What are opinions about McIntosh Automformers. The theory sounds good.
What are the practical advantages?

Dan

"Dan" wrote in message
...
What are opinions about McIntosh Automformers.

**They're heavy, expensive and a waste of space.

The theory sounds good.

**Which theory would that be?

What are the practical advantages?

**They allow McIntosh to differentiate their products from all the others on
the market.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

"Dan" wrote in message
...
What are opinions about McIntosh Automformers. The theory sounds good.
What are the practical advantages?

I don't think that putting an unnecessary reactive component in a signal
chain is a good idea at all. Especially if the load is not a known fixed
item.

geoff

"Dan" wrote in message
...
What are opinions about McIntosh Automformers. The theory sounds good.
What are the practical advantages?

Dan

Quick, tell me, what is the theory?

Norm

Mcintosh autoformers achieve two goals. One is to allow the amp's
output rail to see the same nominal load whether the speakers are of 4,
8, or 16 ohm nominal impedance. The other is to allow a low resistence
internal DC path to ground should a fault in the output section
develop.

They do accomplish these things. Whether the weight, cost and
bandwidth penalty are justified is opinion. Clearly, Trevor doesn't
think so. Others do.

My own thoughts are that there are sonic flaws with McIntosh amps, but
not colossal ones and those are not generated by the autoformers. I do
think the Mcintosh amp is somewhat overpriced and could be made much
better, with or without autoformers, by modernizing the physical
layout, possibly switching to MOSFET outputs, and certainly removing or
optioning the blue but not too useful meters.

"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com...
Mcintosh autoformers achieve two goals. One is to allow the amp's
output rail to see the same nominal load whether the speakers are of 4,
8, or 16 ohm nominal impedance.

**Which, given the resistance of the windings, is a complete bust.

The other is to allow a low resistence
internal DC path to ground should a fault in the output section
develop.

**Which is completely unnecessary, with modern protection schemes. Such
schemes are far less expensive and far more efficient than a transformer.


They do accomplish these things. Whether the weight, cost and
bandwidth penalty are justified is opinion. Clearly, Trevor doesn't
think so. Others do.

**_I_ am technically qualified. Others may not be. I would happy to discuss
such issues with a technically qualified person, who feels that output
transformers make any kind of sense in 2006.


My own thoughts are that there are sonic flaws with McIntosh amps, but
not colossal ones and those are not generated by the autoformers.

**A point not under dispute. It is the added cost, mass and volume which is
at issue. McIntosh could acheive more for less money, less mass and less
voume, without the useless autoformers. See my afore-mentioned fifth wheel
and Ferrari metaphor.

I do
think the Mcintosh amp is somewhat overpriced and could be made much
better, with or without autoformers, by modernizing the physical
layout, possibly switching to MOSFET outputs, and certainly removing or
optioning the blue but not too useful meters.

**Why do you think MOSFETs offer any kind of advantages or otherwise? The
meters are, of course, cosmetic issues.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

Surely Trevor, the people at McIntosh believe they are more qualified
to design, build and market their amplifiers than you are. You can
always start your own amplifier company and see if you can compete.
For what it's worth, your biggest competitor will not be Mc but the
other three dozen solid state power amplifier manufacturers who are in
full agreement with you that the weight and cost budget of the
autoformers is better employed elsewhere.

Personally, I have no desire to own a Ferrari or any other car with
five wheels but can see a case for six, and besides, for the price of
the higher-end Ferrari at least, I consider cylinders, pistons and
conrods the way you do the autoformers: for that much money I believe
one should concur with Sir Frank Whittle who observed that
reciprocating motion was wonderful in nature but had no use for it in a
prime mover! A Bugatti Veyron class car would be cheaper and equally as
"practical" with a PT6A-34 than that ridiculous affair it calls an
engine. And it could burn European ULSD with aplomb.

But, you spend your money and take your chances. Obviously Mc buyers
feel the autoformer is desireable, and have made that clear to Mc
management.

"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com...
Surely Trevor, the people at McIntosh believe they are more qualified
to design, build and market their amplifiers than you are.

**I am certain that they believe that they are. They are most certainly more
qualified at succsessfully marketing dead end technology to the gullible.

You can
always start your own amplifier company and see if you can compete.

**I could.

For what it's worth, your biggest competitor will not be Mc but the
other three dozen solid state power amplifier manufacturers who are in
full agreement with you that the weight and cost budget of the
autoformers is better employed elsewhere.

**Sure. Like I said earlier: McIntosh have figured out that, by using output
autoformers, they can differentiate their product from all their
competitors.


Personally, I have no desire to own a Ferrari or any other car with
five wheels but can see a case for six, and besides, for the price of
the higher-end Ferrari at least, I consider cylinders, pistons and
conrods the way you do the autoformers: for that much money I believe
one should concur with Sir Frank Whittle who observed that
reciprocating motion was wonderful in nature but had no use for it in a
prime mover! A Bugatti Veyron class car would be cheaper and equally as
"practical" with a PT6A-34 than that ridiculous affair it calls an
engine. And it could burn European ULSD with aplomb.

But, you spend your money and take your chances. Obviously Mc buyers
feel the autoformer is desireable, and have made that clear to Mc
management.

**Of course. And, naturally, those McIntosh buyers are technologically
inept.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

Trevor Wilson wrote:

snip

But, you spend your money and take your chances. Obviously Mc buyers
feel the autoformer is desireable, and have made that clear to Mc
management.

**Of course. And, naturally, those McIntosh buyers are technologically
inept.


I would guess on the whole that Mc buyers are more knowledgeable about
electronics than most mid-fi or tweako brand buyers.

"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com...


I would guess on the whole that Mc buyers are more knowledgeable about
electronics than most mid-fi or tweako brand buyers.

Evidently not....

geoff

"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com...

Trevor Wilson wrote:

snip

But, you spend your money and take your chances. Obviously Mc buyers
feel the autoformer is desireable, and have made that clear to Mc
management.

**Of course. And, naturally, those McIntosh buyers are technologically
inept.


I would guess on the whole that Mc buyers are more knowledgeable about
electronics than most mid-fi or tweako brand buyers.

**The evidence suggests not. After all, they've just purchased a 5 wheel
Ferrari, assuming it MUST be better than a 4 wheel one (metaphorically
speaking).


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

Geoff@work wrote:
"Dan" wrote in message
...
What are opinions about McIntosh Automformers. The theory sounds good.
What are the practical advantages?

I don't think that putting an unnecessary reactive component in a signal
chain is a good idea at all. Especially if the load is not a known fixed
item.

If a transformer is well designed, it provides no reactiance of its
own.
It merely reflects the impedance of the load back to the source,
multiplied
by the square of the turns ratio.

wrote:
snip


That would be a guess, to be sure. On what factual evidence, as
opposed
to assumptions, do you base this guess?


It's a guess, but one based on 20+ years of buying, selling, fixing,
bulilding audio equipment as well as dealing with dealers, audiophiles
and bench techs. I'm not a statistician or a survey taker.


Mc fans are usually not interested or knowledgeable enough to build
their own amps but many understand basic concepts of audio technology.
They are like people who buy Leica, Rollei, other German optic cameras:
not lens engineers, but knowledgeable and usually "heritage buyers" dad
had one and his was bigger and they weren't to touch it.

"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com
Trevor Wilson wrote:

snip

But, you spend your money and take your chances.
Obviously Mc buyers feel the autoformer is desireable,
and have made that clear to Mc management.

The McIntosh SS amps with output transformers are an interesting phenomenon.
There is very little engineering justification to putting output
transformers into SS amps for general audio use. I always figured that this
was a marketing move. McIntosh amps were well known for their output
transformers, so how would consumers know it was a good McIntosh amp without
output transformers?

**Of course. And, naturally, those McIntosh buyers are
technologically inept.

In the days when McIntosh were building their reputation (50s, 60s), it was
probably safe to say that McIntosh audio gear were the Cadillacs of the
industry. I'm just speculating, but I suspect there was a pretty fair
correlation between ownership of those two brands. Surely true among the
MacIntosh owners I knew.

In the 60s and 70s neither Cadillac nor MacIntosh owners were the most
technically savvy people around. Both products had some veneer of special
technical panache, but people who were really technically involved might be
more likely to own audio brands like Marantz or Dyna or Heath, or Acrosound
or their own builds, either designs from scratch or from a magazine article.


I would guess on the whole that Mc buyers are more
knowledgeable about electronics than most mid-fi or
tweako brand buyers.

That has to be a truism, given that most mid-fi gear is bought by plain old
consumers with very little of what most of us would call a serious interest
in audio or audio-related techical chops.

Only a tiny minority of people with solid technical chops own McIntosh,
partially simply due to the cost and market penetration issues.

Arny Krueger wrote:
"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
In the days when McIntosh were building their reputation (50s, 60s), it was
probably safe to say that McIntosh audio gear were the Cadillacs of the
industry.

Nah, McIntosh amplifier had a far higher proportion of their total mass
in non-functional chrome than Cadillacs :-)

Say, there, Bret, can you get one of them, technically savvy McIntosh
owners to explain, in technical terms, the audible superiority
resulting
from the use of chrome? Or the hand-etched and painted glass?
What's the technical advantage of that? That Panloc thingy: can you
find us a technically savvy Mc user to explain how that makes the
amplifiers audibly superior? How 'bout them meters? How 'bout them
transformers?

wrote:
Arny Krueger wrote:
"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
In the days when McIntosh were building their reputation (50s, 60s), it was
probably safe to say that McIntosh audio gear were the Cadillacs of the
industry.

Nah, McIntosh amplifier had a far higher proportion of their total mass
in non-functional chrome than Cadillacs :-)

Say, there, Bret, can you get one of them, technically savvy McIntosh
owners to explain, in technical terms, the audible superiority
resulting
from the use of chrome? Or the hand-etched and painted glass?
What's the technical advantage of that? That Panloc thingy: can you
find us a technically savvy Mc user to explain how that makes the
amplifiers audibly superior? How 'bout them meters? How 'bout them
transformers?

People buy cars, and stereo gear, for reasons other than performance.
McIntosh builds pretty amplifiers because people want them, so does
Jeff Rowland, Mark Levinson, Audio Research, VTL/Manley,
conrad-johnson, and dozens of others.

I don't buy McIntosh: I never bought one new and I wouldn't buy one
today at all unless a broken one I was sure I could fix in excellent
cosmetic shape (they're unsaleable otherwise and expensive to restore
unless you can etch glass, plate, and silkscreen) came up dirt cheap.
I've had McIntosh tube and solid state gear aplenty and it does not
sound superior to all other gear. I think the tube Mc stuff sounds a
little better than the solid state stuff, except for the reissue 275
and the very early two chassis models, and the earlier solid state
power amps are the worst of all.

The most disappointing thing to me is that the chrome McIntosh chassis
rust so easily, because mc used prechromed sheet. I also think the
meters are laughable. Mike Dorrough pounded a stake through the heart
of the moving coil vU meter for once and forever and besides if you do
want metering you usually don't want it on the amp. Nevertheless, Mc
buyers apparently do want the meters.

Mc's rationale for the transformers has already been explained. The
counter-argument-the weight and cost and space budgets are better used
in the power supply and more output transistorage and sinking-has as
well.

For better or worse, Mcintosh are Americana, along with '57 Chevy and
'59 Caddy tailfins, Coca-Cola, Hemingway, Faulkner, and some broad I
forget whose dress blows up on the subway grating.

OK, I'll admit to being a McIntosh owner with some experience in
electronics. I bought my 2105 used in late 70s when I was in high school
to use as a bass amp (I had heard that Mc amps had been used with
success as bass amps and in PAs). It cost me $250 back then and I liked
the sound with an on board preamp way better than the SVT sludge and
other weird sounding bass amps available at the time. In the intervening
years, it has served as a PA amp and other miscellaneous duties. It is
now the amp that powers my home studio monitors. Never in that time has
it required servicing or so much as hiccuped (except, when, in my
infinite wisdom at the age of 18, I decided to power each JBL 15 in my
cabinet with a separate channel. I wired the cabinet with two jacks and
it sounded great, but the amp would overheat and shut off after about 70
minutes of abuse. I found out that having both jacks mounted on the same
metal jack plate and shorting out the ground wasn't a great idea.). I've
gone through episodes of thinking that some modern amp would sound much
better in my studio, but for some reason, the modern amps seem grainy
and lacking in depth in comparison. Do I care that it has autoformers?
No, I just care that it sounds nice and works great, although it looks
like holy hell (glass is long gone, meter is cracked, etc). I wonder if
another amp would have held up for almost 30 years of my abuse (plus
that which came before-it was salvaged from a mobile recording studio).

Just my 02c.
Edwin

I understand Mac Amps such as the MC-352, MC-402, MC-1201's aren't
considered by many to be mid-fi Amps.

Evidently, someon'e buying these, as they seem to stay in business, and
have done so since 1949.

The issue of weight? Ok, lets take a MC-352 versus a Krell FPB-300? Is
there really that much weight difference, even though the Krell offers a
more Audiophile-Alluring Class A design, and a Torroidal instead?

I won't argue McIntosh's outdated designs, I'll leave that to the
experts.

One important quality of McIntosh gear is the ability to retain value,
and are known for longevity. Mark