Recent content by gmartan

The dealer is right. McIntosh amps don't have good synergy with speakers that go below 4 ohms and all the current crop of Martin Logans go below one ohm at higher frequencies. The highs therefore get rolled off and the speakers sound much duller than normal. You need a good 200 watt+ (at 4...

Remember that the current crop of ML speakers, including this one, all go below one ohm at higher frequencies. Only good direct coupled amplifiers will give you the airy, transparent high end that makes them so engaging. Amps with output transformers will roll off the highs since they can't...

Yes, any modern solid state amplifier without output transformers would be considered direct coupled. High frequency roll-off isn't quite accurate. Speakers with a fairly constant impedance curve over their entire frequency range are typically wonderful driven by a McIntosh amp. In the case...

It is #2. I love my McIntosh gear but the various McIntosh amps I tried with the Summits gave the results you have heard, although your description is a bit off. It's high frequency roll-off really. A high quality and powerful direct-coupled amp works best due to the massive variance of...

Vantages may be fine with a McIntosh using a two ohm tap but the newer speakers go down to 0.6 ohms at higher frequencies. I tried three different McIntosh amps and the upper frequencies that provide presence and air were just not present. Very dull. The bass and midrange were fantastic...

I can't say that I've ever been able to tolerate an amp with output transformers powering my Summits. There is simply no way to get sufficient output at .06 ohms and therefore no "air" due to lack of high frequency extension. You need a quality direct-coupled transistor amp to really make them...

Inaccurate. While a powerful amplifier certainly controls the bass better, even for those ML speakers with powered woofers, they won't make the high end sound much better. Any clean, modern amplifier that is direct coupled, in otherwords with no output transformers, will work just fine. It's...

Almost all solid state amps today are "direct coupled" and do not require output transfomers whose taps need to be matched to the impedence of the speaker. Tube amplifiers typically require them. My experience is that amps with output transformers do work well with speakers whose impedence...

I went from an ML Aerius to a big JM lab. Six months later I bought my ML Summits. I'm hooked. I have driven them with a variety of amplifiers and none had any difficulty with the load. The amplifiers with output transformers did render them dull because there is no way to properly match...

My experience with the MC402 was not as gratifying. Sure, using a lower tap increased the high frequency response somewhat but at the expense of mid-range and bass. Using the lowest tap, the mid-range lost some of the marvelous liquid sound and the bass got loose with my Summits. There just...

I won't comment on this question specifically but, based on extensive experience, will suggest one caution and leave it at that. Speakers with wide variances in their impedence curve over their frequency range and power amplifiers using output transformers don't go together well.

Even with a 4 ohm tap being used the high frequencies (and the air) mostly goes away. McIntosh achieves their excellent low distortion specs via the windings of the autoformers. The existance of those windings simply makes it impossible to adequetely drive a speaker with extreme impedence...

My experience suggests that it is not tubes that cause the high frequency roll-off and associated loss of air, although tube amps are typically a little softer. It is because there is no way to match any output transformer equipped amp with a speaker whose impedence wanders down to 0.6 ohms...

I never found it to be a power issue. My 80 watt Unico hybrid integrated, from the den, sounds just fine across the spectrum without rolling off the highs and sounding dull. Of course, the big separates sound even better due to increased damping factor and transparency.

With the Summits I found that the 8 ohm tap provided the best mid-range and bass. The two ohm tap messed up the mid-range but increased the treble a little. After eight months of experiments with different amps I realized that amps with output transformers simply can't output high frequencies...