Yamaha vs. McIntosh?

Having owned some good yamaha preamps and power amps in the past they do sound good. kinda neutral as their natural sound they talk about line was. Having just purchased a McIntosh 1900 reciever near mint and recently serviced i will say that the tuner is superb and amplifier although rated at only 55 watts a channel makes my Bose 901 series 2 speakers sound much better and seem as powerful as the 901`s when i had the hooked up to my phase linear 400 amp and i was using the phase linear 2000 preamp. The mac gives them a breath the phase never could. And the mac i have the active equalizer for the bose hooked up in between preamp and power amp just i did for the phase linear setup. Thoroughly shocked the crap out of me that this mac reciever could achieve better sound than the phase linear did for the 901`s. and i bought the mac 1900 off a ak member for 150.00 and he also sold me a nice technics sl-1100a turntable kinda rare but also nice for 50.00.
 
Having owned some good yamaha preamps and power amps in the past they do sound good. kinda neutral as their natural sound they talk about line was. Having just purchased a McIntosh 1900 reciever near mint and recently serviced i will say that the tuner is superb and amplifier although rated at only 55 watts a channel makes my Bose 901 series 2 speakers sound much better and seem as powerful as the 901`s when i had the hooked up to my phase linear 400 amp and i was using the phase linear 2000 preamp. The mac gives them a breath the phase never could. And the mac i have the active equalizer for the bose hooked up in between preamp and power amp just i did for the phase linear setup. Thoroughly shocked the crap out of me that this mac reciever could achieve better sound than the phase linear did for the 901`s. and i bought the mac 1900 off a ak member for 150.00 and he also sold me a nice technics sl-1100a turntable kinda rare but also nice for 50.00.

care to devulge the name??????????????//
 
IndianaRadio and he is a very nice man who showed me all his shop and his gear very impressive and was I was so lucky he only lived 40 miles from me so i could pick it up!
 
the truth about the damping not meaning anything to tell
 

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thumbnails don`t get very big lol but JBL engineer in 1967 states that the difference between a amp with 200 damping factor and an amp with 20 isn`t even 1% measurable and not audible at all!
 
As soon as you have passive crossovers or add typical wire between the amp and speakers, the series resistance becomes significantly larger than the amps output impedance making excessive damping factors pretty well useless.
 
thumbnails don`t get very big lol but JBL engineer in 1967 states that the difference between a amp with 200 damping factor and an amp with 20 isn`t even 1% measurable and not audible at all!

i am one who does believe that ultra-high DF's aren't necessary, but i would point out that according to the chart you posted, there is still around 4% difference between 20 and 200, regardless of what this JBL engineer says. it stands to reason that a seasoned listener could probably detect such a difference if "actual overall DF" does in fact have something to do with sound.
 
he stated that the effective difference is between 1.25 and 1.32. Note key word here is effective. you have to enlarge the thumb to 200% in your browser and read the end of the second page.
 
and btw he was using 8 ohm speaker loads he probably would have been fired to use rival company`s like AR`s speakers and when using a 4 ohm speaker damping factor can be much more critical. I would not personally want to use a 4 ohm speaker and expect it to have as good of bass definition with a really low damping factored amp
 
I've owned an mx-1 (bigger than mx-2) and rated it as good as my yamaha p3200 pro series amp. Not to impressive.
I dont think you can compare to many "high end audio" amps to a mx-2
 
Just my two cents on the topic. As a kid growing up in San Jose, CA there was a stereo store named Century Stereo on Bascom avenue that sold both Mcintosh and Yamaha back in the 70's and 80's. I was only about 17 or 18 at that time and couldn't afford any of the Mcintosh gear but loved the look and enjoyed auditioning it in the sound rooms. I also auditioned the Yamaha separates in the M-Series and the C-2/M-2 amps. I remember as a kid, the owner came up to me and asked me which equipment I liked best and what I thought was better. I responded that I really loved the look of the Mcintosh gear with the blue meters and wished I could afford it but the Yamaha gear I was listening to actually sounded better to me. Knowing at my age I could never afford Mcintosh gear he let me in on a little secret. He told me that he sells high-end Mcintosh gear to customers all day long but the truth of the matter was that his personal stereo was a C-2/M-2 combo because to him it sounded best and then he winked at me and told me to keep saving my money and pull the trigger on the Yamaha separates when I had enough. I am 56 years old now and the proud owner of a vintage Yamaha system that has never disappointed me. My best friend, who is a Mcintosh owner, never misses an opportunity to critically compare the two systems. After all of these years I can honestly say it is a draw in all but one category which is maintenance. Over the last 45 years his gear has been in the shop for one reason or another every few years. My Yamaha gear on the other hand has withstood the test of time and still going strong. I did have the Sony bonding glue removed and some solder joints resoldered, but other than that it has been providing a wonderful listening experience to me for all of these years. This argument will never really end and it comes down to personal preference. In the end just close your eyes and trust your ears.
 
Just my two cents on the topic. As a kid growing up in San Jose, CA there was a stereo store named Century Stereo on Bascom avenue that sold both Mcintosh and Yamaha back in the 70's and 80's. I was only about 17 or 18 at that time and couldn't afford any of the Mcintosh gear but loved the look and enjoyed auditioning it in the sound rooms. I also auditioned the Yamaha separates in the M-Series and the C-2/M-2 amps. I remember as a kid, the owner came up to me and asked me which equipment I liked best and what I thought was better. I responded that I really loved the look of the Mcintosh gear with the blue meters and wished I could afford it but the Yamaha gear I was listening to actually sounded better to me. Knowing at my age I could never afford Mcintosh gear he let me in on a little secret. He told me that he sells high-end Mcintosh gear to customers all day long but the truth of the matter was that his personal stereo was a C-2/M-2 combo because to him it sounded best and then he winked at me and told me to keep saving my money and pull the trigger on the Yamaha separates when I had enough. I am 56 years old now and the proud owner of a vintage Yamaha system that has never disappointed me. My best friend, who is a Mcintosh owner, never misses an opportunity to critically compare the two systems. After all of these years I can honestly say it is a draw in all but one category which is maintenance. Over the last 45 years his gear has been in the shop for one reason or another every few years. My Yamaha gear on the other hand has withstood the test of time and still going strong. I did have the Sony bonding glue removed and some solder joints resoldered, but other than that it has been providing a wonderful listening experience to me for all of these years. This argument will never really end and it comes down to personal preference. In the end just close your eyes and trust your ears.
What Yamaha gear do you have?
 
No need for a urination contest here. No McTurntable can do what a GT2000 can, and Yamaha has nothing comparable to the modern quad balanced Mac mega amps like my 501.

Use both :)

Jblnut
 
Id say buy a Mcintosh but do not buy an outdated Mc-2105 unless Its being sold at bargain basement prices,youll find that most Mcintosh solid state amps hold resale value right around $10 a watt,if i was looking to buy a 100 watt Mcintosh amplifier id pick the Mc-7100 over the Mc-2105,the 2105's arent as refined sounding to me as Mcintosh's later designs,i hated my Mc-2105 and couldnt wait to get rid of it,for the same price you should be able to find a Mc-2250 pro amp that's 2.5x the power but lacks the meters,the Mc-2105 is like the Harley Davidson 883 Sportster,after you have it a week youll want to upgrade.
 
thumbnails don`t get very big lol but JBL engineer in 1967 states that the difference between a amp with 200 damping factor and an amp with 20 isn`t even 1% measurable and not audible at all!

Legendary Mcintosh engineer Roger Russell says the same only his articles say as long as the amps damping factor is 10 or above the differences are miniscule,ive had amps with damping factors under 50 in the same rig with other amps with factors 10x as high with no perceived loss in performance,i too gave up on that spec years ago.
 
No need for a urination contest here. No McTurntable can do what a GT2000 can, and Yamaha has nothing comparable to the modern quad balanced Mac mega amps like my 501.

Use both :)

Jblnut

While I tend to prefer Yamaha, I don't have anything against other brands. I'll probably never buy a Mc solid state amp but if someone dropped a pair of MC-240's on my doorstep you better believe I'd hook them up to every pair of speakers I own. I don't know much about tubes but those amps always make me curious.
 
Does Yamaha make or ever make tube gear? I've never seen any if they do. We all know that mcintosh does. That being said I do like my half dozen or so pieces of Yamaha gear. I'd be lying though if I said I didn't aspire to have some pretty blue meters. That's something I've never been lucky enough to own; yet.

Yamaha did not build tube audio. Unless it was in an organ or musical instrument amplifier. Never tube HiFi anything. The first Yamaha audio gear in the USA, was very nice roughly 20-30 watt/channel radio/phonograph systems with nice belt drive turntables, very good tonearms, and magnetic cartridges. Which are very excellent for their genre, but imported to the USA in very small numbers and rarely seen which was in the 1969-1972 era. 1973 was the first year, Yamaha separate component HiFI was seen in the USA marketplace, and they began with some of their finest equipment in that genre, but maintained some semblance of real quality for some years afterwards. McIntosh has been in the HiFi business since 1949, and these days the earliest US manufacturer still in the HiFi business. Tannoy goes back even earlier in loudspeakers by the way.
 
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