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McIntosh MA252 review
An affordable and bold stereo amp from the masters Tested at £4500 / $3500 / AU$7995
McIntosh MA25
Early Verdict
With a distinctly unique style and excellent implementation of both valve-based and solid state amplifcation, the MA252 offers up an affordable option for those seeking authentic McIntosh quality without some of the loftier prices.
The McIntosh MA252 integrated amplifier is the first hybrid integrated amplifier this world-famous American company has ever built. The import of that statement needs to be viewed in the context that McIntosh has been building amplifiers for more than 60 years. So the McIntosh MA252 has been 60 plus years coming, and boy was it worth the wait.
McIntosh MA252
But wait! What is a hybrid integrated amplifier?
Basically it’s an audio amplifier where one of the two amplifying stages uses valves – or ‘tubes’ as our US friends like to call them – to amplify the audio signal, while the other amplifier stage uses transistors.
Because any integrated amplifier has two amplifying stages – usually called ‘pre’ and ‘power’ stages – this means there are two ways to build a hybrid audio amplifier. One way is to use valves for the ‘pre’ section and transistors for the ‘power’ section; the other is to use valves for the ‘power’ section and transistors for the ‘pre’ section.
In the MA252, McIntosh has elected to use the former approach by employing 12AX7a and 12AT7 valves in the preamplifier stage and transistors in the output stage. The reason McIntosh does it this way, rather than the other way ‘round, is to ensure the best of both possible worlds: the sweet sound quality that’s inherent in valve amplification and the very high power output that solid-state devices make possible.
But wait! Is it not possible to get high power output from a valve amplifier stage?
Of course it is… and no-one knows this better than McIntosh. After all, its MC2301 valve amplifier is rated with an output of 300-watts into 8Ω. But achieving such high power output using only valves costs money… lots of it.
The McIntosh MC2301 currently retails for £14,900 / $19,900 / AU$27,995, and it’s just a single-channel amplifier, meaning that you’ll need to buy two of them for stereo, so that’s around £29,800 / $39,800 / AU$55,990 all up for a high-power stereo valve audio amplifier.
The MA252, on the other hand, is rated at 100-watts per channel into 8Ω (160-watts per channel into 4Ω) and it has an RRP of only £4,500 / $5,782 / AU$7,995).
Of course using transistors rather than valves in the output stage means that you also miss out on one of the other advantages of using valves, which is that it’s extremely difficult to drive them into hard clipping.
Unlike transistors, which go into hard-clipping the instant they are over-driven (and sound awful when this happens), valves have an inherent ‘soft clipping’ characteristic when they’re over-driven that can actually make the sound quite attractive. Indeed many guitar players use valve amplifiers with special ‘overdrive’ circuits for this express reason.
To circumvent this, the high-current transistors McIntosh uses in the output circuitry of the MA252 are continuously monitored by McIntosh’s patented ‘Power Guard’ circuitry which monitors the output signal for any signs of overdrive and makes real-time micro adjustments to the input signal to prevent the output stage from being driven into clipping. You will know if the Power Guard circuit is operating because when it does, the colour the valves are glowing changes from green to orange.
At this point valve aficionados should be scratching their heads, because when they’re operating, valves glow an orange-reddish colour, not green. The valves in the MA252 glow green simply because McIntosh has fitted chameleon LEDs underneath them, which emit a green glow that, during normal operation, is bright enough to outshine the glow of the valve heaters. However when the Power Guard circuit triggers, the LED colour changes from green to orange.
If you’re wondering why McIntosh chose green, it’s because that’s the primary colour used in the McIntosh tartan worn by founder Frank McIntosh’s Scottish forebears. The same green has been used in various applications on all McIntosh products since 1949.
There’s one Power Guard circuit per channel, so if only one channel is clipping, only that channel’s two valves will change colour. If both channels are clipping, all four valves will glow that orange colour.
Unlike many recent amplifier designs, which feature integrated DACs, McIntosh’s MA252 is purely an all-analog affair with two unbalanced line-level inputs, one balanced line-level input and a phono input (moving-magnet).
We were really pleased to discover that McIntosh has included an input trim circuit that allows you to adjust the sensitivity of each of these inputs to exactly match the output of whatever component you’ve connected, so that when you switch from one input to the other, the volume issuing from your speakers will stay the same, so you don’t have to adjust volume level every time you switch from one input to another.
Unlike some such circuits, which don’t offer much of an adjustment range, McIntosh’s trim circuit has a full 12dB of adjustment available… and in precise 0.5dB steps too. You can rename the inputs anything you like so long as you don’t exceed a nine letter description and, if you’re not using an input, you can have the McIntosh ignore it completely, so it becomes transparent when you’re switching inputs.
We can see how the transparency function makes sense on a component that has a great many inputs, several of which will inevitably be unused, but when there are only four inputs, as on the MA252, it doesn’t really speed up input selection all that much.
You can also choose to have the McIntosh switch itself off automatically after 30 minutes of inactivity (no music, no controls moved etc), or not. In order to extend valve life, we would recommend you leave the McIntosh in its ‘Auto’ switch-off mode (which is the default), but small signal valves such as the 12AX7A and 12AT7 are not only virtually indestructible, but also relatively inexpensive, so it really wouldn’t much matter if you left the amplifier powered-up permanently.
Installation was mostly uneventful, except that we very nearly missed that instead of aligning the RCA inputs of the two unbalanced inputs vertically – like almost every other amplifier manufacturer in the world – McIntosh has aligned them horizontally.
We decided this made excellent sense, because it means the left input is on the same side as the left speaker outputs, and the right input is on the same side as the right speaker outputs, whereas if they were vertical, you’d actually have to know whether the right input was at the top or the bottom.
We were was also pleased that the balanced input is completely isolated from the unbalanced inputs – some amplifiers share an input and you only find out when you get the amplifier home and read the manual carefully that you can only use one or the other of two inputs. Effectively, this gives the McIntosh MA52 four inputs. There’s also a mono subwoofer output, which is a nice touch.
The speaker terminals, despite looking great and being gold-plated, didn’t turn very smoothly, and felt quite ‘rough’ as they were rotated. Room for improvement here then. Still, connecting speaker cables is something you’ll only have to do the once, and if your speaker cables are terminated in banana plugs, you won’t have an issue at all.
The MA252 has a fantastic-looking OLED front panel display which shows the amplifier’s model number and the words ‘Tube Warmup’ while the amplifier is warming up (which takes around 15 seconds), after which it shows the source selected (which will be your last-used source), after which the volume level slowly ramps up from zero to stop at whatever volume level you were last listening.
While the amplifier is warming up, the LEDs illuminating the small signal valves glow orange, so when they turn green, you’ll know the amplifier is ready to go.
But the description ‘warmup’ is a bit of a misnomer because if you switch the amplifier off after it’s been operating for several days, and is totally warm, then switch it immediately back on, it will still spend 15 seconds ‘warming up’ again. In the light of this, ‘Initialising’ might have been a better word to use… except that maybe it would have too many letters to fit into the display.
The McIntosh MA252 ‘remembers’ balance, bass and treble settings independently for each input. So if, for example, you have adjusted the channel balance of the phono input to compensate for a slight voltage difference in your phono cartridge’s left and right channels (and this would be the case with almost every phono cartridge on the planet), then when you switch from your phono input to, say, your DAC on another input, the channel balance will revert to 0dB in each channel.
Likewise, if you prefer to roll off the bass a little and accentuate the treble when listening to LPs, the McIntosh will apply these settings whenever you switch to the phono inputs, but revert back to a ‘flat’ tone control setting (or whatever other tone control settings you’ve chosen) whenever you select a different input.
We think this is a really great feature, one that is incredibly useful, but to use it, you will need to use the MA252’s remote control, and before you use the remote control, you will need to install the single AAA battery (a high quality Duracell alkaline battery is supplied), and before you do that you’ll need to find out how to install it, because McIntosh’s remote is so beautifully made that it’s not apparent how to do it, and there is nothing at all about it in the User’s Manual.
If you run your fingernail down the almost invisible seam on the left side of the remote, then pull the back-plate of the remote ‘out and down’ from the bottom, below the logo, you'll reveal the battery compartment. It’s a bit tricky to do the first time, so ask your dealer to show you how to do it before you have a go yourself.
The input selector on the left side of the sloping section of the front panel has a click-stop action and in addition to selecting your desired input, doubles up as the ‘Trim’ control (push it inwards for Trim options).
IFA Berlin 2008, Opening Day, Consumer electronics show
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IFA Berlin 2008, Opening Day, Consumer electronics show
_____IMPORTANT NOTE: This photograph represents a low-resolution version of the original image. Copyright Jochen Siegle/TechShowNetwork.
This photograph is licensed for use under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. It is OKAY to use this photograph on the web in compliance with the CC BY-NC-ND license, HOWEVER you need to link the image back to TechShowNetwork.com (http://www.techshownetwork.com) and GIVE CREDIT as "Jochen Siegle/TechShowNetwork". Do NOT remove the watermark.
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A solidly-built (meaning "heavy") sweet-sounding unit.
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IFA Berlin 2008, Opening Day, Consumer electronics show
_____IMPORTANT NOTE: This photograph represents a low-resolution version of the original image. Copyright Jochen Siegle/TechShowNetwork.
This photograph is licensed for use under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. It is OKAY to use this photograph on the web in compliance with the CC BY-NC-ND license, HOWEVER you need to link the image back to TechShowNetwork.com (http://www.techshownetwork.com) and GIVE CREDIT as "Jochen Siegle/TechShowNetwork". Do NOT remove the watermark.
Please contact via email to jas@momentimedia.com to inquire about licensing for other usages or higher resolution of this image or to order prints.
All other rights reserved Jochen Siegle/TechShowNetwork. The TechShowNetwork is a MomentiMedia publication.
Acer TravelMate TimelineX 8472T Laptop
Review:
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The Karma is a revision of the former Fisker Karma and is here to demonstrate BlackBerry's operating system technology for autonomous vehicles.
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