"I'm just a soul amp ..." , James Brown-I'm a soul man - YouTube ... 🙂I really like your stories, Frank 🙂
So, the audio amplifier does have a soul, right? 😉
It is noise what you see, not distortion. The second plot has so high distortion that it is always above noise - you like it, elektroj?
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Smartest thing to do, IMO. An audio amplifier is not a piece of industrial machinery, to do a "Look how big my bits are!!" are, on demand. In the ideal it should be continually self optimising, to achieve the highest sound quality - and wearing out the components by cooking them for extended periods is not the brightest thing ...
Frank obvious you are into Fenky , try reading the bench report , the amp is well, Fenky , at 15k not acceptable , same as the brystons falling on their face below 8 ohm...
Ps: been there done that with both Bryston and Mac, Nothing special

Except that the lowest THD is reached shortly before amp goes into clipping 😉
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I very much prefer this kind of amp behaviour:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Agree ...
Shuts off with standard preconditioning? Seems a long way from the days when Davey O'Brien would gleefully toss slightly weak Genalex KT88's into the trash to bring an old Mc amplifier brought to one of his clinics up to snuff (and for free.)
And your point about crossover distortion is not amiss: -93dB 3rd harmonic from a +25dBW output signal is -68dB ref 1 watt, a reasonably typical listening level with typical speakers of say 88dB SPL/1W/1M.
If they really cared about correlating measurements with sound, they would test the amplifiers at 0dBW or maybe +10dBW. But distortion of -68dB would look bad (cause it is.)
Thanks, as always,
Chris
Yes they are longway from Mac of old ......
The system we listened to had a total of 6 meters going all at once , amp , pre-amp , et al , everything had a meter ....
🙂
The sound of the 2nd would be hugely coloured at anything like realistic sound levels ...
Actually both curves would sound colored, guess which one would produce that SS GLARE most try to hide from ....
Yeah ..🙂
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Now we're starting to get somewhere ... that 'glare' is distortion due to system misbehaviour, somewhere - it is not due to the amplifier having quite excellent distortion measurements!! The amplifier with poor distortion figures is simply a workaround, to hide that the system has problems, gives the setup a 'Doris Day lens' (who knows that expression?, 🙂) - it's not solving the real problem!!Actually both curves would sound colored, guess which one would produce that SS GLARE most try to hide from ....
Yeah ..🙂
The amp with 'SS GLARE' is doing a great job of highlighting the system problems, and the latter is what has to be addressed - not changing the amp, and pretending the problem is not there!
So what's causing the SS GLARE, then? - that's the hard bit, this is where troubleshooting comes into it, one needs to work out precisely where the problem or problems are in the system - but this is how the real progress is made!
Just my 2 cents worth, 😀 ...
For once again I would have to agree with Frank that the distortion numbers on that Mac aren't bad before clipping and that is a bunch of power before you get there. So what is the problem with that amp, besides the shutdown under a partial load, which shouldn't happen in an amp that cost so much? Obviously they could use larger heat sinks but what is causing the poor sound quality?
I'm watching the game and Time Warner has messed up all their channels! Everything frozen on all channels!
Apparently so weak technically that John Atkinson ended his measurements with:So what is the problem with that amp, besides the shutdown under a partial load, which shouldn't happen in an amp that cost so much? Obviously they could use larger heat sinks but what is causing the poor sound quality?
... 🙄I thought the McIntosh amplifiers sounded simply superb when I auditioned them in Paul Bolin's system in the spring. Nothing in the MC501's measured performance causes me to doubt what I heard
Bad sound is a system issue, not a component part issue ...
For once again I would have to agree with Frank that the distortion numbers on that Mac aren't bad before clipping and that is a bunch of power before you get there. So what is the problem with that amp, besides the shutdown under a partial load, which shouldn't happen in an amp that cost so much? Obviously they could use larger heat sinks but what is causing the poor sound quality?
Whats The problem? Chris voiced that well and Imo it has avg sonics , granted i have only spent 3 hrs in two different systems, listening and the sound was consistently The same , avg. Time for MAC to ditch that transformer and get on with it ...
Just saying ...

Seems Mac has always used a transformer on the output. Some seem to like that way of doing things for matching weird speaker loads.
I have an old integrated Mac in my collection but it isn't working right now. I need to get my hands on an Oscope so I can trouble shoot it. It is an old MA6100 I think or something like that. 90 watts per channel and sound okay, not super but usable.
> Some seem to like that way of doing things for matching weird speaker loads.
I think someone mentioned (along those lines) being able to better keep within
the output devices SOA per achievable output power .
I think someone mentioned (along those lines) being able to better keep within
the output devices SOA per achievable output power .
I had some really old tube Mac's years ago and they always have output transformers and they seem to have carried that into their SS designs for some reason.
Isn't there something about "Choke based PSU's" that they don'tSS Amps with Choke based PSU's tend to not have the famous SS glare ...![]()
work with class b (ab) ......
something like sustaining current ?
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