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McIntosh MA352 experience/feedback?

If you're interested, I will most likely have one on home demo at the end of the week. Could perhaps share my initial impressions.
Brgds.
 
McIntosh MA352 ordered on Monday, picked up and installed today. I'm just 2 hours in, so quite far from full break-in. Initial impressions are excellent. System is Focal Sopra 1s, Naim ND5XS2 streamer, AQ interconnects and speaker cable. Dedicated electrical line for hifi only. Streaming Qobuz and Tidal plus local library by Roon. All connected by fiber internet via ethernet. 8 GIK acoustic panels in listening room.

The MA352 is literally DESTROYING the Accuphase E-480 with these speakers. It is sounding full, detailed, refined with punchy and articulate bass. Highs are crisp and precise without going overboard on the beryllium tweeters of the Sopras. Midrange is expressive, round and sweet. Frankly, I may just have to confirm that, for the moment, this amplifier is doing a very fine job.

Currently, max volume level has been 35% and was plenty loud, didn't measure dB level. Low level listening with a full sound is possible for me at 15-20%. Not sure if that will change with break-in. Thanks for reading.
 
I've no experience with McIntosh but I would like to hear some.

It sounds like you are enjoying the MA352. Do you have any plans to demo other amps?
 
Stuart Frazer said:
I've no experience with McIntosh but I would like to hear some.

It sounds like you are enjoying the MA352. Do you have any plans to demo other amps?
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Hi, no am most likely going to keep the McIntosh. This project was all about leaving Naim amplification, which I did enjoy, in order to upgrade to a higher-level type of amplification. Tried the Accuphase E480 for 10 days and frankly, it will remain in my memory and personal experience as one of the worst, most horrific amplifiers I have ever heard (no offense to those who enjoy Accuphase, of course).

The MA352, conversely, is doing properly everything the Accuphase did poorly and really seems/sounds very compatible with the Focal Sopras and notably with the beryllium tweeters. I let it cook all night on classical music so now have about 12 hours on the amplifier. Will continue listening today but this looks like it's clearly going in the right direction. Brgds.
 
I'm not a fan of McIntosh but I know one thing for sure : you can NEVER go wrong with their vacuum tube amps no matter the model or year of fabrication.
On top of that, they keep their value for ever making them an investment more than an expense.
 
I’ve owned both the MA2275 valve integrated and a Luxman L590AX-II. I really liked the McIntosh but reliability is a worry- mine blew a component and it took about 2.5 months to get it repaired. I’m not going to claim the Luxman is better in every way, but it is overall a better amp (albeit class A s/s rather than valve). Definitely more control. But had the Mac not crapped out I would still have it. Very good amp into big Tannoys.
 
Speaking as an American I really love McIntosh. I have one of their more modest integrated amplifiers, the MA5300 and an MCT80 SACD/CD transport which uses the MA5300's DA1 DAC. They're an awesome duo with my Planar 8 Apheta3 and aria MKII. The whole thing drives a pair of KEF R3s and I couldn't enjoy it more!
 
I use a McIntosh C47 preamp and love it. The inbuilt DA1 DAC is great as is the phono stage. The volume adjustment is perfect, no big jumps and everything can be changed on the fly via the remote control including bass and treble (or bypass) and even cartridge loading. I did try one of the big transformer coupled power amps but ultimately didn’t gel with it. Pity they don’t sell a direct coupled power amp like the power section of the MA352 or MA5300.
 
Johnjo said:
I use a McIntosh C47 preamp and love it. The inbuilt DA1 DAC is great as is the phono stage. The volume adjustment is perfect, no big jumps and everything can be changed on the fly via the remote control including bass and treble (or bypass) and even cartridge loading. I did try one of the big transformer coupled power amps but ultimately didn’t gel with it. Pity they don’t sell a direct coupled power amp like the power section of the MA352 or MA5300.
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They do. It's called an MC830.

I had an MA252 for a few months. It was not bad, but nothing exceptional. Volume control knob had poor action. General build quality was average, at best. Certainly not premium. SQ was OK, but bass control wasn't up to much. As a Hybrid, it was easily beaten by a Copland for much less money. The 352 is probably better (well, hopefully). IME Accuphase is in a completely different league but, as ever, it's horses for courses.

I would have to disagree on McIntosh holding value well. I'm quite a keen watcher of prices and the market; you see 252s hanging around for ages. 5300's nearly always sell as ex dem, or otherwise reduced. It's easy to secure great deals on new kit. McIntosh residuals are no better than other premium brands.
 
Yeah well, the joke's on me. The MA352 is a catastrophe. Totally unlistenable with all my music. Massive fail.
 
Weiss-Man said:
What happened buddy, thought you were enjoying it?
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Yes, it's quite strange and very frustrating. At first listen on the Sopra 1s, I thought it was very good and I thought I liked what it was doing with the sound signature. After about 100 hours on it. It has become nearly unlistenable! It is is shrill, thin, metallic with a screaming, screeching treble that would wake up the dead. The midrange is recessed and distant, totally unexpressive. The bass has all but disappeared and when it is there it is loose and flabby. Very poor performance overall. Voices are literally transformed into a litany of sibilance unlike anything I've ever heard. Do you know of any songs without words beginning with S or T? I don't! In fact, this thing has transformed my well-known reference recordings from Steely Dan, Donald Fagen, Pink Floyd, Sade and Deutsche Grammophone classical composers into horrifying calamities of sonic agony. I still have trouble realizing how bad this really is.

So, what did I do? I changed 3 sets of speaker cables, interconnects and power cords. No effect. I rolled a full set of new production Gold Lions to no effect. I the purchased some expensive NOS Telefunkens and got no effect. I changed the source and it did nothing. I then connected some Sonus faber Concertinos and it was the same, all treble and no bass.

Even funnier, I recounted this experience on some McIntosh sites and FB groups looking for advice and suggestions. I was summarily banished as a heretic because I did not proclaim that McIntosh was made by God himself and that it made the very sound of angel's voices singing from on High. It was probably even worse than the Naim forum. It was inconceivable to these people that the MA352 could be considered anything less than a mysterious, magical box that makes heavenly, blissful sound.

I stand firmly by my impressions. The amplifier is overrated, overpriced and underwhelming. It performs poorly and is not musical at all. This is the first amplifier where I hear "confusion" in the musical signal. On complex passages, the thing gets lost, confused and drowns out details of instruments and voices and combines them into an unintelligible mush that really is just noise. Never heard such a demonstration of sonic incompetence in all my years, which are numerous at this stage.

Now I have an ungodly expensive chunk of dorky metal ruining any hope of listening to music. I swear a 50$ Chinese Class D from Aliexpress could do just as well...

Don't expect much from McIntosh except marketing, hype and frenzied fanboy zealots.
 
Tom60300 said:
Yes, it's quite strange and very frustrating. At first listen on the Sopra 1s, I thought it was very good and I thought I liked what it was doing with the sound signature. After about 100 hours on it. It has become nearly unlistenable! It is is shrill, thin, metallic with a screaming, screeching treble that would wake up the dead. The midrange is recessed and distant, totally unexpressive. The bass has all but disappeared and when it is there it is loose and flabby. Very poor performance overall. Voices are literally transformed into a litany of sibilance unlike anything I've ever heard. Do you know of any songs without words beginning with S or T? I don't! In fact, this thing has transformed my well-known reference recordings from Steely Dan, Donald Fagen, Pink Floyd, Sade and Deutsche Grammophone classical composers into horrifying calamities of sonic agony. I still have trouble realizing how bad this really is.

So, what did I do? I changed 3 sets of speaker cables, interconnects and power cords. No effect. I rolled a full set of new production Gold Lions to no effect. I the purchased some expensive NOS Telefunkens and got no effect. I changed the source and it did nothing. I then connected some Sonus faber Concertinos and it was the same, all treble and no bass.

Even funnier, I recounted this experience on some McIntosh sites and FB groups looking for advice and suggestions. I was summarily banished as a heretic because I did not proclaim that McIntosh was made by God himself and that it made the very sound of angel's voices singing from on High. It was probably even worse than the Naim forum. It was inconceivable to these people that the MA352 could be considered anything less than a mysterious, magical box that makes heavenly, blissful sound.

I stand firmly by my impressions. The amplifier is overrated, overpriced and underwhelming. It performs poorly and is not musical at all. This is the first amplifier where I hear "confusion" in the musical signal. On complex passages, the thing gets lost, confused and drowns out details of instruments and voices and combines them into an unintelligible mush that really is just noise. Never heard such a demonstration of sonic incompetence in all my years, which are numerous at this stage.

Now I have an ungodly expensive chunk of dorky metal ruining any hope of listening to music. I swear a 50$ Chinese Class D from Aliexpress could do just as well...

Don't expect much from McIntosh except marketing, hype and frenzied fanboy zealots.
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Sounds like a case of buyers remorse and you're desperately trying to convince yourself you don't like if in fact you could actually afford to buy one. F O C.
 
I don't know how you get from post #4 to post #17 in the space of a month!? Surely an amp can't change that much just from 'breaking in'.
 
There's something seriously wrong here. I'm not aware of ever encountering a Mac amplifier that was harsh, shrill, with recessed mids and lacking in bass. Its usually the other way around in my experience.

Did you wire everything out of phase?
 
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