XLR) outputs now (one to each amp)... the other set is unbalanced (RCA)... and, I do have a pretty good run (2M) to my right amp (the pre-amp sits just below the left amp).

Maybe I'm just as well leaving things as they are and enjoying it! The sound is truley awesome. My only reason for posting in the first place was my concern about the amp power meters pulsating at high volume, loundness, and bass... I'll just keep the dBs in check (my wife appreciates that anyway).

Thanks again for your suggestions and comments.
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