Vandersteen 5a - Setup help needed

Please confirm your gear part numbers, McIntosh makes an MA252 which does not have pre out / power amp in. To use this you would need to modify it and imo done properly will sound great w 5a. 100 wpc is probably the minimum.

Here is the link to exact MA252 I have  https://www.mcintoshlabs.com/products/integrated-amplifiers/ma252

This one defiantly does not have pre out/in. I reached out to McIntosh to see if there is a trick to make it work and was told it was not possible.

Yes !!! The arcam serving as a preamp with the high pass into a power amp will work!!

I can’t get your ARCAM manual to download but you MIGHT be able to implement the 6db per octave high pass filter with software inside the ARCAM and therefore use the the 2x130
wpc internal ARCAM power amp. Goof up and turn off that high pass by accident and you will damage the 5a

Hello Olegus,

If you talked with Richard at Vandersteen he may have heard that you have a video receiver that you want to connect to an integrated amplifier his response would be that won’t work as most integrateds don’t have a direct connection to the amplifier section. That being said many McIntosh integrateds and receives do have that direct connection. I am not too familiar with this McIntosh but the model you have listed is a stereo amplifier not an integrated. The integrated will have inputs marked on the back but this is to the preamp and not directly to the amplifier.  It appears the Arcam is RCA (single-ended) output. The Vandersteen Crossovers are built to be either RCA or XLR not both. Here is a picture of the proper crossover for the Model 5A https://www.vandersteen.com/products/m5-hp Is this what you have? Although Tomic601 may be correct about programing the Arcam internally, I wouldn’t do that as the risk to damaging the drivers is too great, and Vandersteen uses very expensive drivers that have high reliability at normal volumes. Congrats on your purchase of a great speaker and don’t loose focus of your experience that lead to buying them. You can get there. If you find you can connect the crosover inline between the Arcam and the McIntosh amplifer section, call Vandersteen back about how to measure your amplifier input at 100 hertz to properly set your crossover as the next step. I will update the setup worksheet to show those instuctions later today and you can download that from the resources section of the website. Finally there is a video that shows Richard setting the bass on the speakers. Most of our dealers will do these steps for you for a fee to visit if they did not sell you the speakers.  Worst case you will need another amplifier and the local Vandesteen dealer can certainly help with that.