Mcintosh 601's vs Classe CA-M600's

Mike,

I think that if I had speakers with a list price of $45,000.00, I'd be going to where ever and listening for myself.

That said, I heard them with Mark Levinson 53 monoblocks and they sounded fantastic.

Chuck

Chuck - the word on the 53's is that they can be too analytical. Would you agree?

I'm currently running the Strads with my Mc 2301's and its terrific, but I want to have the option (from time to time) to roll in some SS or Digital amps. I recently brought my Classe CA-2300 up from the other room and ran it in the main system. I was highly impressed with the results.

In addition to the 601's and CA-M600's, I've thought about Pass xa200.5 (but I'm concerned about heat). ModWright 150SE's, Bryston 28SST's, and even the Devialet D-Premier.

The problem is that where I live, there aren't any decent dealers for hundreds of miles.

I'm open to anything to be honest.

Mike

Mike,

I sat and listened in complete awe to the combo for two hours. The rest of the system was an I-Pad, Classe DAC, Mark Levinson preamp (whatever is the current top-of-the-line) and Tara Labs Zero Gold cabling.

I left feeling disgusted because my system sure didn't sound that good. Of course, my room was only half the size of the dealer's showroom, which was also well treated acoustically, and that does play a big part in what I heard.

Seriously, if you have that kind of money in those speakers, or even half that, you ought to be taking some road trips.

Chuck

Elizabeth,
I admit that I am a McIntosh owner/user (several times over) and that will qualify me as being biased, but still, I must say that you are far more sensible than to paint all of the output of an entire brand with a single brushstroke. There may indeed be models that are dark, or veiled (I do think that the house sound is on the darker side) but they really aren't all veiled.