Begin Your Dream Home Theater System in Baby Steps, Start it with a 95 Pound Baby :)

from the blog of Oldwaverider:

I confess I don’t have children.  But I do know that I enjoyed listening to this baby, as I’m sure any other Movie lover or Audiophile would. And this new to our floor McIntosh MC257 7-Channel Power Amplifier is one hefty 95 lb. baby.  No unwanted colic, just gorgeous large meter display eyes and nice sweet powerful sound.

He was delivered to our Audible Images showroom on Monday, and when I came in Tuesday, it was time to set it up in just two channel mode to begin break-in and then testing on Thursday.

The Mindset

I decided , or Ed decided 😉 , that we could compare it to our newer Halo by Parasound A21+ 2 channel power amplifier.  We weren’t so much thinking about a test between two amps, as we were to just hear the power, quality and potential for this piece to deliver 7 channels of home theater power for someone.

Setup

We placed the McIntosh MC257 in our “Escape Pod” Home Theater / 2 Channel listening room. For a Preamp we used the Halo New P6 2.1 Channel Preamplifier.  We had the Martin Logan ESL 9’s as our test speakers, using Transparent Musicwave speaker cables and Musiclink interconnects.  We used the BlueSound Node 2i as a source.

The Comparison

I actually have to say the McIntosh and the A21+ were a pretty close comparison.  The Mac MC257 at $10,000 and divided by 7 channels is equal to around $1428 / per channel of Amplifier.  (to make this a fair comparison) The Halo Parasound is $2995 divided by 2 is equal to about $1497 / per channel of Amplifier. They both had their strengths. But neither one was blown away by the other in this case.  

What I did hear, was plenty of power by the A21+ shared in a recent blog post here, and plenty of power and nice clean sound by the McIntosh MC257.  If you’re starting out in your new home theater, a sweet thing about the Mac is the fact that it cranks out 250 wpc x 3 channels (You can set up a Right Front, Left Front and Center channel and add the other 2 to 4 channels later), and if you’re doing 7 channels right away, then you have a full 200 wpc x 7 channels driven.  And when I cranked it up, the dynamic headroom increase that McIntosh spoke about on their website definitely had room to spare.  Quote:

Filter capacity has been increased by 20% which has produced an amazing 94% increase in dynamic headroom from 1.7dB to 3.3dB as well as improving low frequency performance – both key features in a home theater amplifier, especially when listening to an energetic soundtrack.”

Next week I’m going to bring the MC257 into our “Great Room” listening room, and pair it with the McIntosh C2700 Vacuum Tube 2 Channel Preamp for a hear test.  And then I’m going to compare the MC257 using the dCS Bartok as a Preamp & DAC, with the C2700 / MC257 pair up and see what my ears decide with that one.

Summary

McIntosh once again delivered their promise of modest high end gear that provides clean and powerful sound, and I am happy to say made in New York State.  The MC257 will have no problem starting out your new home theater with clear dream and powerful sound, in 2 channel, 3 or 7 channel setup and within a large listening room of most any size in the typical American home.  Excellent piece!

Just another day at the office here at Audible Images.  Setting up new gear, listening, comparing, blogging about it.  Ed Masterson has created a very special Audiophile haven here.  And I enjoy my Audiophile opportunity to listen to many amazing pieces of gear here.

Come in, and just enjoy melting in each of our four listening rooms to hear Music, Movies and Concerts like you have never heard before in your life.

We promise you will feel being Transported back to a very special moment in your life.

Thank You,

Oldwaverider